Wright Brother's Memorial, and Air show at Virginia Beach.

This is the outbound and the meat of this trip (Point A to E). I have the air show and the memorial visit here. For return trip which includes crossing of Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel and Easter shore ride, click below.

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Type: Long Trip (Multiple Days)

Distance: 626 miles (325 miles this leg)

Riding Time: 11 hours 3 min according to Google Map

                        (5 hours 22 min this leg)

It's beach time! Well, actually, an air show at the beach. I found out that Patty Wagstaff was performing at an Airshow in Virginia Beach VA. She is a legend in aerobatics. She is one of the winningest competitive aerobatist of all time. So much so that her aircraft now hangs in Smithsonian next to Amelia Earhart's. I've wanted to see her for a long time, and of course, I wanted to do so before she retires from the air show business. So, I planned a trip around it, and while I was planning, realized that I could just ride out to the Wright Brother's First Flight Memorial in 1.5 hr. I decided to make a trip. This trip also let me stayed at and enjoyed the beach. Great plan, isn't it?

Point A (Point G) to Point D:

Kick stand up at 7:30. I should have left earlier, but still acceptable. The whole point of going down to Virginia Beach is to see the air show, so I just hurried down there. I took US-50, I-95, I-295, I-64 then I-264. Notice that it's interstates almost all the way. Of course, this is not at all the way to enjoy a bike trip. It just get you to the destination quicker. That's all. I needed to get there by noon. I normally try to avoid interstates as much as I can. As expected, this outbound trip was pretty boring. Fairly heavy traffic, fairy straight road and not much of a view. I stopped at a visitor center in Fredericksburg (Point B), and one more stop to fill up a gas. Besides that, I just rode non-stop.  Fredericksburg apparently has a close association with George Washington. It may be a good place to visit some other time. Oh, one more place worth mentioning on the way is Williamsburg (Point C). It is a living history museum, where 18th century city (it was a capital of Virginia colony) is preserved. I have taken my family once. Maybe I will write about it some day.

"Virginia is For Lovers" the state slogan says... 

Point D:
I got there just about noon and quickly checked into a hotel. Why? I wanted to drop off my riding gears  and get into the beach ware. As I was pulling into the parking lot, I saw sky divers coming down. That meant I was just missing the first 10 minutes or so  of the show while I was checking in. That's OK. I came here for Patty. As long as I catch her and see the rest of the show, it's all good. And what a good show it was! Patty Wagstaff's solo was amazing. I got to see her 8 Sided Loops and Water Dance (aka snap rolling 360 circle) with my own eyes.  BTW, I almost hate to mention, and do so in disbelief but she is 62 years old this year. How do you get to be pulling -6G to +10G at that age (or at any age for that matter...)?  (Actually, there were a couple of more performers that probably worth noting their age. It's either flying upside down creates monsters or only the monsters gets to fly upside down.) Anyway, other performers were great as well, Kirby Chambliss (5 times national champs and former Red Bull Air Race champion),  Skip Stewart, MIke Wiskuss to name a few. The greatest was though, when Patty and Skip came out together and flew what they dubbed Air Duel. Basically showing off each other and having fun. I was on my feet with tears in my eyes. Boy that was exciting and fun fun fun.

It's so hard to take a pic of high speed aircraft, but here is Patty Wagstaff flying her Extra 300.

GEICO Sky Typers

Point D to Point E:

The beach was fun and relaxing. I stayed at the Virginia Beach overnight and nursed my sore butt while I get a plenty of sun. The ocean in the morning was beautiful too. I left the beach around 8:00AM and headed down south. There is a toll section on VA-168. The toll was $2 for motorcycles. It was actually a very short segment of the168 right before where it turns into NC-168. It makes you wonder why such little section had to have a toll. It also makes you wonder if there is a way to avoid that section. Probably the locals know such way. Let me know if you knew it. The drive was beautiful though, especially in North Carolina. It is a rush green and relaxing farmland all the way. You see fresh produce market here and there. Strawberry must be in the season now.  You also see brothers of this truck  on the way. You can't miss it. The "dungeon" is right on the highway.

Point E:

I got to the Wright Brother's Memorial around 9:45. This is it. The holly place of flight. The entrance fee is $4. You can almost divide the place in three sections. The actual place where the first flight took place, the memorial, and the airstrip (yes, you can fly in here). 

Let's start with the first flight. You have to use some imagination though. You see, a hundred and ten years ago, when Wright's were here, the place had nothing but sand. Today, it is covered in grass, rush and green.  In fact they chose to come here because they wanted a good sandy place for landing of the aircraft. So, as yo see the picture, every green you see was actually gray sand. This stone memorial stands right at the point where the first airplane took to the air.

Click on the pic. The stones mark the landing spot of the first, the second, the third and the fourth flight (all the flights happened that day.)

The first landing was only 120 feet, lasted only 12 seconds. You will be struck by how short that was when you actually see it. It was a short hop. but mankind was never be the same from that moment.

The fourth flight, on the other hand was more than half a mile (you can barely see the take off point in the distance in this photo. The shack on the left is a reproduction of their hanger and the living quarter. You also see the memorial on top of the hill.) It was definitely a sustained flight. You can imagine how ecstatic the brother was on that day.

 The memorial is on top of the hill. This hill is where the Wright's experimented with kites and gliders. Life guards from the nearby coast guard station helped them bring up the machine to the hill. Remember, the hill was just a big mound of sand.

A little snap shot of the memorial and FZ-1. I walked, but I could actually ride up to the hill. There is a road looping around the bottom of the hill, and small numbers of parking space on that road.

Memorial Day Parade in Annapolis

It's Memorial Day!
We decided to go to Annapolis for a breakfast and watch a parade. Yeah, I am sure the parade in DC is a great one, but we also wanted to relax.  Besides, strolling down the harbor in the morning sounded like a good idea.

It was a nice and at home. Although Annapolis is a state capital and a Navy town, the parade felt like what you would find in a small town.

Annapolis in the morning. You can see the capital in the distance.

 

To Hooper's Island, MD

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Type: Day Trip. Distance: 199 miles round trip Riding Time: 4hr 29min according to Google Map.

It was a beautiful day today. Just a perfect weather for riding. The sky was clear, but not too warm, nor too cold, and it was pretty dry as well. I went to Hooper's Island on Eastern Shore. I am planning to do a longer distance touring next week, so I decided to do just a day trip even though it was a three day (Memorial Day) weekend. What a great day trip it was!  

Mail box at Old Salty's on Hooper's Island.

Point A (E):
I wanted to get there around noon. It was supposed to be about 2 and a half hours ride so I upped the kick stand around 9:15. Filled up the gas tank before I left. The weather was gorgeous right from the start.  I got "Born to be Wild" ringing in my head for some reason, thinking "It's a cruiser guy's song." at the same time.

Point B:
One of the highlights of this route comes right after the departure, major and impressive Chesapeake Bay Bridge (btw, don't get this confused with Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, another major bridge. I plan to go there soon as well.)  It is a beautiful 4.3 miles long bridge connecting Annapolis and the Eastern shore of Maryland. According to Wikipedia, it was the longest over-water steel structure in the world when it was built, and still is one of the longest. Unfortunately though, it is hard to take a photo while going through the bridge on highway (of course you can't stop), and it probably won't come out right. So, I'll just post a stock footage here. Try clicking on the panorama picture to get a sense of the scale.

Bay Bridge. Courtesy of Baydreaming.com 

Bay Bridge Panorama. Courtesy of WikmediaiCommons.

It has a toll of $4.00 (well, they are hiking it up to $6.00 from 7/1/2013) for two-axle vehicle, which includes motorcycles, when you are crossing from Annapolis to Easter shore. The other way around is free. The view from the bridge is just glorious on a sunny day like today, especially on bikes. It would be cool to video tape it some day. Soon after crossing the bridge, there was a sign that said, "First English Settlement in Maryland". The ringing in my head changed to "Glory glory hallelujah". It is a kind of embarrassing come to confess it.

BTW, I saw many groups of bikes heading to the direction of Washington DC, while did not pass even one heading to the opposite direction. Maybe they were all going to the big Rolling Thunder parade in DC.

Point C:
The route is entirely on US-50 until you cross over another bridge to reach Cambridge, MD. I took a first pit stop and stretched my legs here. I was a kind of surprised to find a nice visitor center there. It is complete with a small museum type exhibit. It could be a little hard to find although there is a big sign on highway. It is the first right turn after the bridge, then one more right turn immediately after that. It is clean and even has a little play ground for kids. It is a nice stop.

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Looking back Choptank River bridge I just crossed.

A little light house in the distance.

From C to D:
Now, after leaving the visitor center, from Cambridge to Hooper Island was just a gorgeous, gorgeous ride. You actually ride through a part of Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. The view was great and the road was a modest, relaxing twisty that was just right. I managed to stop by the road and snap a couple of photos, but it really didn't do a justice. You see, the road has no shoulder due to the fact that it is weaving through a salt marsh, so there really is no place to stop, take off gloves, get the camera out and take a photo. Again, I wished I had some sort of a helmet camera. It was just a beautiful ride.

Nope, it really doesn't capture the beauty at all.

Point D:
I think it was around noon when I got to the North Hopper's Island. Hooper's Island is actually a chain of three islands. The North and the middle islands are accessible via bridge from the mainland. The island ride was beautiful too. Heck, maybe everything is gorgeous on the day like this. Anyway, the water was clear, blue and green, the sun was bright. The ocean breeze was just right. I really enjoyed the island.

The bridge behind boats connects the island and the main land.

Maybe because it was a memorial day weekend, or may be there was something poetic about the way they were set, I took a few pics of graves. There were several plots of small, small cemetery. One of the ones I took a pic of happens to be of Hooper family's. It probably  is a family of the Island's name sake.

The capstone reads 1835. People have lived here for a long time.
In the back ground, you see a several of them that says "Hooper"

The island is also the birth place of Phillips Seafood. Phillips is a well known sea food restaurant chain in the East Coast. They had a sea food processing factory there. The travel guides say that it is no longer in operation. But it looked like it was very much in operation to me. Well, nobody was working since it was a sunday, but there were a couple of tracks parked outside (with current tags), and cleaning and other supply were stocked.The upstair looked like somebody occupies there.

I had to eat a lunch before leaving the island. This was actually an event. There is only one operating restaurant there. I looked up on the internet. I have never seen such a polarized review. One side says it is fantastic, the other sides says it is so bad the tourists should avoid it at all costs. Well, not that I had much choice. The next nearest restaurant is all the way back in Cambridge. I had to see it with my own eyes.

I must say that it was pretty good. The service was prompt and the people were friendly. The rustic decor (apparently a converted school house) was not bad and the view from the window was great. The food, I ordered a crab cake, was pretty decent. Here is a pic of my food. Simple, nothing fancy but had a lot of crab meat.

Point E:
The return leg is just a trace back of the outbound. There is really no other way besides some back road deviation here and there. I actually tried some back way and got lost, started running out of gas. So, I went back to the original route. I left the Old Salty's restaurant around 2:00 pm and got home around 5:00. It was such a nice day.

GIVI T489 Tank Bag

It was raining this weekend. Since I burnt the rain gear with a saddle bag last week, I decided not to go anywhere this weekend. So, instead, I made a video of the tank bag I recently purchased. I looked hard around internet to gather info on GIVI's T489 before I purchase. I couldn't find much, and just decided to make a leap. Well, here is one now. Tank Lock System is cool, since I really wanted a bag that doesn't scratch. The bag itself is a kind of mediocre. It makes an OK system over all.

Well... ah... ah.. I could have done a better job with the video, I guess. 

Around Europe in a Half Day: EU embassy open house.

Dining room in UK ambassader's residence.

Continuing from the last week, we went to DC for embassy open houses. This time, Europe. The countries in Europe had the open houses this week, while the rest of the world had it last week. 

We were so impressed by last week's experience, we decided to make my older daughter skip school and take with us. So, it was a whole family affair this weekend. 

The first stop was Great Britain. Man, compare to the other embassies, it's huge! Well, actually, the embassy itself is not that big (still pretty big.) but the estate has both embassy and the ambassader's residence, and the residence is larger than the embassy, complete with English (?) garden. Just look at this picture.

Apparently, this was the first time this residence was opened up to the public. It was impressive. Here's more from the place.

They had Shakespeare playing in the back porch. 

BTW, the embassy home page said that they would have whisky waiting for us. I didn't see it. Maybe it was in the front yard somewhere...

Next stop was Denmark. A lady in a patriotic poncho lured us in with cookies.

The embassy is in a great location. It is close enough but somewhat off the embassy row. Nice and secluded. My wife said that stereo typical image of Danish was true. I agree! They were just modest and over all extremely nice people. It was warm and inviting like their famous furniture. No pretention, I mean, even the ambassador greeted us! He was actually out and about walking among us.

The man in the center is ambassador Peter Taksøe-Jensen

The front entrance to the ambassador's residence. Full of natural sunlight.

lk

The queen.

They were pretty proud of their environmental consciousness. They said that garbage recycle rate over there is 90%. I am not quite sure if I heard it right. That is unbelievable. 36% of people in Copenhagen commute with bicycle. They even had bicycle track in the front yard to show us how much they like bicycle. My kids are just learning to bike, so they enjoyed it. They also enjoyed Lego.

BTW, down the street was an Italian embassy. Long, long line in front of it. People were lining up for two hours. Maybe they had good food. We did not stopped by.

Italian embasy

Also not stopped by was Belgian embassy. This was a bummer. We were looking forward to it, but it was already getting late and we were afraid we may not have a bus back to the Dupont circle if we get in the line. Why we were looking forward to the Belgium? Well, I knew they had Beer, waffle, chocolate... need I say more?

Belgian embassy.

So we decided to go walk down the Massachusetts Avenue embassy row. For those of you who are not familier, the embassy in Washington DC are clustered together in particular neighborhood, most of them on Massachusetts Avenue. On this street, it is pretty much every other houses and buildings are some diplomatic function. It is really something to see. Anyway, so we strolled down the street and just walked in to small embassies (many of them look like a town house from outside.) from small countries.        We chose those small countries because there were no lines outside. Here are some.

We went to Latvia,

Ciao! Romania,

 Luxembourg!

I definitely enjoyed this, and the last weekend. We will try to do it again next year!