Beautiful Ride Today

Sure it was a little cold in the morning, but very bearable and besides, that’s why God gave bikers leather.  We left Lowe’s at 9:30 and headed toward Charleston via the Hwy15, I-95, and I-26.  We got down to Patriot’s Point a little before noon (one stop).  For those of you that haven’t been, there’s a lot to see there.  The centerpiece is the USS Yorktown (WWII Aircraft Carrier), but there’s also a small submarine on display, a destroyer, and a Coast Guard Cutter – all of which you can go into.  In addition there are some other things to see on the land around the marina.

We didn’t see it all so I may plan another trip down there in a few months if anyone is interested.  I think the fall or early spring is a good time to go since it’s not as hot and most of the areas in these ships are not air conditioned.  Plus, the crowds today were small.

A nice surprise today was seeing Pat and Terry Daly who live in Orangeburg and are members of the Midland ’s Chapter.  A few of you met them when we had our inter-chapter ride lead by Dave up to Heath Springs.  We didn’t get to spend much time with them due to getting separated early (it’s a big Aircraft Carrier) and not finding each other till later in the day.  I’m sorry for that and hope we can run into them again soon.  Nice people.

For future notice, when we go on these “sight seeing” rides we’ll get to the attraction and set up a meeting time and place.  That way those that want to can split up and see what they want to see and we can still meet up and ride back together.

We stayed a little longer than anticipated due to the enormity of Patriot’s Point.  We wound up leaving about 4:00 and stopping to eat.  We really didn’t leave Charleston until about 4:30 .  We came back up 17A to Hwy 52 to HWY 521.  I think the mileage back was slightly less, but a hair longer in time.  We got back to Sumter about 6:30 anyway – just before Sundown.

The ride back was mostly without our jackets.  We stopped in Manning and put the jacket on because there was a chill happening in the shady areas.

About 217 miles on the clock today.

Overall a great day…hope to see you all soon.