A Palace of Gold

mrphotoman

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Well on a spur of the moment thing the gf and I decided to brave the 100 degree temps and mid 90% humidity and take a trip to the Palace of Gold. Unfortunately I forgot my spare GoPro battery so this trip is a little short on photos/video.

We left the house around 10AM and it was already very hot, the mesh gear may as well have been winter clothes with the humidity. I selected "avoid highways" on the gps and we departed as quickly as we could in order to get some air circulating. Traffic on the back roads was surprisingly light, normally you find yourself behind slow old people out for a "Sunday drive" or even worse you end up behind a harley going half the posted speed limit.

We rode about 1.5 hours and decided to stop, fill up with gas and grab something to eat. Nearly noon, the heat had increased substantially, we tried to pull our helmets and gloves off as quickly as possible in order to make it inside to get cooled off.

We left the station/restaurant around 30 minutes later and hopped back on the bike to head towards the temple. We had to bear an hour in the interstate then we were glad to find ourselves on a fun twisty road the rest of the trip. Not 30 minutes into the fun stuff we find ourselves behind the dreaded harley, we both literally kept thinking he was going to pull off on a side road because he was so slow. He was going no more than 30% of the posted speed limit and we were becoming a little irritated, bored and extremely hot behind the pirate and his "woman". To lighten the mood I made the observation over our headsets that he was going so fast that it blew his "woman's" boobs around her back (back boobs lol, see photo example below) which resulted in a nice chuckle by my gf.

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mrphotoman

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Well when we finally make it to a straight piece of road, "Johnny Rocket" and "Lady Back Boobs" decide to "show me what a REAL bike can do" lol. You hear the classic harley sound of the powerful 1200cc 40hp motor roar to life and the 1000lb combined weight being thrust forward.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_3Rl-MGcJY&feature=related]‪Sowf Park - Funny motorcycle sound‬‏ - YouTube[/ame]

I casually roll on the throttle in 5th gear, 2up with luggage and go from 35mph to 70mph and causally pass the land pirate and we are on our way. He quickly disappears in the rear view mirror as we approach the end of the short straight and hit the curves.
 

mrphotoman

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A few hours later the heat is taking its toll on us so we stop to take a break at a little Mom and Pop grocery store and eat some ice cream and drink some water. My gps aka android phone batter had died so I thought I would plug it in while we cooled off only to discover the charger tip had broken off! I pull out my backup phone which has garmin gps software installed but it only has 3 bars so we hope that it will get us out of this place on our way home lol. We hang out for around 20 minutes then we drop by a gas station and while we are inside paying we notice our pals Johnny Rocket and BB tear past us, going every bit of 15mph with a long line of cars behind them lol.

Fortunately for us he turns off on a different road which allowed us to make the remaining 35 miles to the Palace before the year 2028.


:cheer::rockon:​
 

mrphotoman

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When you arrive at the Palace of Gold after a short ride on a one lane rode through the woods you are pleasantly surprised to feel like you have somehow been transported directly to India. As we were pulling off our gear (quickly!) we noticed that nearly everyone there were of Indian decent (India) which made you feel as if you were no longer in WV but in some beautiful part of India. We would have liked to spent more time and stayed in the lodge but the heat was getting to us and we wanted to head to Pittsburgh and eat before our ride home.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXIeMiiUkys"]‪Motorcycle trip to the Palace of Gold‬‏ - YouTube[/ame]

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mrphotoman

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As we left the Palace of Gold and headed towards Pittsburgh via "in the middle of nowhere roads" my gps gives us a low battery warning so we are sweating literally and figuratively wondering if we will make it out of these back roads before the phone battery dies. We fortunately make it to civilization and pull off at the first store we see, a Rite Aid. Well I knew I was in for a royal screwing, this is one of the most overpriced stores you can go to but we were hot and it was starting to sprinkle so we decided to just say fk it and get the charger here. Five minutes later and $26 less we have our charger and are on our way to Red Robin. It starts to rain but it only makes it more humid, we ride for another 50 miles and make it to Red Robin.

Once we eat and get back on the bike it is raining harder, 9:30pm and still 90 degrees outside. The rain increases a little as we pull out to get onto the interstate. We are then greeted by an 18 wheeler that must have something against bikes, he would not pull over to let us merge and as I started to speed up I could hear him speeding up to prevent us from merging. I ended up having to come to nearly a complete stop on the merge lane so this @ss could go past us.
 

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Once we get on the interstate, we ride in mildly heavy traffic for around 2 hours in moderate rain and 90 degree temps, we pull off on a rest stop, I go in to get a drink and wash my face off and a guy standing at the urinal proceeds to have a conversation with me lol. He asks me if I am the one riding in the rain and if it was tough, where I am from, why were are out in the heat/rain this late and so on. I answer him quickly and head back to the bike and we take off. I am getting tired it is nearly 1AM and my @ss is starting to hurt, I am starting to lose hope and considering a hotel room when some guys drive past us on the interstate giving us the thumbs up and yelling "hell yeah!". I guess they seen us riding in the heat/rain late at night and thought it was cool lol. That was enough to get me back on track, I honked the horn a few times and waved and we were on our way home. An hour and a half later we pull into the driveway tired, with sore @sses and glad to be home. The bike did great and we had a lot of fun.
 

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When all was said and done, we had ridden over 600 miles and 13 hours Saturday. We had a great time and plan to go back in the fall. This was my 2nd trip to the palace, if you have the opportunity I recommend you check it out.
You can read more about it here:
Palace of Gold
Prabhupada's Palace of Gold

moundsville is also home of the wv state penitentiary which is haunted according to a few of those tv shows. You can actually rent a night in this huge prison in the dark with your friends to go ghost hunting which is cool.
 

VEGASRIDER

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All this time I thought you were out of the country, but was puzzzling because you kept referring to your ride. Had no idea that a place like that exhisted and I've been everywhere.

One note, you might want to consider using a camelback on those long rides. I'm not a fan of carrying anything over my shoulders, but an Ice Cold water while you're riding outweighs the inconvenience. I usually place it in the freezer the night before and it's good for six hours. After that point, I just refill it with ice at everytime I refuel.
 

mrphotoman

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All this time I thought you were out of the country, but was puzzzling because you kept referring to your ride. Had no idea that a place like that exhisted and I've been everywhere.

One note, you might want to consider using a camelback on those long rides. I'm not a fan of carrying anything over my shoulders, but an Ice Cold water while you're riding outweighs the inconvenience. I usually place it in the freezer the night before and it's good for six hours. After that point, I just refill it with ice at everytime I refuel.

Lol that is funny you mentioned that, we talked about buying a camelback all the way up and back yesterday lol.
 

mrphotoman

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Thanks, yeah it is a pretty cool place. I wish I could take photos of the inside, everything in the palace is covered in gold but they do not allow photos inside the temple rooms.

I know these ride reports are not as popular as the "which oil filter is best" threads but a few of you guys may like to look at them lol. There is a cool and huge old prison a few miles away that you can do ghost tours and stuff in and stay the night, I will do a write up on it next.
 

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Thank you for the great bit of photo journalism. WTF.....that palace is in our country? The U S of A? That place is aaaamazing. I have never heard of it but I am blown away. We have so many hidden treasures that are off the beaten path in this country that deserve recognition.

At first, I thought the picture of the "back boob babe" may have been of your girlfriend. Whew. Did they have helmets on?

And, although I don't have one yet, I agree with Kenny, I think a hydration system would be a must in such hot humid weather. Nails to you for a long 2 up ride.

Well done.
 

mrphotoman

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Thank you for the great bit of photo journalism. WTF.....that palace is in our country? The U S of A? That place is aaaamazing. I have never heard of it but I am blown away. We have so many hidden treasures that are off the beaten path in this country that deserve recognition.

At first, I thought the picture of the "back boob babe" may have been of your girlfriend. Whew. Did they have helmets on?

And, although I don't have one yet, I agree with Kenny, I think a hydration system would be a must in such hot humid weather. Nails to you for a long 2 up ride.

Well done.

Lol, no back boobs is not my gf thankfully. :eek:

I am going to look to see if I can find one of the hydration systems cheap/on sale somewhere. I have to get the gf a new tires and a pair of new boots so I may get them on that order so I get the free shipping.
 
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