2014 Grand Tour Trash Talk'n, Picture Posting, Whatcha Doing Thread

[drphill]

2014 Easter weekend assault

So the three day weekend came up and I happened to have some free time, what better way to spend it than riding my bike & GT hunting…and staying WAY ahead of SHOOTER.

For those that don’t know, I live in NW Indiana (in the flat section) and near Chicago. SO, instead of boring you with endless photos of VERY straight roads, here are some highlights of my GT hunting so far.

Friday dawned cool (50’s) with the promise of 60’s sometime in the afternoon. I geared up, met my friend Patrick and off we went. Not much really exciting happened other than riding flat and very straight (pot holed) roads with a few gravel roads thrown in for fun. Yeah, my Goldwing is an Adventure bike! I even managed a couple of water crossings…

Anyway, the Highlight of Friday was riding up to this town on our way home. I helped design not only this sign but several of the buildings in this town.

Aberdeen, IN

Saturday saw us up before dawn to take my daughter to skool for tennis. She had to ride the bus, I got to ride the bike and snag GT boni along the way. Not much exciting happened as again, it FLAT and the roads are STRAIGHT here. I did manage to find a couple of curves and rode them twice. No pictures though, I was too excited turning my handlebars.

Obligatory GT pic…

Rensselaer, IN H.S.

Off to watch the tennis tournament for a couple of hours.


Time out to watch Tennis Tournament


more watching tennis


Emily & Me


SO…end of tournament (they lost) and back home just in time to pick my daughter Emily up from skool and head to the track to watch the Illinois Derby.

Emily has rode in the GT with me the past couple of years and we’ve been accumulating better and better gear for her. I scored a suit for her off ADVrider and she got a new helmet at the IMS show this February.


Emily checking herself out...


Father Daughter...

So off to Hawthorne Race Course we went. With the compressed schedule of the day, we had to slab it into Chicago so no photos. I did enjoy waving (like a sugared up 5 year old) at the people waiting for the trains. Most were oblivious, a couple people half-waved, and one waved back wildly.

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Anyway, time for me to go to “work”…I am an Equine Photographer and sell stock images from the race tracks. The KY Derby qualifying races happen to be in the neighborhood so this is what we came here for…


horses down the back stretch

While waiting for the IL Derby, this guy dropped in…

Parachute with flag


…AND THEY’RE OFF.


Thru the first turn...MY horse is in the lead!


side by side to the wire!


PHOTO FINISH!


so...who won? It was a photo finish and it took a while to determine the winner. The inside (grey) horse lost by >< that much…or by a nose. Yup, $500K decided by less than an inch.


Gas Money! – yup, we picked three (out of the 4 tickets) and won enough to ride the whole GT this year on a $2 wager.


Midnight Hawk...enjoying the day. He’s owned by several Chicago Blackhawks coaches (and Mike Tice former Bears O coach) and suffered the same fate today as the hockey team did...a loss.

Sunday dawned, I rode some more flat and very straight roads. Not much to report…except this:

103-ish DONE...so far.

HA! Take that Shooter!