2,600 miles on a Honda - part 6

By this point in the trip i was basically planning where i was going the the next day, the night before in the tent. I'm not sure if i thought that i wouldn't make it this far or what. I probably thought "eh i'll figure it out when i get there." I reached another goal that day. I finally saw an armadillo. It was dead by the side of the road but it still counts. A couple of days earlier i saw two roadrunners, they were really cool how they ran, almost exactly like the cartoon with their heads pointed forward.
US-412 was great, lots of hills and turns. I saw on the map that it comes close to Wirth, Arkansas but 50 miles was too far of a detour. Then i came up the the border into Missouri. I still don't know what the Show-Me State even means. The state sure didn't show me much. I know i only rode a hundred miles through the corner of the state, but I don't remember anything about Missouri except that every farm was growing cotton and it was all over the sides of the road, it looked like snow.


Then the only real wrong turn i made was when i tried taking a side road across the Mississippi River into Tennessee. On the map there were two roads on either side of the river and it looked like there was a bridge. Turns out there was only a dead end at the river, no bridge and i had to double back 30 miles to cross into Tennessee.
Then it turned out that the State Park where i was going to camp was closed for the season. So i camped out at this weird bait shop/boat marina/RV park/campground. It was also weird that this place was the most expensive spot so far that i camped. Palo Duro was great and only $12, Bull Shoals was $17 and the best place out of all of them, Foss Lake was free. I could draw you a graph showing how as price increased, the campsites got worse but i'm sure you get the idea. Also it was really windy by the lake and rained all night.

Luckily the next day the roads were fairly dry. But since the high temp for the day was 45 degrees it was not that much fun. Then came the most dangerous part of the trip. Trying to take my picture in front of the border into Kentucky. The sign was in the center of a 4 lane divided highway with a 2 foot shoulder. Good thing the road wasn't busy.
After a long day of riding i made it to Mammoth Cave and at 3:30 and got to go on the last tour of the day. It ended up being just me, a guy from Chicago and the tour guide. I had always pictured the cave as a small cramped tunnel maybe 10 foot wide. But now i know why it's called Mammoth Cave. It was huge. They said it was the longest cave system in the world, over 400 miles of tunnels, but the size of the "rooms" is what got me. Only a half mile in and there was 100 foot high ceilings and walls probably 200 feet wide. They had 3 hour trips the next day which i wanted to go on but i had to keep heading home. I would have liked to spend all day down there. Except when the guide turned out all the lights for a laugh.
At this point i was 470 miles from home. I figured 2 more days. The next morning was really cold as can be seen from the thick layer of frost on the motorcycle.
To this point i had taken a picture in front of every state border that i crossed, until Ohio. There was absolutely no place to stop on the bridge, over the river, on the highway. So i just kept riding and made it to Dayton, 230 miles, by 2:30. When i stopped to get gas i saw a sign that said "Detroit 140 miles." My choices were to stop then and ride tomorrow in the cold rain or ride home in the dark. I decided on the second option. I crossed into Michigan right after sunset. An hour later and i was at 15 Mile and Ryan Rd, only a quarter of a mile from my house. That's when it finally hit me that i had actually made it. So if you happened to be standing on the corner that night you would have heard a crazy guy with a loaded down Honda motorcycle screaming for joy in his helmet.

For some reason i thought to myself "if the bike breaks now i can always push it home." Although the bike was GREAT. Other then replacing the throttle cable and some spark plugs it performed flawlessly. Not bad for a motorcycle that's 37 years old. The whole trip i wasn't really thinking that i would really make it the whole way, so when i pulled in the driveway i could not believe that i actually rode 2,600 miles.

Bamboo

Update:
My original bamboo i got in Kentucky but these pictures were taken in West Virginia.

On two of the trips i took for work, i went to the southern part of Kentucky. While down there i noticed bamboo trees growing by the rivers. So on the last days of each trip i dug a few small trees up and brought them back home. The first ones i brought back died, but since they don't have seeds like other trees, new shoots came up from the dead tree roots. The biggest trees i saw in Kentucky were around 40 feet high and 3" around.



The ones in my back yard aren't quite 40' high yet. Hopefully they make it through the winter.

Bamboo 2

The bamboo i transported from Kentucky and West Virginia last year is still going strong, even in the winter. I was worried that the reason it doesn't grow here in Michigan is that it's too cold. But so far they have been doing just fine. The roots are really starting to spread and by next summer i still expect my back yard to look like a Vietnamese jungle.

Hatfields and McCoys - The Real Story

There's a new show on the History channel - Hatfields and McCoys. It stars Kevin Costner and Bill Paxton. I guess it's ok for a drama to be on the History channel because it's about two actual families that were all a fussin' and a feudin'. Although beyond that i'm not sure how historical it is.

I was down in Kentucky and West Virginia several time for work, walking along the roads and back in the "hollers". And back in 2010 i was in the same area on the Kentucky / West Virginia border where the whole Hatfield and McCoy feud took place. I saw the original Hatfield home and lots of other famous sites. I even walked to see where the whole thing started. The trees where the first killings occurred. The story was that the old man Hatfield promised Mrs. McCoy that he wouldn't kill her sons in Kentucky. He kept his word. He took them across the border into West Virginia, lined them up against some trees by a river and then shot them all. Here's some of the pictures from that trip, just to give you an idea of what it's like down there now.

West Virginia - Wild and Wonderful. I think Kentucky's state motto is Unbridled Spirit and theirs usually a horse on the sign.

There were a bunch of graveyards scattered all around. I would see them as we were walking along the roads. There were a bunch with the last name McCoy.

The creepy ones were when people would have their own "family" graveyard on the back of their own property. We would see a house on a hill and way in the back would be 5 tombstones. I guess it's legal down there to bury people in your back yard.

And there were lots of stores and restaurants trying to cash-in on the Hatfield and McCoy popularity.

Here's a typical yard in West Virginia. People are really poor, live out in the middle of nowhere and have tons of dogs, which they don't take car of. They are either in a shack or tied up under the foundation of their house.

i also saw lots of rosters, presumably for cock fighting. This was the nice "farm", they actually have little houses for them. Most places just used 55 gallon drums as the roster pens.

All of the roads were dangerous down there. Steep winding paths around the mountains where the speed limit was 55 and people drove 70. I guess no one needs to use the suspension bridge any more.

But most people we talked to were really nice. Everyone always said "How y'all doin'". So i guess the Hatfield and McCoy story is just like any stereotype people have. Not everyone down in Kentucky and West Virginia smokes, while chewing tobacco, caring a shotgun and telling you to get off their property. Maybe 20% of the people we met were like that, but not everyone.

GM - Tennessee and Kentucky

For work last week two of us got to go visit some more GM plants and look at their pavement. Last year i went to Reno, Denver and Ranch Cucamonga California.

We flew into Nashville Tennessee. Our first stop after the Nashville airport was the exit right near Fiddlers Inn. The same place john and i stayed when we were in Nashville. Since that trip the hotel has taken on a mythical quality.
The Dukes of Hazard "museum" called Cooter's is right next door to the hotel.
That day we drove to Bowling Green Kentucky. Ale 8 1 is a ginger ale from down there and it's super good.
This is also from Kentucky. I didn't try it.
The GM plant that builds the Corvette is in Bowling Green. It seemed like every car in the lot was different. From one to the next they had different rims, different models (z06, z07, zr1) and different prices, starting at $64,000.
These are the 100 year anniversary cars waiting to get a racing stripe painted on.
This one was my favorite. A turbo charged ZR1 with lots of carbon fiber and cost $128,000.
This is one of the racks they use for paint. All that bubbling is from the layers of paint that has built up.
I didn't know what it was until i broke off a piece and saw all the different layers of paint.
Here's the rejected body parts to be thrown out.
The next day we drove back to the old Saturn plant in Tennessee. It still had the old plantation house that the GM plant is built on.
This is where they sucked up the different paint colors for the Saturn's.
There are lots of turkey's at the Saturn plant.
Steak and Catfish
The last day we got done a little early and had time to go to the Jack Daniels distillery in Lynchburg Kentucky. It was cool, the free tour lasted a couple hours. Some of the rooms we went in were near 130 degrees, where they were fermenting the barley and hops. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the buildings though.
Apparently Jack Daniels was only like 5'2"
This is where they make charcoal. The charcoal is put in huge barrels and the whiskey is filtered through it to remove impurities.
Also on the trip i found some interesting seeds. The top one is Osage Orange. It looks and feels very much like a brain.
I'm not sure what this tree is but i saw a bunch of them in Tennessee.

Bamboo - 2011

This was a tough winter on the bamboo, lots of leaves turned yellow, overall though they survived.

I'm still not sure exactly what type of bamboo i have. I think the small trees are Canebreak bamboo (the only native bamboo to the US) and the larger ones are Yellow Grove bamboo I'm only guessing from pictures i've seen. The Canebreak bamboo i got in Kentucky and the Yellow Grove i got in West Virginia.

I also have Moso bamboo that i grew from seeds i ordered online. After reading about the different types i've learned that as long as the roots stay above -10 degrees Fahrenheit they should still be alive in the spring.
In the summer i piled lots of grass over the root area and in the winter i made sure to pile lots of snow around the base of the trees to help insulate them.
Here's the shoots this year from the little Moso bamboo. This plant is only 1 year old and probably will never be very big. Down in Florida it could be 40 feet high and 6" in diameter. But here in Michigan it will never grow that size because of the cold winters.

I was happy with how well the Yellow Grove bamboo grew in 2010. I was really excited this year because of all of the roots i saw growing last year. This picture was taken early in the summer 2010.

Around Easter i noticed the new shoots coming up. Over 30 shoots from this one cluster of trees.

This is one of the bigger shoots, maybe 1/2" in diameter.

These pictures were taken over no more than 10 days. You can see the shoots on the left. They will grow sometimes over 8" on really warm days.

One day i was outside and saw ants chewing on the bamboo. I sprayed some insecticide but this is what they looked like the next day.
Because of the heavy rains and ants, not every emerging shoot fully grew to trees but overall this has been the best year for the bamboo.