The Year of Dual Sport Riding 2015 part #3

With three major Dual Sport Rides over less than eight months, Nick and I, minus Kurt, Weasel, and others, did manage to get a few "Day Rides" in...some a many as 250 miles, others of a shorter variety....we did most of our riding in western and central Ohio and eastern and northeast Indiana....

Here are some photos of the more memorable trips, with brief descriptions:

Post Moab and pre Upper Great Lakes, we decided we needed to get those TWs out more and on a variety of surfaces...Nick still had only logged a few hundred miles on his bike and I was not much over 1000 in about 15 months...so we headed across the border to eastern Indiana, which is Amish Country and filled with back gravel roads...although only 20 miles or so from Celina, the riding and roads.....it was wet during the entire Spring and early Summer, so we didn't have great riding days...

Post "Yooper"

After the Upper Great Lakes ride, which put both of our rides well over 3000 miles on the year, we still had riding to get done....a ride in our neck of the woods was next up, we would criss~cross south of Nick's place in Montezuma and stop and visit Annie Oakley's grave near North Star, week took another day and rode 250 miles coming and going to Waldo, Ohio, the hometown and burial grounds of many of the Houseworth Ancestors....GGG Grandpa Israel, along with  

many of his descendants are buried in the town cemetery....but what we mostly rode for was the world famous Bologna Sandwiches at G&R Taveran....once again we encountered near perfect weather for our day long ride:

 FOG!

While the majority of our rides this year encountered perfect or near perfect riding conditions and weather, Nick and I did managed to make the most of one day of "short riding" in other than perfect conditions....We headed out one morning, planning on hooking up with Kurt as he was riding his new 650 Kawasaki to North Carolina...the fog was thick as Pea Soup however, and after a breakfast in the Ohio~Indiana border town of Fort Recovery, we never hooked up...we rode north and then east into Indiana and back across the border at Wilshire, but missed Kurt, however the weather did improve and another good day of riding was had....by this time the calendar read October and the riding season was coming down to a few days and weeks...we planned on one more ride with Kurt to southern Indiana on the Ohio River, but after riding to northeast Indiana one more time, where we hooked up with our old High School and College Buddy Rick Pearson, we opted to change plans...

The Stop at Rick's Place, just a few miles from Kurt's gave me the opportunity to see two guys who go way back.  Rick and Nick graduated a year after me from Celina High School and we lived in the same dorm at the College Inn in Athens, Ohio, back in 1975 and 76....I was Rick and Nick's Best Man in each of their weddings, after Rick had been Patricia and mine, 39 years ago yesterday in December 1976....we also stopped at the Pickle Factory on that trip..

So we had, at least in my mind, gotten our "feet wet" on the TWs...and now we would make one more "Major Ride".  This one through southeast Ohio, including Athens, and the Mountains and Hills of West Virginia.

That comes up in Part #4....

Photos-from Top to Bottom:

Most days the riding weather was near perfect....few clouds and some wind, but mostly sunny, not to hot nor cold(2{ Gravel Back Roads Indiana{3} Annie's Grave near North Star, Ohio{4}Baloney!{5} Nick and Rick at Rick's northeast Indiana Ranch{6} on almost all of our rides we stopped for a bite to eat, usually at small town diners for breakfast, not a bad meal in the bunch{7}The Pickle Factory, we picked up a few jars{8}My great great Uncle Maish, lived in Waldo and was the oldest living Civil War Veteran around the area for many years...finally passing at the ripe old age of 98 back in 1944{9}Baloney Sammy and deep fried Mushrooms, with a cold beer, nothing better{10} somewhere in Northern Indiana{11} and the Foggy Fort Recovery ride in mid October....