Houston, Texas

I was flying back to Chicago this afternoon, so we stayed around Houston. We both like Aquariums, so we wanted to check out the one in Houston. All I have to say is unless you are 5 years old or have small kids, don’t waste your money.



Aquarium in Houston



Cool fish lights



Poor tiger trapped in such a small place

















A diver talking about the fish and stuff



In front of one of the bigger displays



Lunch at Raising Cane's

The best part of the day was lunch. Mike talks about this Raising Cane’s place that started up in Louisiana. Best chicken fingers in the world. I love chicken fingers and they had a Raising Cane’s in Houston, so that’s where we had lunch. They were the best chicken fingers I’ve ever had.

Astros Minute Maid Park in downtown Houston

Downtown Houston

Kemah, Texas

I flew in to Houston last night. Mike drove in from Louisiana to meet me. Chicago to Houston flights seem to be much cheaper then Chicago to New Orleans flights. When you’re long distance dating and flying a lot, price is everything. So here we are in Houston again, we here in February as well.

For something interesting to do we decided to drive to Kemah today. Seems like a tourist trap but heck, we’re tourist today.

It was a beautiful day and I couldn’t help but notice all the bikes on the road. I wish I could ride, but being a regular tourist isn’t all that bad and it was warm here.



Fred Hartman bridge is the longest cable-stayed bridge in Texas, it's 2.5 miles long

Before arriving in Kemah and not going too much of the way, we stopped first to see San Jacinto Monument, it marks the location where Texas won its independence from Mexico in 1836. At 570 feet tall, the San Jacinto Monument is the world's tallest monument tower.



Waiting for the ferry to the monument







Mike and I at the monument





San Jacinto Monument

We went ahead and did the tour of the San Jacinto Monument, the views from the top were great, but there was nothing else to see really, we only stayed up there for 10 minutes.



View from the top of San Jacinto Monument

See that ship down below in the water, we went there next, thats the Battleship Texas



Battleship Texas

We didn't do a tour of the battleship, we were hungry and wanted to get to Kemah to get some lunch.



Lunch at Landry's in Kemah on the boardwalk



Artichoke dip



Mike ordered bacon covered shrimp



Shrimp etouffee for me

Landry’s was a nice restaurant with a great view of the water, but unfortunately the food wasn’t all that great. Mike makes a way better shrimp etouffee. After lunch we walked the whole board walk and got some ice cream. We left Kemah as the sun was setting.



Kemah light



Arts and crafts for sale



Anna the mermaid



I love monkeys



Kemah Boardwalk



Another light in Kemah



Those are pretty big wind chimes







Sales cat

Day 2: ST.N "Meet & Eat" and back to Chicago

Last year we did a short ride in the morning, this year we had breakfast and relaxed and then rode over to Denny’s for the “Meet and Eat”. There were a lot of people showing up again, even more than last year. Our group ordered a 15 lbs burger, but we didn’t eat a lot of it. It was good and tasted like meatloaf.





Here are our three Ducs, there were many Ducati ST's there







Rockstar dismount









15 lbs. cheeseburger at Denny's Beer Barrel Pub



My lunch - start



My lunch - finish

Sandy, Rick and I were out of there by 1:30PM and on the road heading back to Chicagoland. I again needed to take some Aleve to get me home. Not only was I already getting sore from today’s ride, but I was still sore from riding all day yesterday. Today was definitely much harder to ride.



Another stop for bathroom, gas and lube for the chains

Sandy and Rick went to the Northern suburbs and I headed toward the Western suburbs and within minutes I found myself not on the interstate but creeping and crawling in 1st gear and then the traffic stopped all together. It was 10PM on Sunday, why was there so much traffic? I was already very tired and very sore and now having to pull in that hard hydraulic clutch was just too much, and if that wasn’t bad enough, it started to rain. I crept to the next available exit and pulled over at a gas station. This was not a good neighborhood for a girl and her Ducati to be hanging out at, but I had no choice, my clutch hand was killing me. I made a phone call to figure out if there was an accident or something, I didn’t want to take side roads, too many lights but if those were moving, I rather do that than just creep and crawl on the interstate. There was no evidence anywhere of any major delay on the highway that I was traveling and by the time I hung up the phone and geared back up, the interstate was moving again at speed limit. How annoying. The rain stopped and I pulled in to my driveway just after 11:30PM. The last 20 miles were definitely the hardest, I was physically and mentally tired from riding, but it was still a good trip. But an expensive trip, just the tolls going there and coming back had cost me $30.

Day 1: To Pennsylvania to eat a giant burger

Sport-tourers don’t need a “real good” reason to get on their bike and ride, they just need “a” reason. And what’s a better reason than to go and meet up with a bunch of sport-tourers for lunch and try and eat some huge burgers at a place that is famous for making world’s biggest burgers. Who cares that the place is in Pennsylvania and is 600 miles away.

This was the second ST.N burger run for me. Last year we added on some extra miles by doing some extra roads, I wasn’t planning on doing that this year since this was “officially” my first long ride of the season.

The weather this weekend was looking very nice for Illinois and Pennsylvania and everywhere in between, with possible rain on Sunday in Chicagoland late at night which I was hoping to miss if I got in early enough.





Ready to ride to PA: Sandy, Rick and myself in my driveway

Out of all my friends, only Rick and Sandy were doing this ride. It was going to be real neat traveling with two other Ducati ST’s. The three of us have yet to tour together.

Rick and Sandy showed up in my driveway at 8AM and unfortunately I wasn’t ready. I haven’t had much time to get the bike ready for the trip, we decided we were going on a few days ago. I was still packing this morning and putting air in my tires. I haven’t toured on this bike since last fall so I was having problems finding some of the things I needed for the trip.



I lost some anifreeze over winter, needed to top off

By 9AM we were heading toward downtown Chicago and then we ended up getting stuck in some nasty traffic. Rush hour traffic on a Saturday morning? It was mostly do to construction I guess, I don’t go this way very often. Just a little past Indiana traffic got lighter and it was smooth sailing all the way to Pennsylvania for all three ducs. I’ve been riding my XT so much the last few months that the ST3 really felt like a Goldwing. I was very careful the first hour, getting reacquainted with my sport-touring bike and the way it handles on the road and slow maneuvers in the parking lot. It was last year, this same ride out to PA that I dropped the ST3 in a parking lot because of fatigue and lack of sleep, that was the only time that I’ve ever dropped any of my bikes in a parking lot.



Gas station stop, someone volunteered to take a picture of us

I was sore within the first 300 miles and in Ohio I asked Rick for an Aleve. I’ve never taken Aleve before, I must say I felt much better. I can usually do long miles on the bike with no effort, but riding long distances only becomes effortless after I do a few shorter “long” rides and I’m able to increase my tolerance for sitting in the saddle all day.



Lubricating the chains at 500 miles in to the ride

After spending all day on the interstate, with only one longer break to eat lunch, we arrived in Clearfield, PA at 7PM. We checked in to the Day’s Inn and grabbed some dinner at the Dutch Pantry, same place as last year.





Arriving at the Day's Inn Clearfield, PA



Dinner at the Dutch Pantry



I had the same exact thing last year, the seafood plate



This shoeless pie was shared by Sandy, Rick and I, very rich

Good food, cheap food and within walking distance. I didn’t even have enough energy to drink a beer afterwards with the group, so I went directly to bed to rest up for tomorrows return trip.

Leaving Mississippi

We were planning on doing a very short ride this morning, but decided to skip it and leave early to get home early. We all needed to go back to work tomorrow. After a nice breakfast, we packed up the bikes, stopped in at the Pizza Hut in Holly Springs for lunch and then Mike headed back to Louisiana and Jay and I headed back to Illinois.



Last morning in Wall Doxey S.P.

Wall Doxey is a very nice park, I highly recommend it for camping. Great facilities and reasonable prices.



Always a sad moment, loading up the bikes to go home

Day 3: Wall Doxey, MS

Today was finally a little warmer. It was going to hit mid 50’s for the high temperature, finally some nice riding weather! I never thought that April in Mississippi could be so cold. We took off right after breakfast and found ourselves some nice trails to ride.







Mike ripping on the trails

The trail was nice but then the terrain got harder and harder to ride, so we turned back around and went on to the next thing, Sardis Lake. The lake has a maximum storage capacity of 1,512,000 acre-feet of water so during the fall and winter months the lake is gradually drawn down to a "conservation pool" of 9800 acres. Right now the lake was dry.



Going to Sardis Lake



Proof that this is a "lake"





Got to have at least one good group shot. From left to right, Jay and his Suzuki DR650, (me) Anna and her Yamaha XT225 and Mike and his Honda XR650L






Bikes posing by Lake Sardis



Jay got himself stuck in the soft sand/mud



Mike helping Jay pull his back tire out of the muck

Riding around Sardis Lake was a lot of fun and at times it felt like riding through a desert, this is such a huge area, but. The fisherman were huddling around the small pools of water trying to catch something and we were riding around in the sand disturbing them and possibly the fish too. This place was probably the highlight of the whole trip.



We stopped for a snack and drinks and ran in to some adv riders originally from Illinois, now living in Mississippi, it's a small world.



Mmmmmmmmm… corndog makes a good afternoon snack



It was a very exciting day for Jay, he was pretty beat after the ride

Day 2: Wall Doxey, MS

Another cold morning. All I have to say, at least it’s not raining, that would really be miserable in those temps.



Breakfast is served: Coffee, shambled eggs, grits and oatmeal

Today we rode toward Tennessee using the Trans America Trail route. The roads were all the same, made of big gravel, not the most fun to ride. It was also very cold in the upper 40’s. Usually the cold temperatures aren’t a problem for me, usually when its that cold I’m riding the ST3 or the 954RR with heated grips, heated vest and a wind screen. Without all those things, upper forties all day long felt very, very cold. Plus I was cold yesterday and never rode my core temp because I was camping and it got very cold overnight, so today I was freezing all day.









Trans America Trail roads



Nice view of the countryside

We didn’t go as far as we wanted to and came back on pavement to make it back to the campsite faster.



Does someone actually live here?



Heading back to the camp, late lunch stop in Holly Springs, MS



Dinner tonight: crawfish etoufee

Another really cold and clear night, last night dropped down to upper 20’s, tonight was warmer, in the low 30's. We huddled by the fire but it didn't feel like it was giving off enough heat to keep warm. Off to sleep we went.

Day 1: Wall Doxey, MS

We woke up to crisp temperatures, after some coffee and food we started unloading the bikes.



Breakfast: Mike brought Boudin from Louisiana







We did some gravel roads and some forest trails today, just kind of checked out the area to figure out where to go tomorrow.

It was a cold day, in the upper 40's, low 50's, with a late start and no lunch, we got back to the camp site for an early dinner.



Mike pre-prepared all the meals and had them frozen, we just needed to heat them up.



Our cook



Our dinner tonight: shrimp and pasta



Our camp site



The fire felt good as the temperatures plunged in to the 30's again.

Heading down to Mississippi

My friend Jay and I left work early so we could get an early start. By 3PM we were on the road heading to Mississippi in a borrowed pickup truck arriving at the Wall Doxey State Park in North Mississippi around midnight. Surprisingly Mike was coming from Louisiana and he arrived 5 minutes before us. We set up our tents and by 1AM we were ready for bed.



My driveway, my XT225 and Jay's DR650, ready to go

It was a cold night, in the mid 30’s, we had an electric hook up which meant we could use the electric blanket. This weekend will unfortunately be cold and the next few nights are supposed to be even colder than tonight. I wasn’t looking forward to any more cold weather, I was hoping for more seasonal temps, the overnight temps should be in the mid 40’s right now.