smoke chasing update...

over the past few months i've been able to snag a few more smoke chasing stops. not as many as i would like to have at this point. i did have a couple opportunities to really rack up a couple places all in close proximity but didn't take advantage of the situation. well, i'm almost halfway there. my plan was to finish above the minimum qualifying level. i'm not sure that's going to happen this year.

so my latest stops over the past couple months include three on the way to and from rolling thunder...

i love that my son enjoys doing this with me...

one locally when i was riding somewhere and had a few extra minutes.

this was early morning and a guy was carrying chairs and tables outside. he kept looking over at me - i'm sure he was wondering what i was doing!!

one in maggie valley - where i should have scored a lot more!!!

finally, one with my wife!!

that's it for now - more to come soon!!

oh, you can check out all my stops on my 2013 smoke chasing map...

been a while...

...since i've posted!! in spite of all good intentions to keep more up to date, it just hasn't happened. sometimes just because i was busy riding. and sometimes just because i got wrapped up with life. anyway, lots to catch up on so let's get started...

while there have been a lot of great rides this summer, one of my favorites is a short ride i took with my wife right after the fourth of july. it started when some friends, previous neighbors, came in town for the fourth. our sons were best of friends when they lived next door. they were heading home, a few hours away, after the fourth and we offered for their son to stay a couple extra days so the boys could hang out together. as it turned out, our son ended up going with them. that left us a couple days to ourselves - sweeeet!!!!

it got better when my wife suggested we go on a ride. and even better when she suggested we stop at waffle house for breakfast!! after a delicious breakfast, we headed out for the ride.

we headed up the back roads towards oxford. my plan was ride to oxford, through roxboro and end up in yanceyville, where we'd stop for ice cream and my wife could get a break from sitting in the seat too long. the weather was great and we were having a good time.

when we got to roxboro, i scrapped my original plans and decided that would be a good place to stop for ice cream. i was looking for a mom-n-pop type of place but we settled for cook out. by the way, even though cook out has a walk-up window, they don't have any seating - reminder for future reference!!

after ordering some shakes, we found a wall to sit on while we enjoyed our drinks.

our view from the wall...

one of my favorite pictures of us...

once we finished off the shakes, we headed home. took a slightly different route and got to explore some roads i'd never been on. real pretty roads that i'll have to explore again soon.

turned out to be a great day for a ride and an awesome time with my wife.