Monticello and Old Friends

After Baby's 1000 mile maintenance, we made plans to go to Monticello the following Saturday.  After all these years living in the area, I had never been, so that was one of the first places I wanted to go. 

Our friends in Culpeper resurfaced in an email.  They were sorry they missed us, but they had been out of town for a couple weeks and were we planning any trips in or around Culpeper again any time soon?  We made arrangements to stop by their place on our way to Charlottesville. 

We were off to an early start.  As the temperature was in the high 50s, but was going to be in the 80s, I started off with a mock turtleneck long sleeved shirt under my leather jacket and full gloves.  We put T-shirts and vented gloves in the saddlebags because it was supposed to warm up into the low 80s throughout the day. 

We arrived at our friends' place within the appointed window and no one was home.  But there was a note on the back door with a strip map and details about where to meet them for coffee.  There's a nice little coffee shop next to the Farmers' Market accross the street from the train station in the old part of town and that's where we met them.

We spent about an hour catching up on the last several years.  Work and family obligations on both our parts have kept us from getting together more frequently.  And now we both find ourselves with more time to renew old friendships.  Our friends graciously invited us to their house for an early dinner if we were going home the same way we came, and we gladly accepted their invitation. 

After coffee, we left for Monticello and it was a nice ride there.  By the time we arrived there, I was ready for a break.  Unfortunately, the first pass through the parking lot yielded no place to park, owing to a fall festival that was happening on the estate lawn. We ended up having to exit the parking lot and back out onto the road that brought us in and make a loop back to try again.  This time we found a place, and none too soon.  I was fidgety to get off.  And we got lucky and found a place close to the Visitor Center.

We bought tickets to take the shuttle up to the estate, which was also a ticket to enter the building for a guided tour, which we did not take advantage of because of the crowds.  Working backwards, our entry time would have put us back at our friends'  very late in the day, and we were still hoping to be on our way home from their house before dark.

We had lunch at the little cafeteria in the Visitor Center and changed our shirts before venturing up the hill.  We did take the shutle up the hill, but the fall festival and crowds put a damper on my fun because I could not get around as well as I wanted with so many people.  Karl's not a crowd person either.  We ended up walking down and stretching our legs and we left without the interior tour, earlier than we had planned to leave.  I was happy to be away from all those people.

I told Karl that I would need a break somewhere along the way back to Culpeper, so we stopped at Waugh Enterprises in Orange, one of the first Harley dealerships in the state of Virginia.  Nice place.  You walk in on the top floor, which is their showroom and downstairs is the service center and clothing and accessories store.  Karl was lucky.  I saw an entire rack of THE jacket I wanted, but alas, none of them was in my size or I would have had two leather jackets.  They had a lot of other stuff, but nothing I couldn't live without.  We called our friends to give them a heads-up on our arrival time and then headed back to their place.

Once again we were back on our friends' front porch and we spent the next several hours regaling each other with stories of the latest goings on in both our lives.  Our friend had recently left his job and lost his father, and built a small sailboat which he then sailed down the Rappahannok River into the Chesapeake Bay.  The boat story was quite a tale of adventure  - I would expect nothing less from our friend.  We picked up right where we left off, and that is the way it should be with good friends.  Now that we all have more time, I expect that we'll see a lot more of each other, after all, this friendship goes back more than thirty years.

As always, our friends' house is the house of no return for us.  We left before dark, but we knew it would be after dark by the time we arrived at home.  It did not help that we ended up in a small "parade" of about 20 cars being led by a moving van of the do-it-yourself variety towing a bread truck type of vehicle, followed closely by an SUV carrying the rest of the people in their party.  The parade went for about 10 miles before the truck leading it figured out that there was a growing line of cars full of people who were not happy about doing 15 under the speed limit.  Not to mention one lady on the back of a motorcycle who just wanted to give her backside a break.  The moving van and hangers on pulled into a small business parking lot to let the rest of us pass. 

By this time is was well after dark, and we still had miles to go.  We chose to take the most expedient route home, and made it by about 8:30.  I have to say, I am not terribly comfortable riding at night.  For me, it is mostly a safety issue.  People don't always see motorcycles in the daylight, at night, even with good lights, it can be hard to see us.  Note to self:  get a reflecting vest for night riding.  

It had been a full day with many adventures and a renewed acquaintance with a pair of old friends.  Who can ask for a better day?   

        

Baby's First Checkup

"Already?!  You've only been riding for three weeks!"

Technically, only three weekends.

Since baby had gone over 1,000 on our Labor Day ride, she was past the break in period and was due for her first check-up.  Very important, as the Service manager had informed us on the day we bought her.  So here I was on the phone with the same service manager to schedule Baby's 1000 mile checkup and first service.

"We bought it to ride it, not to look at it in our garage.  Can we bring it in tomorrow evening and leave it for you to work on during the following day?"

"Of course."

So after Karl got off work on Tuesday evening, he took Baby down to East Coast Harley.

Everyone is on a first name basis with us when we come in now.  We're members of the Harley family.

"Karl - Didn't expect to see you so soon." 

"How's she riding?"

"Glad to see you're enjoying the ride."

"We'll have her ready by the end of the day tomorrow."

The chrome guy had even called Karl to find out how he was enjoying the accessories now that they were on.  He had called while we were out riding and every time Karl was in a position to return the call, he either didn't have his phone handy or wasn't in a position to call.  Unfortunately this time, the chrome guy was busy with another customer. 

So we dropped her off and the next day she was raring to go and was all shiny from a complimentary wash.

While Karl was in service, I was in the accessories.  I needed a pair of fingerless gloves and a new rag that didn't have a sweatband.  I bought both and was chatting with the lady in accessories - it was like we'd known each other forever.  She's married to an active duty Marine at Quantico and Karl's retired from the army.  So we have a lot in common.  Plus we both like to ride. 

All too soon it was time to go.  Katie was stopping by the house on her way to dinner with a friend and we were might miss her.  As it turned out, we did miss her.  He friend was sick and couldn't make it and Katie didn't stick around to wait for us to come home.  She had a boatload of stuff do do to get her rental house ready to give back by the weekend. 

But Baby was good to go until her next checkup at 5000 miles. 

And we were busy planning our next ride.