Some thoughts and musings on this trip

I'm at the end of my second day traveling home - in Lake City. I have been following US 90 from New Orleans to this point. It's the route I took home after I bought the scoot in New Orleans, about this time last year. Most of the Mississippi portion is right along the shoreline, which makes for a nice view, but is often very windy - makes for a sandblast job on whatever you're driving.

This time of year, it's to hot and muggy for my liking. Route US90, while inland, is a lot cooler surprisingly. Most of it contains forest land, tree covered, which makes for the cooler temps I believe.
The first half of the drive today was in the mid 90's, which was alright, really. But going thru Tallahassee, the air temp gauge on the scoot got all the way up to 113 degrees at one point, never did get back below 100 degrees for the rest of the trip to Lake City - just downright uncomfortable.
OK, back to the burlesque show. Lets see if I can get a few videos in here.

Here's a video of a portion of one riders Gymkhana run.

New Orleans has some of the greatest architectural styles in my opion. There are some random shots I took.

 A lot of the buildings are in this style

 Large shade trees are many.

 Two things you don't have to walk more than a couple blocks for are parks and churches.

One last though is the St. Vincent Guest House I have been staying at. Today it rents rooms with private baths and dorm rooms of all sizes. It also is a Hostel (look it up). Originally it was an Orphanage (for boys I believe), but note the inscription in the picture below.

The end - one more days ride home.
I hope you enjoyed - thanks for reading.
Jack Watson - Navigator Jack to my Palm Beach Scooter Club members - OneEyedJack to my modernvespa.com friends - and just plan old Jack to myself.

The Rally Wrap-up

Day 6, Saturday June 18th con't
 The Awards Banquet and "best of Cajun and Creole cuisine"
The Banquet and cuisine where spectacular. It was so good that everyone was getting seconds, and they ran out of food - almost all of it. Desert was King Cakes, (I'll let you look that one up in the dictionary) and the asked each table to bring there their baby up to the front and exchange it for an envelope, but not to open the envelope until told to. When asked to open them, most contained five raffle tickets, but one was for a brand new Vespa GTS.
The rest of the evening was devoted to awards of various achievements. One was for the longest ride to the Amerivespa. Janie- listen up - some gal from California rode 2,600 miles (not direct) to the event on a Yamaha Majesty.

 

Day 7, Sunday June 19th

The wrap-up.
10:00am was the start of the Gymkhana and Vendor Show. The gymkhana started out with the slow races - that's where the slowest rider, to not put his feet down over a selected distance, wins. The obstacle course was next.

 

Meanwhile, inside the Contemporary Arts Building garage, the vendors where showing their stuff.

 The final event is the raffling off of tons of goodies. But the top of the list was five scooters, two of which were brand new - Madass 125, People something - two restored vintage vespa's - and one unrestored.

One lady had the misfortune of her kymco 500 exploding in flames on the way to the rally, she is fine and made the rally anyway, but the scoot is wasted. During the raffling it was announced that the Kymco people had given her a brand new scooter, which she would ride home - nice.

That wrapped up the rally. I won nothing - not uncommon. I said goodby to my friends Rick and Waneta(sp?) from Gulfport, MS. It's amazing how many folks I'm getting to know at these rally's.
I delivered all the goodie bags I had picked up, to John and Diane's motor-home for transport home. Then back to the Asylum to write this and pack up for the ride home tomorrow

The Funs still on

Day 5, Friday June 17

As I said earlier, I took the scoot to the Vespa Dealer, first thing this morning (10am), to get the air cleaner remounted. I promised Marie at the dealer that I would buy one of the tee shirts she had left over from last nights party, if she would get me in first thing, and she agreed. Doing this service, meant that I would miss the mornings ride - a 29 mile ride of the various New Orleans neighborhood areas. But I did get a chance to do the ride latter in the afternoon.
When I left the Vespa dealer at 11:30, I went back to the room, unloaded my computer, picked up my GPS and headed of to "Rock 'n Bowl" where the rides would end for lunch. Got there just before the riders. We had lunch and free bowling till late afternoon.
Sorry for the blurry pictures.

 

Check out the scooters - click on pictures for full size picture.

I left after an hour or so and went on the neighborhood ride by myself. Sorry didn't take a lot of pictures on the ride.

In the Cit yPark near Lake Pontchartrain.

 Note how high the water is in this canal.

Later at 7pm to 10pm they had a private party with burlesque provided by the Fleur de Tease at The Howling Wolf. It was a lot of fun, lots of hollering and shouting and drinking. Sorry the pictures are blurry, not much lite, and they are always moving. Again, click on pictures to enlarge.

Day 6, Saturday June 18th

Started this morning off picking up goodie bags for all my no show friends - three in all. After a little breakfast, it was time for the "Scooter Concours de Elegance and vendor show"

There were several vendors also (don't know why I didn't take any pictures) - Southwest Motorsports - Pirate Upholstery - Kymko Scooters - Genuine Scooters - Geigo just to name a few.

Tonight's venue is the Awards Banquet and "best of Cajun and Creole cuisine"