JBlog: June 2014

Barber Motorsports, Birmingham, Alabama
May 29 - June 1 (1,315 miles)

We decided to take 2 days to get to Birmingham, stopping in Augusta, Georgia on the way there and back.

THE HOTEL - We stayed at the Comfort Suites Augusta. We arrived on Wednesday for the Manager's reception (cocktails and hot and cold hors d'oeuvres). Sunday on the way home we were "guest of the day" and received a $10 coupon off dinner at an Augusta restaurant.

THE WEATHER - was unpredictable. We had no rain until a few miles from Birmingham which ended quickly. From then on we were in and out of black clouds and heavy rain, cool mornings, hot afternoons and heavy showers to cool off the evening. We were lucky that when we were riding we never hit the heavy rain.

We got to Augusta mid afternoon with time to tour the Augusta Canal National Heritage Area. The canal was built in 1845 as a source of power, water and transportation. The canal is 7 miles long with the head gate at the Savannah rapids.

Lock Keepers Cottage and Welcome Center

Locks on the lock gate.

1875 Gate House and Restored Lock

Levers for opening locks.

Diversion Dam and Savannah River Rapids

THURSDAY AFTERNOON BARBER MOTORSPORTS PARK

As we set up camp black clouds threatened but never materialized until hours later. Amazingly enough the tent right next to ours belonged to Mark from the club.

Typical day ... lots of black clouds, sometimes rain sometimes not!

Mark

NEXT WE WENT LOOKING FOR BARB AND JERRY.

Great red shelter with lots of electrical hookups.

Setting up the tent in the back of the truck.

Jerry and Suga Bama

Lucy

Friday we rode out early before the afternoon storms and drove through the country side and Alabama mountains.

When the rains came we could stay dry by visiting the vendors (most of them in the building next to the beer tent) or go to the Barber Motorsport Museum. We had unlimited access to the museum the whole weekend.

THESE ARE SOME OF OUR FAVORITE MOTORCYCLES

Morbidelli (850 cc and a 150 mph top speed)

Ducati frame and body

Kawasaki V12

BSA (my first motorcycle)

Saturday our morning ride was to Vulcan Park on Red Mountain in Birmingham. Vulcan is the world's largest cast iron statue. It was cast from local iron in 1904 and overlooks Birmingham. Made by Giuseppe Moretti, the statue was exhibited at the St. Louis World's Fair winning the Grand Prize. Vulcan is the Roman God of the Forge. http://www.visitvulcan.com/about-vulcan-vulcans-story.html

Vulcan Park on Red Mountain

View of Birmingham from Red Mountain

Our next stop was the Bass Pro Shop. The ride to the store was amazing (wish we had the Go Pro). After turning onto Bass Pro Drive it becomes a one way "lane" through the woods twisting and turning, up and down hill, to the store.

Layout of Barber Motorsports Park ... Tony pointing to the camping area.

The dressing room!

Camouflage vibrating chair

At 3 pm Barb, Jerry, Tony and I had a tour of the museum including the bottom floor (the restoration floor) which is only accessible 3 times a year when they have the racing events.

Solar powered car driven across the United States (mounted above door).

Looking into the restoration area with Coffee our tour guide.

While we were touring the museum we looked out to see the pouring rain and thought what good timing that we were doing inside activities. After the tour the sun was out and the temperature had cooled down to a beautiful afternoon. BUT we had a surprise when we walked back to our tent. One of the supporting poles snapped during the downpour. Tony broke out the tools and after evaluating the situation decided to use a corkscrew to remove the broken piece of pole and then snapped the whole thing back together. The takeaway here is to always have a corkscrew handy.

Our tent with broken pole due to the heavy rain ... just a few puddles of water inside easily mopped up.

Sunday morning the place cleared out quickly. We were on our way at 7am (central time) losing an hour on our way to Augusta, again arriving mid afternoon. We had already planned our sightseeing, a canal boat ride. The boat ride was at the Augusta Canal Interpretive Center at Enterprise Mill in downtown Augusta. The Interpretive Center included an orientation film and lots of interesting exhibits. The tour boats are recreations of Petersburg boats that were used to carry supplies from the Savannah River through the canal to downtown Augusta. We saw many of the old mills along the canal, the Powerhouse Site and the Confederate Powderworks Chimney. The chimney is the only remaining structure from the two-mile 26 building site built to make gunpowder and munitions for the Confederate States of America. The chimney remains as a monument to the dead heroes who sleep on the unnumbered battlefields of the south. The undeveloped land between the canal and the Savannah River rapids is a wetlands. Another interesting site is the Butt Memorial Bridge named for Archibald Butt (born in Augusta). He is known for his heroism during the sinking of the Titanic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archibald_Butt