Day 1: To Pennsylvania to eat a giant burger

Sport-tourers don’t need a “real good” reason to get on their bike and ride, they just need “a” reason. And what’s a better reason than to go and meet up with a bunch of sport-tourers for lunch and try and eat some huge burgers at a place that is famous for making world’s biggest burgers. Who cares that the place is in Pennsylvania and is 600 miles away.

This was the second ST.N burger run for me. Last year we added on some extra miles by doing some extra roads, I wasn’t planning on doing that this year since this was “officially” my first long ride of the season.

The weather this weekend was looking very nice for Illinois and Pennsylvania and everywhere in between, with possible rain on Sunday in Chicagoland late at night which I was hoping to miss if I got in early enough.





Ready to ride to PA: Sandy, Rick and myself in my driveway

Out of all my friends, only Rick and Sandy were doing this ride. It was going to be real neat traveling with two other Ducati ST’s. The three of us have yet to tour together.

Rick and Sandy showed up in my driveway at 8AM and unfortunately I wasn’t ready. I haven’t had much time to get the bike ready for the trip, we decided we were going on a few days ago. I was still packing this morning and putting air in my tires. I haven’t toured on this bike since last fall so I was having problems finding some of the things I needed for the trip.



I lost some anifreeze over winter, needed to top off

By 9AM we were heading toward downtown Chicago and then we ended up getting stuck in some nasty traffic. Rush hour traffic on a Saturday morning? It was mostly do to construction I guess, I don’t go this way very often. Just a little past Indiana traffic got lighter and it was smooth sailing all the way to Pennsylvania for all three ducs. I’ve been riding my XT so much the last few months that the ST3 really felt like a Goldwing. I was very careful the first hour, getting reacquainted with my sport-touring bike and the way it handles on the road and slow maneuvers in the parking lot. It was last year, this same ride out to PA that I dropped the ST3 in a parking lot because of fatigue and lack of sleep, that was the only time that I’ve ever dropped any of my bikes in a parking lot.



Gas station stop, someone volunteered to take a picture of us

I was sore within the first 300 miles and in Ohio I asked Rick for an Aleve. I’ve never taken Aleve before, I must say I felt much better. I can usually do long miles on the bike with no effort, but riding long distances only becomes effortless after I do a few shorter “long” rides and I’m able to increase my tolerance for sitting in the saddle all day.



Lubricating the chains at 500 miles in to the ride

After spending all day on the interstate, with only one longer break to eat lunch, we arrived in Clearfield, PA at 7PM. We checked in to the Day’s Inn and grabbed some dinner at the Dutch Pantry, same place as last year.





Arriving at the Day's Inn Clearfield, PA



Dinner at the Dutch Pantry



I had the same exact thing last year, the seafood plate



This shoeless pie was shared by Sandy, Rick and I, very rich

Good food, cheap food and within walking distance. I didn’t even have enough energy to drink a beer afterwards with the group, so I went directly to bed to rest up for tomorrows return trip.

Leaving Mississippi

We were planning on doing a very short ride this morning, but decided to skip it and leave early to get home early. We all needed to go back to work tomorrow. After a nice breakfast, we packed up the bikes, stopped in at the Pizza Hut in Holly Springs for lunch and then Mike headed back to Louisiana and Jay and I headed back to Illinois.



Last morning in Wall Doxey S.P.

Wall Doxey is a very nice park, I highly recommend it for camping. Great facilities and reasonable prices.



Always a sad moment, loading up the bikes to go home

Day 3: Wall Doxey, MS

Today was finally a little warmer. It was going to hit mid 50’s for the high temperature, finally some nice riding weather! I never thought that April in Mississippi could be so cold. We took off right after breakfast and found ourselves some nice trails to ride.







Mike ripping on the trails

The trail was nice but then the terrain got harder and harder to ride, so we turned back around and went on to the next thing, Sardis Lake. The lake has a maximum storage capacity of 1,512,000 acre-feet of water so during the fall and winter months the lake is gradually drawn down to a "conservation pool" of 9800 acres. Right now the lake was dry.



Going to Sardis Lake



Proof that this is a "lake"





Got to have at least one good group shot. From left to right, Jay and his Suzuki DR650, (me) Anna and her Yamaha XT225 and Mike and his Honda XR650L






Bikes posing by Lake Sardis



Jay got himself stuck in the soft sand/mud



Mike helping Jay pull his back tire out of the muck

Riding around Sardis Lake was a lot of fun and at times it felt like riding through a desert, this is such a huge area, but. The fisherman were huddling around the small pools of water trying to catch something and we were riding around in the sand disturbing them and possibly the fish too. This place was probably the highlight of the whole trip.



We stopped for a snack and drinks and ran in to some adv riders originally from Illinois, now living in Mississippi, it's a small world.



Mmmmmmmmm… corndog makes a good afternoon snack



It was a very exciting day for Jay, he was pretty beat after the ride

Day 2: Wall Doxey, MS

Another cold morning. All I have to say, at least it’s not raining, that would really be miserable in those temps.



Breakfast is served: Coffee, shambled eggs, grits and oatmeal

Today we rode toward Tennessee using the Trans America Trail route. The roads were all the same, made of big gravel, not the most fun to ride. It was also very cold in the upper 40’s. Usually the cold temperatures aren’t a problem for me, usually when its that cold I’m riding the ST3 or the 954RR with heated grips, heated vest and a wind screen. Without all those things, upper forties all day long felt very, very cold. Plus I was cold yesterday and never rode my core temp because I was camping and it got very cold overnight, so today I was freezing all day.









Trans America Trail roads



Nice view of the countryside

We didn’t go as far as we wanted to and came back on pavement to make it back to the campsite faster.



Does someone actually live here?



Heading back to the camp, late lunch stop in Holly Springs, MS



Dinner tonight: crawfish etoufee

Another really cold and clear night, last night dropped down to upper 20’s, tonight was warmer, in the low 30's. We huddled by the fire but it didn't feel like it was giving off enough heat to keep warm. Off to sleep we went.

Day 1: Wall Doxey, MS

We woke up to crisp temperatures, after some coffee and food we started unloading the bikes.



Breakfast: Mike brought Boudin from Louisiana







We did some gravel roads and some forest trails today, just kind of checked out the area to figure out where to go tomorrow.

It was a cold day, in the upper 40's, low 50's, with a late start and no lunch, we got back to the camp site for an early dinner.



Mike pre-prepared all the meals and had them frozen, we just needed to heat them up.



Our cook



Our dinner tonight: shrimp and pasta



Our camp site



The fire felt good as the temperatures plunged in to the 30's again.

Heading down to Mississippi

My friend Jay and I left work early so we could get an early start. By 3PM we were on the road heading to Mississippi in a borrowed pickup truck arriving at the Wall Doxey State Park in North Mississippi around midnight. Surprisingly Mike was coming from Louisiana and he arrived 5 minutes before us. We set up our tents and by 1AM we were ready for bed.



My driveway, my XT225 and Jay's DR650, ready to go

It was a cold night, in the mid 30’s, we had an electric hook up which meant we could use the electric blanket. This weekend will unfortunately be cold and the next few nights are supposed to be even colder than tonight. I wasn’t looking forward to any more cold weather, I was hoping for more seasonal temps, the overnight temps should be in the mid 40’s right now.

New Orleans, LA

I was supposed to fly back this morning but I missed my flight because of a bad accident on the highway. I had a few more hours in New Orleans, now I was flying out at 5PM .



Bourbon Street



Fancy balcony decorations





Lunch at the La Bayou Restaurant, crab cakes for appetizer



Seafood with pasta for lunch