wfooshee
O, Woe is me!!
The House of Foosh played host Thursday and Friday to Patriot and mvette. They arrived Thursday evening after spending the day Thursday in Pensacola at the Museum of Naval Aviation. We didn't do anything except unload when they got here, and we watched some TV, browsed some Internet. And listened to Mike (Patriot) whine about his lost tank bag, and all the stuff that was in it. (Running gag for the weekend: Well, I had one of those, it musta been in the tank bag.) Seems he left it on the bike at the motel Wednesday night, and it wasn't there in the morning.
Got up bright and early Friday AM. Well, it would have been bright and early in whatever time zone is west of California..... First things first, a mini tech day to take care of Patriot's idle issue he posted about a while back. Turn the adjust knob, nothing happens. Bike wants to idle about 500, maybe 700 RPM, but it can't. Lift tank and look, can't see the idle screw under the throttle tab. Remove tank, some bodywork, tool tray, air box, and we see that the idle screw is backed all the way out, and won't thread back in, got itself cocked a little bit out of perpendicular to the plate it threads through. We got it re-threaded and turned it up till it touches, then reassemble enough to start the bike and warm it up. Once warm, idle sets easily. Only real problem was putting shit back on his multi-RAM-ball clamp on the clutch side, where I got the clamp-spacer-bar-washer-bolt sequence incorrect and lost a half hour trying to assemble stuff that didn't fit.
OK, bike idles, doesn't die when he comes to a stop. Off we go.
First, breakfast. Local waffle shop place called Flapjack's.
mvette in the parking lot. He reminds me a lot of majicmaker (but without the latino accent) because he keeps his bike too damn clean. At least mvette has a clutch lever....
And Patriot
The goods:
After breakfast we rode up to Marianna to the Florida Caverns State Park and did the cave tour. This is the only publicly-accessible non-submerged cave system in the state. When we got there, the gate lady said told us that oh, by the way, the water's off up there, if you need a restroom take the first right and go to the horse camp. She didn't say it was 3 miles to the horse camp, but we found it. That little road through the park was awesome, it would be great to be able to go practice it! So once properly relieved we headed to the main area and the cave tour:
The shots in the cave were done with available light, no flash, at ISO 3200, 1/30, using my 30mm f:1.4 lens. Yay, fast glass! Flash photography is allowed, but I liked the colors better using their effect lighting.
After the cave, we came home for clean shirts, then went to Schooner's, where RadioHowie and I ate last time he was up here. We got rained on, pretty hard, from a bright and sunny sky. WTF??!?!? Well, there were some small clouds, not dark at all, but it poured.
They keep bike parking right at the front, which is Well and Correct:
This one was...... different. 2-stroke something-or-other on a bicycle. Cable-operated clutch, twist throttle, magneto ignition. I didn't find any brakes. No, there was not a coaster brake in the hub, no frame bracket for that.
They seated us right up against the beach wall, so we could see the sunset. I'm batting 1000 at this place for seating. When RadioHowie was up here we were seated right by the back steps to the beach. This time we were seated, uh, right by the back steps to the beach. Just the other side of the aisle. And they had a sunset for us:
The food showed up. I had a giant burger, Patriot had the grouper burger, and mvette had a bowl of shrimp. Not pictured is the key lime pie afterwards.
A Schooner's tradition is firing the cannon at sunset. When RadioHowie was here, the thing misfired, no boom. Well this time, sunset came and went, and no cannon. So another way I'm batting 1000, no cannon! They kept saying it was coming, but they were nearly 10 minutes late. It finally showed, and they fired it, a bit late, but it made the boom and all were happy!
The sun might have been gone when the cannon finally fired, but the colors were still there:
After supper, home for some showers (not together!!!!) and some sleep (again, not....)
Next day (today) We repeated the breakfast trip, gassed up, and headed west to Eglin AFB and the Air Foce Armament Museum. We've been there before, and I've posted it a couple times on the forum, but I think it was mvette's first shot at it. I carried my tank bag, even though there was nothing in it, because.... well, because I had one!
On the way we went to the EOD Memorial, which is not exactly in a publicly-accessible area. You go through a gate which is unmanned, but has signs promising death and imprisonment if you access the area without proper orders and authorization. So through the gate we rode, parked at the school there, and walked across the street to the memorial.
EOD is Explosive Ordnance Disposal, and those are the guys that disarm things. The bomb squad. You find an unexploded bomb in your back yard, or an IED on the side of your driveway, these are the guys that handle it. The school here at Eglin (run by the Navy, oddly enough) is where they train the folks for this. Obviously, in such a majorly dangerous line of work, sometimes they do something wrong, don't have enough time, or walk into a trap (like an obvious bomb that they work while surrounded by better-hidden "real" bombs,) many of those guys make the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty, and they are memorialized here. There are four panels on the memorial, one for each military branch, and the names are listed with the dates of their events. The school and memorial are located on Eglin land just northeast of Niceville.
After that we rode through Niceville, stopping for a light lunch (heh) at Dairy Queen, then on to the Armament Museum at Eglin:
The museum has a number of aircraft on display, as well as arms carried by aircraft and by personnel. They have WWI machine guns, all the way up to modern guided munitions. They have rotary cannons, machine guns, samples of the rounds, and history displays on the development of many weapon systems.
75mm (!) cannon:
7.62 rotary carried by the AC-47 "Spooky" in the Vietnam War:
20mm Vulcan, with different types of rounds shown cutaway in the case above it:
40mm carried by the AC-130 "Spectre." On the shelf above it are samples of 20mm, 40mm, and 105mm rounds.
Some shots inside the building:
P-51:
P-47:
F-105, with many of the items it could carry:
F-80:
After the museum we said our g'byes, cried, and headed towards home. The went north to I-10 to go west, I headed east back to Panama City, threw the memory card onto the PC and did all this stuff to tell you what the rest of us, not at EOM, have been up to.
Oh, yeah. We didn't have any more rain!
Got up bright and early Friday AM. Well, it would have been bright and early in whatever time zone is west of California..... First things first, a mini tech day to take care of Patriot's idle issue he posted about a while back. Turn the adjust knob, nothing happens. Bike wants to idle about 500, maybe 700 RPM, but it can't. Lift tank and look, can't see the idle screw under the throttle tab. Remove tank, some bodywork, tool tray, air box, and we see that the idle screw is backed all the way out, and won't thread back in, got itself cocked a little bit out of perpendicular to the plate it threads through. We got it re-threaded and turned it up till it touches, then reassemble enough to start the bike and warm it up. Once warm, idle sets easily. Only real problem was putting shit back on his multi-RAM-ball clamp on the clutch side, where I got the clamp-spacer-bar-washer-bolt sequence incorrect and lost a half hour trying to assemble stuff that didn't fit.
OK, bike idles, doesn't die when he comes to a stop. Off we go.
First, breakfast. Local waffle shop place called Flapjack's.
mvette in the parking lot. He reminds me a lot of majicmaker (but without the latino accent) because he keeps his bike too damn clean. At least mvette has a clutch lever....
And Patriot
The goods:
After breakfast we rode up to Marianna to the Florida Caverns State Park and did the cave tour. This is the only publicly-accessible non-submerged cave system in the state. When we got there, the gate lady said told us that oh, by the way, the water's off up there, if you need a restroom take the first right and go to the horse camp. She didn't say it was 3 miles to the horse camp, but we found it. That little road through the park was awesome, it would be great to be able to go practice it! So once properly relieved we headed to the main area and the cave tour:
The shots in the cave were done with available light, no flash, at ISO 3200, 1/30, using my 30mm f:1.4 lens. Yay, fast glass! Flash photography is allowed, but I liked the colors better using their effect lighting.
After the cave, we came home for clean shirts, then went to Schooner's, where RadioHowie and I ate last time he was up here. We got rained on, pretty hard, from a bright and sunny sky. WTF??!?!? Well, there were some small clouds, not dark at all, but it poured.
They keep bike parking right at the front, which is Well and Correct:
This one was...... different. 2-stroke something-or-other on a bicycle. Cable-operated clutch, twist throttle, magneto ignition. I didn't find any brakes. No, there was not a coaster brake in the hub, no frame bracket for that.
They seated us right up against the beach wall, so we could see the sunset. I'm batting 1000 at this place for seating. When RadioHowie was up here we were seated right by the back steps to the beach. This time we were seated, uh, right by the back steps to the beach. Just the other side of the aisle. And they had a sunset for us:
The food showed up. I had a giant burger, Patriot had the grouper burger, and mvette had a bowl of shrimp. Not pictured is the key lime pie afterwards.
A Schooner's tradition is firing the cannon at sunset. When RadioHowie was here, the thing misfired, no boom. Well this time, sunset came and went, and no cannon. So another way I'm batting 1000, no cannon! They kept saying it was coming, but they were nearly 10 minutes late. It finally showed, and they fired it, a bit late, but it made the boom and all were happy!
The sun might have been gone when the cannon finally fired, but the colors were still there:
After supper, home for some showers (not together!!!!) and some sleep (again, not....)
Next day (today) We repeated the breakfast trip, gassed up, and headed west to Eglin AFB and the Air Foce Armament Museum. We've been there before, and I've posted it a couple times on the forum, but I think it was mvette's first shot at it. I carried my tank bag, even though there was nothing in it, because.... well, because I had one!
On the way we went to the EOD Memorial, which is not exactly in a publicly-accessible area. You go through a gate which is unmanned, but has signs promising death and imprisonment if you access the area without proper orders and authorization. So through the gate we rode, parked at the school there, and walked across the street to the memorial.
EOD is Explosive Ordnance Disposal, and those are the guys that disarm things. The bomb squad. You find an unexploded bomb in your back yard, or an IED on the side of your driveway, these are the guys that handle it. The school here at Eglin (run by the Navy, oddly enough) is where they train the folks for this. Obviously, in such a majorly dangerous line of work, sometimes they do something wrong, don't have enough time, or walk into a trap (like an obvious bomb that they work while surrounded by better-hidden "real" bombs,) many of those guys make the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty, and they are memorialized here. There are four panels on the memorial, one for each military branch, and the names are listed with the dates of their events. The school and memorial are located on Eglin land just northeast of Niceville.
After that we rode through Niceville, stopping for a light lunch (heh) at Dairy Queen, then on to the Armament Museum at Eglin:
The museum has a number of aircraft on display, as well as arms carried by aircraft and by personnel. They have WWI machine guns, all the way up to modern guided munitions. They have rotary cannons, machine guns, samples of the rounds, and history displays on the development of many weapon systems.
75mm (!) cannon:
7.62 rotary carried by the AC-47 "Spooky" in the Vietnam War:
20mm Vulcan, with different types of rounds shown cutaway in the case above it:
40mm carried by the AC-130 "Spectre." On the shelf above it are samples of 20mm, 40mm, and 105mm rounds.
Some shots inside the building:
P-51:
P-47:
F-105, with many of the items it could carry:
F-80:
After the museum we said our g'byes, cried, and headed towards home. The went north to I-10 to go west, I headed east back to Panama City, threw the memory card onto the PC and did all this stuff to tell you what the rest of us, not at EOM, have been up to.
Oh, yeah. We didn't have any more rain!
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