Back home!

The photos here are Doc, me, and James Jones (JJ) after our arrival in Phoenix. Rich, Doc and I are also pictured with the American Legion National Commander, Marty Conatser, during our check presentation from the Northern Virginia Legion Riders of $3,625 to the Legacy Fund.

The last photo is the group of bikes that made it to the Phoenix Fox News studio on Friday morning for an interview session with the National Commander.

Thank you to everyone for even caring about this effort. Here are a few numbers:

Money raised by American Legion Riders for the Legacy Fund: $515,346.23
Number of days I spent on the bike: 17
Number of miles ridden: 5,310

I got back to the house around 11 am today. There was a different feel to the ride today: many more cars and fewer trucks, lots of families at fuel stops. It definitely looked like a holiday weekend!

No events and a pretty ride home for the last few hundred miles of the trip. I know that I am biased, but Virginia is downright beautiful - particularly the ride up I-81 and the Shenandoah Valley.

Who knows what next year will bring, but the Legacy Ride will take again place - and it will also be a different experience from this year's effort. The National Convention next year is in Louisville, which is only a short ride from the Legion Headquarters in Indianapolis, so there is some planning going on that will offer Legion Riders a longer run that still ends at the National Convention.

Here are some of the other blog links:

Doc Shaw's blog: www.2008legacyrun.blogspot.com
Official Legion blogger: www.legacyrun.blogspot.com
Another blog from a Kansas couple on a Honda Goldwing: http://chrisk153.blogspot.com/

This is the link from the Phoenix local FOX News affiliate morning show that featured the American Legion Riders on their Morning Show:
http://www.myfoxphoenix.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail;jsessionid=AC43B998D332531D6E89F17C79E7B779?contentId=7265282&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=1.1.1&sflg=1

Thank you again to everyone. I would really like to express my love and appreciation to Maryann for her support and understanding. She undoubtedly had a different plan for how to spend our summer vacation time - and also to Matt, who stayed home with her during this time.

This was a BLAST!

Mike

Virginia!!

Almost made it home tonight. I am in Roanoke, Virginia - about 200 miles from home.

I did about 540 miles today in 10 hours. I was pushing to get home but it got dark and, frankly, I was way uncomfortable in the seat by about 7 pm. ( I also lost the hour crossing into the Eastern Time Zone.)

The Great Smokey Mountains of Tennessee were beautiful, and I made a brief lunch stop near Gatlinburg. I was briefly tempted to go visit Dollywood, but the urge soon passed. It was fun to drive through Nashville, but Knoxville is a complete mess with I-40 closed down and a detour that goes around the city. I hit it after rush hour, so it was not much of a delay.

Fortunately, the Weather Channel "experts" proved to be completely wrong and the weather was beautiful all day. How do they keep their jobs?

After passing through 12 states I must say that one of the most beautiful places I've ridden was in the mountains of southwestern Virginia, near Pulaski County and Radford. After all of that, some of the best riding is in your own backyard.

I should be home tomorrow morning!

Mike

Tennessee and just trying to make it home!

Hi to everyone, and thank you for your comments and encouragement.

Tonight I am just outside of Nashville, TN in a small town called Hurricane Mills. Apparently, Loretta Lynn is a big deal around here. Her picture is everywhere.

I did about 500 miles today, most of it through Arkansas. In all fairness I must say that I found Arkansas beautiful. In my experience poor Arkansas has been the butt of jokes about hillbillys and Hill and Bill. (see? I can be clever ....)

The state was all green with many farms, and I was just impressed with the beauty of the place.

It was exciting to once again pass over the mighty Mississippi and see the "Welcome To Tennessee" sign. The ride today was again great, with wonderful weather and much sunshine. There was one brief afternoon shower, but nothing serious.

I did have one incident that was a little more exciting than I prefer. I was passing a cement truck on I-30 in Arkansas. He was doing about 75 and I was going just a bit faster. I passed on his left, and just about as I pulled up to his cab I heard this very loud bang - and I was wearing earplugs. The truck suddenly veered away from me. In my side mirror I could see a large part of his tire in the middle of the right lane, and there was a lot of smoke. He pulled off the road.

I said a quick thank you to God that I was not still behind him and setting up to pass, and that the tire failure happened on his right side and not his left. There was very heavy truck traffic all day, and I was careful to not get caught for any extended periods of time either behind or next to any of them.

I've been watching the ol' Weather Channel tonight (over the past few weeks that has become my favorite channel), and it looks like the honeymoon is over.

According to the weather folks, it looks like rain throughout most of Tennessee and all of Virginia tomorrow. Of course they are notorious liars, so maybe I'll luck out!

I am 726 miles from home. That may be a bit much to tackle in one day - and in the rain - but when I finally get back to Virginia I will not want to stop. Right now, I am a little over 4,300 miles.

For those of you folks in the Pentagon, thank you for doing what you do and permitting me this much time free. If I get back and my seat is gone, I'll get the message....

Happy Labor Day Weekend!

Mike

We did it! $515,346.23

I just learned that the Legion Riders have a final total.

Our goal was to match last year's $350,000. However, we raised $515,346.23 this year! They announced the final amount at the American Legion convention yesterday.

Thank you to everyone who helped support this effort. When the American Legion pledged to provide this fund, it was estimated that we'd need about $20m to provide college scholarships to all of the children whose parent have died in combat since 9-11. Much of that expenditure was 10 or even 20 years away.

In three years we have raised almost $1.5 million dollars - and it has come from donations as small as $5 from a trucker who asked us at a rest stop what we were doing. He was struggling with the price of diesel, but he asked us to accept $5. We donated it at the next night's stop.

Throughout the year, the Northern Virginia American Legion Riders raise money through the sale of food at various events (Sully Plantation, HOG, and holiday events at the Post). It represents a lot of hard work by some dedicated people. Fortunately, my company - SMS - also made a large conribution that helped us out this year, and it almost doubled what we had worked for all year. Thank you.

Mike

Arkansas!

I am in Hope, Arkansas tonight. I had a little maintenance issue that delayed me most of the day, but I did find a nice dealership in Denton, Texas!

No pictures from today. I was just riding as fast as legally allowed! - and playing games with a lot of trucks today, for some reason.

Arkansas is green and beautiful, but I had to dodge a number of late afternoon thunderstorms - and got hit by two of them - but not too badly.

From my limited perspective of Hope, it is not exactly a thriving kind of town. They are real proud of their link to Bill Clinton, however, with signs everywhere proclaiming that he was born here.

Heading through Arkansas and into Tennessee tomorrow. I am going to get an early start because I have some time to make up. The weather looks pretty good, but whatever it is...it is!

Thanks for your comments!

Mike

Central Texas

We left Midland, TX early this morning and headed east.

The landscape changed dramatically the further we went. There were many oil wells around Midland, and most of the businesses seemed to be involved in oil production and transportation. The land was dry, flat and covered in low brush.

We passed a very large refinery on I-20. The smell reminded me of North Jersey...!

When we reached Sweetwater, Texas there were farms and rolling hills. The most unusual thing, however, was hundreds - maybe thousands - of giant windmills. I don't know if they belong to ol' T. Boone Pickens or what, but they were everywhere. They are also very ugly.

Doc and I spit up and went our own ways around noon.

I took a detour north to avoid the main Dallas - Fort Worth area, and cut up through Eastland, Breckenridge, Graham, and Jacksboro, TX. They are very interesting little towns. There is an old Army Cavalry post just outside of Jacksboro called Fort Richardson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Richardson,_Texas) and I have a few shots of those.

Made it as far as Denton, TX tonight, and will head into Arkansas tomorrow.

Mike

Day 12 - West Texas

Doc and I headed out of Las Cruces early this morning and headed to El Paso to visit Barnett's Harley-Davidson - the largest HD dealer in the world - or so they claim.

It was pretty impressive. While there, Doc noticed that he had lost the main bolt holding on his front engine guard. He got another bolt and nut there, and we fixed it in the parking lot.

The ride from Las Cruces to El Paso was beautiful, and I was surprised by the amount of greenery and farming. There were lots of orchards. The sharp mountains were also impressive.

El Paso was a crowded city and I was not sorry to leave the traffic behind.

Now, West Texas was another matter.

We had been through Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, the Texas panhandle, the mountains of New Mexico and Arizona, and the deserts of both. With all due respect to our Texas friends, West Texas just seems like a waste of space.

We rolled along the Mexico border, then turned towards Pecos and Odessa. We left the mountains behind around Pecos, and then everything got FLAT and DUSTY. We stopped in a small town called Sierra Blanca, which seemed to have died. Every store, gas station, restaurant and hotel in the "main" part of town was closed and boarded and falling apart. There was one gas station/store and small cafe.

Pecos was pretty much a disappointment. I am not sure what I expected, but I imagined a thriving cowboy town. Pecos was also dying. On the main intersection in town, all four gas stations were closed. We looked for a 'mom & pop' cafe, but we could only find one Pizza Hut and the Flying J truck stop. All of the other restaurants and cafes were closed and gone. We found a nice museum in Pecos, but we did not have time to stop. I wanted to see something related to Judge Roy Bean, but I found out that his museum is way South in Del Rio and Langtry, TX on the Mexico border.

I really wanted to make a stop in Odessa, TX to see Permian high school, home of the famed "Friday Night Lights" story, movie and TV show. I found the school and spoke with a teacher there, who directed me to the football field. The field is about a mile away in farm fields. It is a huge stadium, bigger than many college fields, with enormous parking lots. I could hear the football team practicing, but I could not enter the lots.

We are now in Midland, TX, which is oil country. This is a large town (as was Odessa, which was also thriving). From my limited perspective, Odessa, Midland and all around here is about the oil business.

Tomorrow, I plan to meet an old Army buddy who is a cattle baron in South Texas. He is delivering cattle near Fort Worth. We have not seen each other in about 25 years. We'll see who is fatter and balder.....

Mike

Days 10 & 11 Phoenix and heading back

I've stopped keeping track of the miles each day. So far, I've done about 3,100. The bike is doing great and the seat is still comfortable!

We started to head back early today (Sunday). We headed south through Tuscon, passing the impressive Picacho Peak just north of Tuscon. Being on a motorcycle makes taking photos as you drive impossible, otherwise I would have definitely taken a shot of this awesome rock formation.

I am heading back with "Doc" for at least one day. We visited Tombstone, AZ today because it is on our way and just south of Tuscon. I've included some pictures here. It was very interesting, and a number of the places (Big Nose Kate saloon and the Boot Hill welcome center) keep showing the Hollywood movie "Tombstone" on a loop.

I've also included a few shots from the ride from Tuscon to Las Cruces, NM. The road is very flat and we averaged about 80mph, but there are mountains all around. There are also a number of very big warning signs for blinding dust storms. Fortunately we did not experience any of these storm. We could see a number of rain storms moving across the land, but we avoided all the rain.

Tonight we are in Las Cruces, and my goal for tomorrow is Odessa, TX.

Mike