daddy's little girl..with the burbs thrown in

[JimC]

some of you know my buddy Phil...

aka...ChevyPC...and yes he still has his motorcycles, just hasn't had much time to enjoy them this season. Hopefully that will change soon. One reason for his lack of miles was his daughter Renee was to be married in July. I know that has taken some of his time to help prepare for this.

Michelle and I felt very lucky to be invited to the wedding and seeing our kids were not going it would be a prefect weekend to ride the bike. Everything was happening up on the north shore, hotel in danvers, wedding in Gloucester, and reception in Ipswich.


So Saturday morning we pack up the Duck and head north. We didnt need to be at the hotel until noonish so we decided to get the Concord HD stamp done. And because the kids were dropped off Friday night we had the luxury of leaving early in the morning. Our first stop was for breakfast at a place Ive driven by for years and always wanted to try....We should have kept driving by!

It was the worst breakfast we have ever had! Horrible service, very slow with the cooking and the food just didn't taste very good. Even the coffee was weak and cold. However they do have one thing going for them...the name
Stella's Coffee Shop..How could you go wrong with a name like that? Well they do, if your riding on rt13 in North Leominster don't bother stopping.




Michelle is all smiles..until she finished her tea and saw what the bottom of the coffee cup looked like! I'm not hard to please with breakfast, and to me its pretty hard to screw that up, they did a great job of it.

Okay, back to riding.. we ripped up 13 to NH and then to 101 for a short bit. In Amherst we took a left off of 101 and followed a few twisty roads that lead us back to 13 in Goffstown. A few things we saw along the way..

[JimC]

We arrived in Concord just as they were opening. We went in for our stamps and to check out the cool bikes they have there.



You may notice the two stamp cards...last year Michelle was with me on most of my stamp runs but didn't do the card. This year we figured we should double our chances of wining the bike. The girls behind the counter were not very friendly...maybe they had a bad breakfast too.




Near the front they have two cool bikes for display.





right next to this poster...

[JimC]

After our cards were stamped we hopped back on the bike and headed south. We needed to head straight to Danvers, but had some time to do back roads for a bit. Turns out we were gonna ride right by the NH tag location. Rich had set it at the Pizza by George restaurant in Raymond NH. Ive seen photo's of the pies they have and they look good! We just didn't have the time to stop and enjoy the eats.

We did snag the tag!



I tried to use our next stop as the new tag...


But I found out later it was already used in 2008. I had to dig into my file photo's to place the new New Hampshire tag. Which is on 12 in Walpole



Once we crossed into MA we took I95 south to Danvers.

The wedding was at 2:30 but because the hotel was a few towns away they had bus rented to take people from the hotel to the wedding. The bus was to leave at 1:30, we wanted enough time to check in, clean up and get some lunch before the wedding. However just down the road from the hotel I saw one of these...


I'm trying to collect all of these markers throughout the state. At one time there was 300 of these placed around the state of Massachusetts, Ive read there are less than 90 of them left.

I still have a lot left to find.

Once at the hotel we relaxed and ate a good lunch, then boarded the bus...

[JimC]

It was filled with Phil's family..other than his Dad no one had any idea who we were. I'm sure we were that couple that everyone said..."who are they?" We sat next to Uncle Ken and had a great ride to Gloucester, I never got a photo of him, but let me tell you Uncle Ken has lived one hell of a life. From school teacher, to hospital president and us boarder guard in between, man did he have some stories to tell. He lives in way up state Vermont and currently works for the Home Land Security department.

Here is Phil with his lovely daughter...still single



and now married..



Here is Phil and his wife Judy...


Now there was 2.5 hrs between the wedding and the reception, so they had arranged for the bus to take us on a little tour of the north shore. Our tour guided was "Mama" who was friends with the groom. She was born and raised in Gloucester so she in charge of the afternoons ride.


Our bus driver...



Some sites along the way..

[JimC]

Once at the party I didn't take the camera out for a little while..it was open bar for the first hour so I was busy getting my buzz on
I did snap this shot at some point during the night..



and caught my wife dancing with some old salt!



Now Phil had warned me to pay attention during the Father/Daughter dance...I did one better I video taped it...So here it is, make sure you watch it the whole way thru!

[JimC]

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You Tube

You Tube

[JimC]

The bus ride back to the hotel was full of tired old people and the wedding party..they were not tired, and for sure they were not old!

Michelle and i were tired

The next morning we slept late, got up around 8 and headed out on the bike. We had a babysitter for the whole day so we planned a little riding before heading home.

But first we needed food, Phil had recommended a place in downtown Danvers called Chucks..


They had GREAT homemade hash



It was a great breakfast!

Now it was time to ride...We contacted the burbs..


To see if they wanted to spend sometime with us in the north shore. Of course they were game! We met them in Revere at Boston HD. Yes another stamp!!



Although this is the WORST place to be riding your motorcycle, the girls behind the counter were very friendly to us..she even knew the salute

[JimC]

After we were done stamping we hopped on the bikes and headed out. Michelle had never been on the RBP...or Revere beach Parkway..so we took that north toward Lynn. We stayed on the shore road all the way thru Lynn, Swampscott and finally Marblehead.

I use to do lawn care in the north shore back in the mid 80's and one of my favorite towns was Marblehead. I found out about castle rocks and use to take young women there on dates.. it was a nice place to sit out and watch the submarines sail by Some sites along the way

[JimC]

Mrs Dunkin Duck with Chris on the rocks...



Me pointing to the little bit of grass on a ledge..the spot I would try and make my move on!




Mrs Burbs watching the sail boats go by



From here we rode thru Salem, Beverly, Manchester by the sea and finally Magnolia. I took them around Ocean drive in Magnolia then off to get some lunch we went.

Now usually when I'm up this way I head right to the Village Restaurant in Ipswich. But this time I wanted to try something different. Ive seen this place featured on some of the food shows I watch, and their fried clams looked really good.


Cant really make out the sign...here try this one...

[JimC]

We all agreed to get a whole bunch of different stuff and just share...so we got Scallops, Fish and chips, Oysters and of course the fried clams.



It was my first time having oysters...they were not bad. Not sure if I would order them again..the clams....wow, yummy!!!! Actually, everything was very good, although I didn't get a chance to try the onion rings. If you ever go out to eat with the burbs don't park the onion rings in front of them!!



After our belly's were full, we rode right down the street for a photo which will be a tag some day



Not too far up the road we came to another sign...


Not sure what Chris thinks of me doing u'ys to get these photo's..he never seems to complain



Out loud that is..

Shortly after that photo my camera battery died. So no more shots. Basically we did all back roads from Ipswich to Billerica. Yes for one more Harley stamp. We did stop for some iced coffee at Dunky's in Andover.

In the Harley dealer parking lot we said our goodbyes. The Burbs were heading home to North Attleboro, while we headed west toward West Boylston.

I couldn't help myself while leaving the HD parking lot, and lofted the front end of the multi...doing a tap and go wheelie. The girl walking from her hog to the restaurant next door gave us a smile as we did this. I heard my wife yell Yeehaw as we drove down the road!