Virginia

For those who weren't here 

last time, allow me to add a link 

to my original pages. The links will be up soon. try clicking on the bike and see what happens

If the above link worked then so should the rest. Hopefully they will all open into new windows so that you can browse at your convenience.

My first trip started during the summer of 2000. Many people seemed to enjoy the stories I told so I try to keep up the tradition. Find all the emails from years past you didn't get or forgot about here, then here.

A page or two, or three here that I can't fit in elsewhere.

Some pictures from the first trip are found here and here.

My second trip was out East to visit my younger brother and sister. I also wanted to make it to Florida but got side tracked in Myrtle Beach.

Several pages here, here, and here.

The next trip was what I call the Big Circle. I went from Chicago to San Diego, up the coast to Canada, then East to New Hampshire for my sister's wedding. It was a long trip.

Along the way I also stopped to volunteer on the AidsRide, from Minnesota back to Chicago.

finally last year I tried to rest a bit and stayed home most of the summer. Near the end of the summer I went to Sturgis with some friends. That story is here. With some more pictures here.

These are some more opening pages I have used for my various trips. They will add to the story and also repeat some links inside. 2003 Sturgis, California 2002.

Three I hope that gets everyone up to date. Come back every couple of days to keep up, or just wait until the end for the final edit. If you would like to be added to the email list let me know I'll try to put you on it. I bought a new lap top with WiFi so hopefully I should be able to stop at most Starbucks or something like that and get a fast internet connection. This should allow me to keep the web page more current and cleaner. Yeah right.

Brendan

Finally, if you like to hear a good story guaranteed to have a happy ending try this

So we packed up Barbara and headed further South on I-95. Traffic of course was horrendous, but eventually we made it. It takes at least an hour to pack a child so even though we all got up before 7 we didn't leave the house until sometime around 11. 

Of course the first thing everyone wanted to do was to go to an Army base, my brother and sister being military types. We had to stop by the carousel on the way. Actually, Fort Monroe was pretty interesting. It seems to have a long history of being wiped out by hurricanes or being left to rot because of under funding.

Today, Fort Monroe is more of a big museum than a military base, though they do do a bit of training too. We started with the museum, called the casement museum, a casement is an opening in a fortified wall to shoot cannons and stuff through. As you can see when we walked on the top the walls are 16 feet thick, Originally they were filled with sand and the corners were open with gun emplacements. Now the inside is empty and the guns on top have been replaced by pet graves. Of course outside the walls was the obligatory moat. All of this to protect the bay from invasion by sea. By the Civil War hey had opened up the walls and basically watched the war being fought around them. After the war Jefferson Davis, the leader of the Confederacy was imprisoned there for about 4 years, though he was never actually charged with anything and eventually released I believe.

After museum we took Barbara for her first visit to the beach. For those not in the know, Barbara is my little sister's first child. She turned one year just a few weeks ago. She really loves the water, but she has never been too the beach. Her first trip to the ocean, or at least the bay, was a resounding success. Though she did get a bit of salt water in the face, she didn't really like that, all in all she loved the water.

Tomorrow if all goes well I should be heading west and stopping somewhere around Columbus Ohio. Then I'll make it home by Tuesday or Wednesday night.