We loaded up the Moto Guzzi Le Mans on the truck for the summer.
We left Daytona Beach around lunch time on Sunday 3 May headed to Montgomery, Alabama. No decent paying loads coming out of Florida, we had a big deadhead again.
Loaded two cranes that lay railway sleepers going to North Bay, Ontario, Canada.
While en route we got a message that the consignee couldn’t get a rigging crew until Thursday morning to unload us, so we took our time then. Arrived in North Bay Wednesday afternoon.
Wikipedia.com North Bay is a city on the shore of Lake Nipissing in northern Ontario. Apart from First Nations tribes, voyageurs and surveyors, there was little activity in the Lake Nipissing area until the arrival of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1882. Cementing North Bay's status as a railway town, it was selected as the southern terminus of the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway (T&NO) in 1902. During construction of the T&NO, silver was discovered at and started a mining frenzy in the northern part of the province that continued for many years. The Canadian Northern Railway was subsequently built to the town in 1913.
North Bay grew through a strong lumbering sector, mining and the three railways in the early days.
North Bay is located approximately 330 kilometres (210 mi) north of Toronto, and differs in geography from southern Ontario. A different and more rugged landscape.
We found a British style Pub The Bull & Quench a few blocks towards downtown North Bay. Had a selection of ‘new’ to us beers. “Alexander Keith”, dark, red, white and Pale Ale. Alexander Keith is the nectar of Nova Scotia. Had a lovely meal there.
Two trucks of railway cranes were unloaded on Thursday morning, then we had the rest of the day to get to Innisfil (near Barrie) to load on Friday morning.
A company was exchanging equipment with its sister company in North Carolina - two trucks were there loading large machines. It was a messy job - the machines and parts were dripping with oil and we had to tarp it all! Yuck, we didn’t want all that oil on our tarps, so they bought large light tarps and gave them to use to cover first before we put our tarp over it. So we hard to tarp this huge thing twice!
On our way south we went through Buffalo area and spent Friday and Saturday nights in the RV.Saturday was the annual Snowmobile Show in Alexander, NY. We attended this show two years ago.
A friend of Joe and Jimmy’s repairs/collects old snowmobiles and uses Jimmy’s step deck trailer for transportation to and from the show.
This year Jeff auctioned twelve, just to make room in his shed. A warm, sunny morning but turned into high winds and rain for the afternoon. Interesting things, snowmobiles.
These are all the trophies for the day.
Joe and Jim spent several hours in the garage - Jim had taken the tank, side covers and panniers from the 1976 convert last time and gave them a quick paint job while we were in Daytona Beach. He put all that back on and it looks a whole lot better now. Michele and I did some shopping. Jim and I visited his mother, sister and family for a few hours late afternoon.
Jim and I left early Sunday morning and drove to Charlotte, North Carolina. Delivered Monday morning, then drove over to Kannapolis, North Carolina just north of Charlotte and loaded half a log cabin kit. The consignee wanted delivery that evening. He said that as long as we got there before dark he would unload us. So it was a quick drive to Nokesville, Virginia near Washington DC.
We got there after 7pm, it was on a farm and it was a difficult access - dirt road, narrow lane, electric fences, ploughed ground. Then it started raining heavily! We got unloaded, Jim got soaked. It was 8.30pm when we got out of there, a long way to a truckstop, late so unlikely to get a park, and we didn‘t have a reload, so didn‘t know which way to go. Knowing this scenario before we unloaded we were on the look out for a place to park near Nokesville and found one, and spent the night in a Historical Marker parking lot along with another local truck.
By 8.30am we had headed south to Richmond, Virginia to load big plastic barrels of paint used to paint the lines on roads.
Delivered that Wednesday morning in Warrensburg, New York to the Department of Transport..
Then sat 24 hours at a truckstop searching for a load that paid more than just the fuel. Deadheaded to near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and loaded one steel coil at US Steel. Delivered that the next morning, Friday in Stoney Creek, near Hamilton, Ontario on Friday 15 May. Joe delivered not far from us, so he waited about 10 minutes at a truckstop and we had lunch and ran together.
Back to the RV for the weekend!Organized a load for Monday just south of Buffalo, so had the whole weekend off.
Jim and Joe had the most of the weekend planned in the garage. Joe has had all the parts for a moto guzzi sidecar rig for 3+ years. A 1977 T3. He got it all together and took it for its first run on Sunday. It ran great, but the starter motor went out and had to be push started for the ride back. Joe is very pleased with it.
Jim spent time on the 1976 Convert (25,000 miles on it), got it running and ready for inspection and registering.
Jim and I spent a few hours visiting his Aunt Marguerite (84) and showing photos and telling her about her half-brothers, Joe and Pat. She is excited about it all! Also, quizzed her a little and strained her memory for stories and details from the past.
I had five addresses of previous residences of the “Casey” family ancestors from 1890 to 1925 in South Buffalo. Jim and I found the addresses, only two houses remained - one still lived in, the other in disrepair and boarded up. Two were vacant blocks, and Great Grandfather’s saloon had been ‘claimed’ and obviously the land was needed for highway system.
Cold, windy, overcast, some rain for the weekend - not nice weather. Monday morning, there was a huge frost. Unusually cold in mid May, even for Buffalo!
We loaded Monday morning in Belmont, NY south of Buffalo at a highway bridge construction site. We had a truckload of concrete forms and delivered them the next morning near Hartford, Connecticut.
Reloaded different concrete forms at the same place and took them to Richmond, Virginia. Wednesday morning we stopped at the delivery and a man came out to the truck and said, ‘We don’t want these, they don’t come here”. A worry, because we had already accepted a reload for that afternoon, we had to unload somewhere first! After several phone calls, the load was re consigned to Salem, Virginia about four hours west and away from our next pick up! Oh well, off we go!
We unloaded about 12.30pm in Salem, Virginia. Now we had a 350km dead head to the load we had previously arranged. Made it in time to get loaded that afternoon - a whole truckload of mulch going to Buffalo - again.
Delivered that at K Mart on the Friday morning. We waited for awhile and continuously checked the load boards on the Internet. Found a load in Brantford, Ontario, Canada. Only 200kms away. We loaded two steel pieces there - easy.
More and more Canadian shipments have become available to us. The immigration requirements have tightened and everyone now requires a passport to cross the border, whereas previously all that was required was a driver’s license to prove residency and ID. We are all set with Passports and with electronic customs, it has been fast and problem free crossing the border for us. The Canadian shipments pay a little better because they are hard to find drivers and trucks to haul them. Works for us!
A long weekend coming up, Monday was a holiday for Memorial Day, it was also the West Virginia Moto Guzzi rally. We rarely have attended a rally without the truck as our ‘camp’, so we borrowed a small tent of Joe’s, we had sleeping bags.
The last time we attended this rally was in 2001 with the truck.
We travelled south with Joe and Michele on Saturday morning. Joe towed his motorcycle trailer with his ‘chicken coop’ eldorado. He calls it his 'chicken coop' bike because when he bought it, it had been stored in a chicken coop and had poop all over it! He has a large rubber chicken on the dash.
We rode the le mans. Followed beautiful, scenic roads through Western New York and Pennsylvania along the Allegheny River. The Rally site is at a park beside the Ohio River in New Cumberland, West Virginia. Located in the ’panhandle’ of West Virginia - west of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.The Ohio River is the state border between West Virginia and Ohio.
This is referred to an ‘unofficial’ guzzi rally because it is not run by the Moto Guzzi National Owners Club. For 38 years it was run by member/WV Rep, Bucky Bush until he was killed in a bike accident 5 years ago. The town of New Cumberland, local clubs and the Fire Dept now host it because the Rally is a major injection of money into the struggling town of 2,000. It is on the Guzzi Rally calendar and well attended by club members and others.
Only 30% chance of rain forecast the weekend - great! It was cold leaving Buffalo area, but did warm up. It was about 400 kms to New Cumberland, but all small scenic roads so took 7 hours with brunch in Gowanda, NY. Arrived at 3 pm to a large group of campers. Spent the afternoon and evening socializing and having fun. About 150 attended - the weather stayed nice.
There were a lot of Canadian geese spending the spring beside the Ohio River, most had a large group of goslings tagging along. Also the Ohio is a working river with a steady parade of large barges on it.
Frank and Penny loaned us their foam sleeping mats - Frank proved that the large queen size air mattress WOULD fit in their tent! It filled the bottom third of the tent, it looked like a jumping castle - very funny!Several friends we haven’t seen for a few years were there, some we see at least once a year at other rallies and a few we see often. Always an interesting group of people and a lovely rally site.
We packed up and headed off about 9am on Monday morning with Joe and Michele - taking different scenic roads back to their place.
It was nice to have a load on the truck, so the weekend wasn’t a loser - we made some money and a rally!
Monday we had a quick visit with Jim’s mother. Early afternoon, loaded the bike and got to Easton, Pennsylvania late that night.
Delivered early Tuesday and we hoped for a load to Florida to collect our TWIC cards. They have to be personally picked up. Not much going to Florida this year. We waited all day and eventually decided on taking another load to Ontario for the next day.
Wednesday, 27 May we loaded at the US Steel facility near Philadelphia where we loaded two weeks ago - one steel coil.
Delivered in Stoney Creek, Ontario on Thursday, loaded plastic pipe in the afternoon in Etobicoke (near Toronto).
We will deliver in Massachusetts on Friday 29 May..
Notes:
The Casey Family Tree is still taking up a large part of my time. The New York family meets the South Carolina family on 8 June in Buffalo.
Interesting? The Daytona Beach News Journal website has an interactive ‘murder map‘.
The map details every homicide in Volusia and Flagler counties since 2007. Find out more about each victim and see where each body was found by clicking on the name next to the photo. The interactive map will display the location and provide a brief description of what happened. You can read more about some of the areas more notorious murders and murderers in the special reports at the bottom of the page.
It is colour coded for - beaten, stabbed, shot, or strangled....
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