Laurel Highlands Campout

I had a floating holiday to use up, so I went to this campout at the last minute.
It's hosted by the local BMW club in Pennsylvania.
http://www.lhbmwr.com/home.html
This was my first beemer rally.

Here's some of the roads we did. I didn't have my gps on for most of the trip.

Check out the change in elevation.


I went with Ed who, like me, is a member of the local DC area BMW riders club. He's on a r1150gs. Notice the camping gear attached all over his bike.

Reminds me of something from Grapes of Wrath.

Our first stop was for breakfast at the Roadkill Cafe. Good biscuits.

You can buy biscuits and a shotgun here at the same time. They give you a free knife with the shotgun.



Alley Cat Creams next to the cafe. Can you see the alley cats? They are below the window.

Hmmm..I guess some one ordered take out from the Road Kill cafe.
The cat has a chipmunk in its mouth.


Covered bridge. Not a big deal, really.

Lisa & Ron sitting in a tree.
The construction of the bridge is kind of neat. There are large planks of wood bent into arches.

Old,covered bridge / New, uncovered bridge


Before getting to the camp, we stopped at Fallingwater.
http://www.fallingwater.org/

It was a residence created by Frank Lloyd Wright for the Kaufmann family in the 1930's. The house is located 50 miles from Pittsburgh. It is built over a waterfall, and there are natural springs running through parts of the house.
http://www.fallingwater.org/

The house is made from concrete, wood, steel and stone.
FLW wanted the house to be a part of the surrounding environment.
The terraces were inspired from the rock along the creek.
The tan color in the concrete terraces was selected by Wright because it matched the color of the back of a rhododendron leaf.



The terraces are based on a cantilever design. So the weight is supported only on one side of the terrace. It's like a diving board.
On the opposite side, you can see the concrete going into the rock.



The house is on the right and the natural rock face is on the left.

Gutter system and birds nest.

There is a natural spring that goes through some of the rock. The spring even runs in parts of the house.

Soap on a rope.

The support beam was built around the tree.

They wouldn't let us take photos inside the house. Kinda lame.
There is a lot of artwork collected by the family. The shelves are based on a cantilever design as well.

The space in the house feels small. The beds and stairways are small. FLW did this on purpose.


Stairs leading to the creek

Window coming out of the stone.

The is no AC in this house. It does have heat. There are a lot of windows.
This shows a desk cut to make room for the swinging window. You could hear the waterfall throughout the house, and feel a cool breeze from the woods.

There are security cameras all over. Even inside the house. I ripped off the interior photos from the internet, just to give an idea of what I saw. You can pay for a special tour where you can take photos. The tour guide said that she sometimes sees celebrities on the tour, like Sigourney Weaver. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie had dinner at the house (costs extra).


As soon as we got to the campsite, it started to rain.
Rain was the theme for the weekend.
It poured on us twice as we setup camp. I just gave up and went under Ed's tarp.

The people next to us gave up too. They held a rain fly over themselves for 10 minutes.

With my camp all setup, I stowed my wet gear under the rain fly.

Some folks brought a chase car...

Cool bikes.


Ed went to get beer. This is his favorite. He hyped it up, so I just think it's ok....

Shane arrives with his Triumph in the evening. He had no idea about all the rain we got!

He brought a bottle of rum because it's easier to carry than a case of beer.
Smart.

Ed likes to display the BMWBMW shirt. It has the logo of the DC area club.
What he needs is a dang flag!


Nice campsite with good facilities.

Cool bike. The original color was purple. The seat has some purple where the black paint has worn through.


The next morning.......time to hit the road!

Lots of swiggly lines recommended by the locals.....


Ed was able to get a local person, Tom, to show us around. Tom has an old K bike. Pretty cool looking. Tom is a postmaster. Have you ever met a postmaster?
We rode around for a bit. Nice roads and friendly people. People mowing their lawns would just wave to us. Some folks here talk like they are from Baltimore. I guess it's kind of a Pittsburgh accent.

Tom's bike (in blue) had a problem. He only had 4th and 5th gear. Tom was able to get to a dealership and got a ride home on Shane's Triumph. I wish I had a photo of that, hahaha.

Shane notices some cord showing on Ed's bike. Ed never checked his tread wear before the trip. Nice going. :deal

We were trying to convince him that he couldn't make it back to MD.
What do you think? Some of the cord is circled in red.

Ed trying to think positively.

At this point, Shane and Tom rode 2-up to get Tom back home to his other bike. I stayed with Ed to find any tire at any place that would fit. I fortunately had 3g access on my iphone so we could call a bunch of places.
Ed on the phone.

Tom returns with an old tire on his shoulder. It is 130/17 instead of 150/17, but it will work. :clap
Getting the wheel off.

It was hot and sunny. It must have sucked to do that. The wheel came off pretty quickly though.

The dealership was able to swap the tire in a few minutes.
The bill was $26.50

New tire mounted! Poor Ed. Beneath that smile there is no happiness.

Shane and I just chilling.

After lunch, the ride continued. Tom led us through some decent roads and showed us some local landmarks we didn't care so much about. Including:
Portage railroad monument.

This bridge was actually neat. It is skewed.


Check out how the stone twists.

We went to the Horseshoe Curve. At first I though I could ride my bike around a big U-turn. It turns out that the Horseshoe Curve is some old railroad thing. None of us wanted to pay the $4 for the park entrance fee, so we bailed.
Shane and I were getting kinda irked by the route. We went through a bunch of towns and got stuck at red lights. I could have stayed home and done that!

Tom's suzuki.

Shane smoking a cig.



These windmills were really cool.

We rode a bit more and then got back to camp.

Chicken. It took 2 hours to cook by the fire department. Tastes better with hot sauce.

And the best bike award goes to.........
This guy!

Bonus points for getting it dirty and really using it as advertised.



Engine isn't even broken in yet.

Chase shows up on Saturday evening.

He has a fancy new Kermit chair.

That's all you see here.....Kermit chairs.....

Chase gets some music playing....

I don't have a kermit chair. It's too big and heavy. For half the size, you can get an Alite Monarch chair (in red). Much better than the Kermit chair. All because I have a BMW doesn't mean I must have a Kermit chair!!

I'll let this hippie chick demonstrate how it works:

This was a recipe for disaster. No disaster happened, though.

Shane and his Kermit chair.

Good times at the camp fire.

Sunday morning: more rain!

We had to break down camp in the rain. It didn't rain as hard as when we set up camp on Friday.


I think I was the only person at the campsite with a camera.........

The total mileage was about 560mi.

~The End~

Awesome!! I need to do a weekend like that one of these days! Thanks for sharing :thumbup: