More Teasers For The Motorheads

Back in Daytona, we arrive at the Turkey Run in style! Parking problems solved!!

It's exciting entering the speedway through the tunnels. The burnouts sounded great too!

Wow!, a mid-engined, retro-sleeper-cab, roll-back, hot-rod hauler.

Dave's favorite, a 6400 series Chevy twin-boom Holmes wrecker from the early 50's, for sale, $8,900.

What color Shelby would you choose? This line-up of brand new replicas started at $75,000.

How about this jet engined Corvette Stingray funnycar!!

This 59 Chevy was shaved and moulded, it looked like it was ready to take flight!

COUPES ARE FOR CHICKENS, this 2 door rat-rod was as low as they can be!

When one GMC 6-71 blower is just not enough.....

How about this 3 wheel Isetta with it's matching outdoor bar-on-a-trailer?

A 34 Ford 3 window coupe done up in Harley Davidson trim.

Dave can't decide which classic gas pump he likes best. Wouldn't one look great in front of the shop?

Carol agrees that size DOES matter!

Wouldn't this look great being towed through the Pashley trails by the Farmall tractor? It even spins around! I WANT ONE!!!!

This Willys has the tallest intake hardware I have ever seen! It is higher than the roof!

When a beautiful T-Bucket is not enough, arrive in style carrying it on a 1927 Chevy roll-back hauler!

This pretty pink pre-war Chevy carried these two great looking antique cycles all the way from Quebec!!

Santa and Mrs. Claus even came to town for the event in their own 'streeet rod'.

Here are some numbers about the grandness of the Turkey Run, 4,000 vendor spaces, 2,500 cars, just in the car corral section, 4,800 show vehicles and 125,000 admissions over 4 days, it was GREAT!!

And here in Abaco, the wind blows on...

Intermission

It seems like we just started our winter cruising season and it's already intermission time! While we wait for the sea to get calmer and the ocean passes to stop raging, we thought we would make a couple of posts on the 2011 Daytona Turkey Run Car Show.

These first bunch of photos are actually motorcycles called 'Rat Rod Bikes'. They were made by a company called After Hours Bikes. To see their website click HERE.

Pictures and comments from motorcycle guru Dave:

I deeply appreciate people with an overactive imagination, these builders really think outside the box..........



These bikes started out as late model metric cruisers, however one is from Milwaukee.



The really cool feature was air ride suspensions that would let the bikes park on the ground without kickstands.



I do believe that these bikes couldn't pass a N.Y.S. vehicle safety inspection. Florida dosen't have vehicle inspections.



The identity of the actual brand of bike was almost impossible to distinguish.



It was just a matter of time before someone applied the rat rod design philosophy to motorcycles. I think they should be called GHETTO CRUISERS.



These creations are almost 10 feet long.



There are a lot of one-off fabrication and design here. You don't build these things with parts you buy on e-bay!!



I wonder what they are like to actually ride...........



When 4 of these things came cruising in, the crowd just stopped what they were doing and started snapping pictures.



I have seen a lot of variation on the motorcycle as a vehicle in my 45 year involvement with them, but this was over the top!!



It was the most extreme thing I had ever seen done with a motorcycle.

Stuck in White Sound

Literally! Dave has informed me that when I put the boat in reverse yesterday (at his request), it wedged our anchor under the mooring block. This should be interesting trying to get it back out again. For now though, it's great that we don't have to worry about dragging anchor in the windy weather. We knew that the Whale Cay/Don't Rock Passage wasn't in the cards for us today when we woke to see the Bahamas courtesy flag almost flap itself into shreds. Later in the day, we heard someone talking on the marine VHF radio saying that the passage was pretty nasty. Definitely not something for us to attempt, towing two little boats behind us. The wind is predicted to be even higher the next few days, so by the time we get to Hope Town our personal floating marina of boats should be all cleaned up and organized.

To see New Horizon in White Sound (the little white square blob in the distance) on the Green Turtle Club's web cam, click HERE.

Welcome To The Bahamas, Mon!

After spending a great month in Daytona, ending with the spectacular Turkey Run Car Show at the speedway (look for pictures soon), it was time to head to the Abacos. We had an uneventful trip across the Gulf Stream in a 7 seater plane (except for the fact that Dave once again sat in the co-pilot's seat), and a ferry ride across the clear water of the Sea of Abaco, to the boat storage yard.


As we neared the boatyard and saw the boats in the next picture, we got a little worried about what condition New Horizon was going to be in. The sailboat on the far left fell off its stands onto the little boat now on the ground, plus the mast and rigging on the fallen boat tangled with the black boat's mast and broke it.

New Horizon lucked out though. Considering she went through a hurricane, the old girl is not in too bad a shape. The sun is definitely taking its toll, and the paint is getting very chalky (whatever touches the boat turns white), the decks are really dirty and littered with pine needles and sand, and inside had a bit of mold, but minimal water intrusion. The flybridge wind deflectors that broke and flew off during the hurricane, were actually found by the crew at the boatyard and we now can use them as patterns for replacements. They also found our missing aft cabin window cover that went M.I.A. during the storm.

Shortly after our arrival we were met by Barry and Barb from BeachCruiser, who so graciously invited us to have dinner with them and several other cruisers that had just arrived. Barb had made a huge pot of hearty vegetable soup, knowing that we had all been working hard getting our boats back in shape and would need to eat (in our case we had no food on board too). What a fantastic and much appreciated gesture!

Once New Horizon was back in the water this morning, Dave had no problems getting the engines started. The generator was its stubborn self and took about half an hour of bleeding the system and a can of starting fluid to get running. The skiff runs like a charm, but Dave forgot to put the baitwell drain plug back in, and we almost sank the boat. So much for being overly prepared for rain! The Logic Riot dinghy's steering cable was so seized up that nothing would budge it, so Dave ended up cutting it off. Hopefully Marsh Harbour will still have the replacement one that we saw there last year.

Next on our list of necessities was filling up the fuel tanks. Last season we never had to buy fuel, so now it was time to "pay the piper" or in this case, pay the tank filler. 330 gallons @ $5.49 a gallon = a whopping $1811 diesel bill...OUCH! Well, at least we were offered a free water tank fill up too (normally 20 cents/gallon).

Dave is changing over our fuel filters now, so that we won't have to worry about our engines starving for fuel and stalling during the next phase of getting past the infamous Whale Cay Passage. We are conveniently anchored in White Sound of Green Turtle Cay, right on top of the mooring blocks we found last spring....one of the many perks of having a GPS with waypoints. We may be here for several days, depending on the weather, but there is a slight chance we may head to the other side of the Whale tomorrow. We'll keep you posted!

New Isn't Always Better

Another example of the old and the new is Marineland, just south of St. Augustine. This attraction has been around since 1938 and I remember it well from when our family used to visit in the 1960's. Back then, besides the dolphin act, my favorite part was viewing all the fish and sharks through windows cut in the side of the huge tanks. Several years ago they offered a program where you could swim in a tank with the turtles and rays, and Dave and I couldn't resist.

Unfortunately all this has changed. The fish tanks had to be torn down after one of the hurricanes a couple of years ago, but new ones were built to accommodate the 13 dolphins still at the facility.
Now the Georgia Aquarium is the new owner and the only programs available are related to the care and feeding of the dolphins (swims with the dolphins, trainer for the day, etc.). For the general admission that we paid, we watched one of the feeding sessions from afar, but were brought up close to one of the tanks with two male dolphins in it for a few minutes.

There was no narration at all. Some educational signs have been placed around and there are volunteers to answer questions though.

As much as I always love seeing dolphins, the tanks they were in seemed so bare and sterile compared to what I'm used to seeing in the wild. Even the Dolphin Research Center, where I volunteered for several years in the Florida Keys, is so much better than this with their natural surroundings (and many educational programs). I would think that the dolphins would become bored in between feeding sessions at Marineland, compared to finding rocks, playing with fish and even seagrass at the much more interesting DRC.

We did however have a fun time walking around the grounds with Mom, reminiscing about past vacations.

The Old and the New

Along with the beach itself, Daytona is known for its boardwalk and bandshell. Through the holidays, an ice skating rink has been set up so that you can skate while overlooking the ocean.

It must be a treat to cruise around on the ice in your shorts. They even sell socks since many people arrive in sandals.

These huge concrete blocks hold the tent down, while this machinery runs non-stop to keep the ice from melting.


Mom had a good laugh when Dave tried to convince her to take a lap around the rink.

The boardwalk itself as changed a lot since I was there as a kid. Many of the old buildings have been torn down. The wood has been replaced with bricks and concrete, with yearly racing history engraved right in the blocks.
A large motorcycle racing memorial has also been built, surrounded by individual sponsor's' plaques that were interesting to read.

We were glad to see that the old clock tower has been preserved despite the building of the high rise hotels. The letters DAYTONABEACH coincidentally replace the numbers on the clock.

Walking along the beach and boardwalk sure was a great way to bring back fond memories of days past.

Happy Thanksgiving 2011

Best wishes from these very thankful bloggers!