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Shots from my flight just before Labor Day NYC, Baltimore, the Baltimore Stadiums, and the Verazino into Staton Island.

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One hell of a Labor Day vacation. My plan had been to take Friday off and drive up to Warrensburgh NY for the yearly end of the summer group of friends reunion event. However, basically on my way out the door I was asked to cover last minute for another photographer in Winston Salem NC. I managed to get a flight out of Albany NY, Monday morning, which worked out almost perfectly (still had to cut the ADK trip a little short).

Anyway, after meeting Emaline (I have never actually seen a baby less than 3 months old), and a wonderful weekend in the ADKs, I found myself in NC for the week. I also ended up with a bunch of free time since we were down for weather, so I went and checked out The Blue Ridge Parkway.

I am pretty sad we missed it on the southboundswiftly trip because it was really cool! What an awesome road. It just goes on winding around mountaintops and valleys seemingly forever. I definitely want to come back during autumn.

Now back to Philly......for now...

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Some aerial shots from the past few weeks 1. Philly from the NJ side of the Delaware River 2. Harrisburg PA 3. DC from 27k feet 4. Manhattan from west of the Hudson river

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One of the Killboy photographers snapped this picture of me scraping tailpipe. On TN 129

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A banger of an end to an already awesome trip. All told we rode 1860 miles from Philly, to Nashville and back in 10 days (9 for Tav). The long pushes really gave me some great time to just explore my own thoughts, and the super fun windy stuff was easy access adrenaline. The Shadow did amazing. She probably needs some new tires at this point, but what a champ that bike is. And what a champ Tavi is! Props to him for putting up with my shenanigans. I am far from an easy person to travel with. I am pretty head strong and deviation from the plan or schedule (on a jam packed trip like this) is an anxiety button for me. The man took it in stride. I think that the next time I do something like this win Tavi or anyone, that It would be prudent to make sure everyone involved was on the exact same page, before leaving. I think initially, we were off a few, but once we got into a nice rhythm, the road seemed much smoother. I would love to do this trip again, perhaps in a more relaxed fashion, but I think what I really want to do the national parks cross country circuit....or Southeast Asia I am going to go back to just posting cool pictures now. Thanks for reading. The first image was taken by 129photos they hang out on one of the turns on the tail of the dragon and snap pictures of narcissistic bikers who want a cool glamour shot of themselves. Amazing shot! @129photos

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The wildwood Ultimate frisbee tournament is an event of debauchery and shame. As wildwood itself is a wretched hive of scum and villainy. The only food available all weekend comes out of a frier and and the only liquid comes out of a bottle of liquor. The sun is relentless, and all the while you have to play ultimate…in the sand. It is pretty amazing. This was my 9th wildwood.  I am not sure how many more I have in me, but this one was great. I went to the Bolero once early Friday evening to check our team in, then didn’t step foot in it again all weekend. For years, the Bolero was always both the best and worst part of the weekend. Everyone always went there, but Rumors of a splinter party at another club provided a great alternative to help alleviate some of the overflow and honestly was probably a better bar.

 Hit wawa and bombed back to Philly.

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We spent the night at uncle Norton's again last night. This morning we took it easy. And by that I mean we weren't on the road until noon. The plan was to ride into Delaware and take the lewes ferry into cape may and finish up with a nice relaxing ride up the beach to wildwood Well....we made it, barely, but it was pretty much the opposite of the relaxing morning we had yesterday morning. We bombed up the east coast. It may not have been a relaxing ride, but it was a fun one. It was pretty reminiscent of when I was living in brooklyn and would go riding through the city bobbing and weaving with Tav. Mother, skip this paragraph. Pretty much once we got into Delaware, I took off the helmet and rode the last hour with just some sunglasses and ear plugs. Try everything once right? We made the ferry with minutes to spare, but since we are on motorcycles we got that special motorcycle treatment; straight to the front of the line. It was really nice to still be moving towards our destination but also relaxing. We just got to wildwood, so now that i have put my body through one ringer we will see how I do with the wildwood one.

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10 hours riding today. Not including breaks. Today was by far, the longest I have ever ridden in a single day. We rode from Ryans place, 20 minutes south of Asheville, to Richmond without riding a single mile on an interstate road.

The plan had been to just ride the Blue Ridge Parkway all the way up, but we ended up just hitting back roads the entire way. To be completely honest, I have been loving certain aspects of the rides we have been doing each day, but today was the first day where I really enjoyed every single second of time on the bike.

We made it to George and Sandy’s place just in time for the sunset. (They are the couple that took us shooting on Sunday)

Tomorrow we push to Wildwood. Come at me bro.

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Easy morning, got on the road around noon. We had a two hour ride back to the dragon to do it again during the daytime. What a completely different experience. Last night, it felt like I was riding backcountry roads. Pretty much just me and my own thoughts. Hitting the dragon during the day was more like trying to go skiing on MLK day anywhere in the USA. Everyone and their mother was out and about. Not to put people into boxes or anything, but There are four categories of people riding the dragon, The speed demons on r6's actually dragging knees around corners, the racecar drivers flying through turns in corvettes and Miatta's, the relaxed pleasure riders, and then all the other cagers. There is also a system that was instantly apparent to me once I was there with all of the other riders. This road has the most turns of any 11 mile stretch of road, it probably also has the most pull offs. If someone is going faster than you you pull over safely i to a pull off to let them pass. You don't have to actually stop if you don't want to, just let the faster rider by then get right back to it. This is just the system in place and it almost works perfectly. You see, while the dragon is a mecca to motorcyclists and driving enthusiasts, it is just a cool windy, tourist destination, road to your everyday cager. While the pull over system seemed apparent to everyone out there on two wheels, only some of the car drivers out there today got it. The road is very pritty with lots of stuff to look at, but I heard someone say today, that if you have ever seen any of the prettiness you are riding it wrong. I like to think he was mostly right (I think you can still enjoy some of the sights, then again, I'm not riding an r6 and knee dragging). It can be frustrating to see people in the wild who just completely lack common sense. I ran the dragon three times today, two of which were pretty much perfect. I made it through probably 7 of the 11 miles before getting stuck behind an SUV full of a family who was clearly put on the earth to ruin my dragon run. A little ways after the dragon towards asheville, there is this beautiful resort that we stopped at for a cool down beer and a bite. It was very picturesque. I would love to stay there some day. I believe it was called the Historic Tapico Lodge. We rode back to Asheville where we met up with Tav's friend Ryan again and I promptly got my tattoo, pretty much the perfect souvenir. I love Asheville. This would be a very cool city to end up in someday. The plan for tomorrow is to ride the Blue Ridge Parkway all the way back. Stay tuned for gopro videos

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Had a good old tension reliving argument this morning. Close quarters travel can be tricky sometimes, but I am of the opinion that a good shouting match is a great pressure we hugged it out, and got on the road. The ride into asheville was pretty unreal. It was about an hour on i40from our hotel, and the forst 30 minutes was nothing really special, but pretty mich halfway there, I created a hill and there was just mountains. Big ones, covered in crazy dramatic clouds. It was a pretty cool sight. Just a few minutes after seeing them, we were in them! Probably the coolest interstate ride I have ever been on besides MAYBE, seeing the Rockies on I70 for the first time, but that was in a car. We arrived in Asheville around lunch time and I got to go to what I think I am going to call my favorite taco place anywhere, White Duck Taco. They actually have molé duck tacos! Next stop was a cycle center to try and find me a new visor and facepads for my helmet. I actually ended up just replacing the helmet with a way more comfortable one. I did need a new helmet, but the truth probably is that I am way too impulsive for my own good. Whatever, this new helmet is awesome! While we were at the store, the sky just exploded for probably 20 minutes. Tav and I ran out with garbage bags, but most of my stuff was already soaked. No worries though. At this point, wet is nothing new. It was also fine because, from asheville we had an incredibly hot ride to Deals Gap. Riding into the smokey mountains was unreal. They remind me of the Adirondacks, but just a but bigger, and just a bit prettier. Pretty much the second we got into them It felt like the best riding of my life. The rest of the day only got better. The storm, and various stops along the way kind of timed our arrival at deals gap to that golden hour just before sunset where everything looks real pretty. With the sun low in the sky, we rode the windiest road in America. This 11 mile stretch of road was far and away the hardest and most technical riding I have ever done. The turns are so tight that I scratched my tailpipe on a few of them. I have been riding for 5 years in august, and Infancy myself responsible in that I ride within my (and my bike's) ability. This road tested both. For the entire 11 miles it is non stop tight turns. I am sitting here writing this at 1:45 am and I am still buzzing from adrenaline I think, hitting it just before dark on a Tuesday mitigated the dangerous traffic we keep hearing about. There was just no one there. The situation was this, We had the windiest road in America, to ourselves, while the sun was setting. It was like the losing your virginity story that every teen dreams of but never really gets. Everything was romantic and perfect. 800 miles one way, a bunch of which have been a slog, to ride an 11 mile stretch of road. Was it everything I hoped it would be? Fuck yes it was. Now lets see if I can make it back to the north east in time for Wildwood.

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That plan to hit Ashevill by dinnertime? Yeah that didn’t happen. Tav needed a new inspection sticker since the one he had said 2011 on it. It is a good thing too since the front break pads were just about non existent. Luckily Carrey from Velocity Cycles in Richmond had break pads and kindness to throw them on his bike real quick. I ended up getting some for mine. True to form, we said our goodbyes at 2:50 and were on the road by 3:00pm. This was the push day, so we rode. Southern VA is beautiful. It reminds me of the farmland and vineyards of Upstate NY. Well until you pull off for gas and talk to anyone. I reckon I am getting better at understanding these thick accents. We made it to Greensboro for dinner, and the decided to try and push a just a little farther. I40 is the fastest and most direct road to Asheville, which is the next planned destination, but it is an interstate and kind of sucks from greensboro to at least where we ended up in Hickville NC (yeah I know). It also poured! The heavens opened up on us for about an hour of the 1.5 hours we made it. Yeah riding at night on interstate roads in the rain is the worst. So we pulled off at an exit with a holiday in express so I could ball out with all the phat stacks of points I got from the spring season and the SD deployment. Yeah thats right Platinum Elite for this guy. So we turned on the tv and what do you know? Wild Hogs is on AMC. It is a pretty terrible(y awesome) Tim Allen movie from the mid oughts about a half cocked motorcycle road trip. Sound familiar? Tail of the Dragon tomorrow!

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Spent Sunday in Richmond, and it was quite the day. We didn’t have to ride anywhere, but we did ride mountain bikes over to Tav’s friend Isaac’s place. I didn’t bring my wallet, but did bring my phone. So when we drove by this garage sale I offered to paypal the girl the two dollars she wanted for a water bottle and together we took a step closer to that cashless society I so so so look forward to. We met up with Tav’s childhood friend Isaac and his lovely wife Brittany (check out her food blog here www.eatingbirdfood.com). They took us to sugar shack where, according to Isaac, you can get the best donuts ever. I honestly couldn’t tell you if they were the best donuts ever because I was holding out for pie (which never came…..burn)

Now the story behind these sweet shooting pictures.

We drove up to Caroline county, to Tav’s friend’s farm and shot guns for the rest of the day. It was real fun.

Tomorrow is a real hard push to Asheville. Fingers crossed for good weather.

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The two of us have a pretty terrible track record with getting moving in the morning. We often have a hard time getting on the road before noon, so I was impressed and excited that we made it out by 9:30. Even managed to have a turkey chorizo sausage breakfast! We barely made it to Delaware before our first pitstop. When we were filling up Kay came over, introduced herself and asked if she could sit on the bike. We hopped back on 95 and rode that through to baltimore, then 295 to Maryland and then promptly sat in traffic for probably an hour.

Now most of the time, I am all for wearing all the gear all the time, but “all of the gear” is designed to keep cool whilst the rider is in motion. It is not designed to keep the rider cool whilst he (or she) sits still in traffic on a 90° day. Call me squid all you want, but we ditched the jackets at the next fuel stop. It felt good, like that dangerous sex without a condom good. The kind where you know you really shouldn’t be doing it buuuuuuut it will probably turn out ok…..right?

All told it took us eight hours to get from my place to my uncles’s in Richmond VA

This is going to be a long ride.

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The last 10 minutes of us gearing up the bikes compressed into 12 seconds

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Tav arrived in philly tonight, took him for tacos at Loco Pez in Fishtown. The tacos were amazing and I am hoping that tacos becomes a theme of this trip. Afterwords we stopped for coconuts. Early morning tomorrow, trying to push for Richmond by 3pm.

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I am doing it. Pretty much since I got the bike I have been dreaming about riding Tail of the Dragon Rd in the smokey mountains. After a very short discussion with my cousin, who has the exact same bike as I do, we decided to leave Saturday morning. The plan is to hit Richmond, Asheville, Deals Gap TN, Knoxville, and be back in time for Wildwood. All in all, just under 1500 miles in 7 days. I tried to pack into my daypack and one side of the saddle bags (the other is reserved for the bike cover and chemically stuff). I am beyond excited at this point, just praying that the weather cooperates.

https://goo.gl/maps/oXRGD

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Last day in South Dakota. In about 6 weeks we flew just about every inch of the state. It did get a little lonely, but there is a whole lot of natural beauty to this place. Unfortunately I didn’t spend a whole lot of time (or any really) trying star shots with the Lumix. To be fair, most nights that I knew for sure we weren’t flying, it was really cloudy. That said, on clear nights out here pretty much the entire sky is visible with very little light pollution. Saw lots of cool stuff met lots of cool people. I will definitely try to make it back here.

So long, and thanks for all the beef