Just got back from riding the Pine Barrens 300, a motorcycle Adventure Ride in the wilds of Southern New Jersey. The ride is 300 miles of GPS-navigated off-road style riding over two days through woods, cranberry bogs, trails and sand. The event had well over 100 riders and the bikes ranged from small 250cc enduros to 1200cc BMW behemoths.

No camping this time as 300 off-road miles over two days is tiring and a king-sized bed is better than the hard ground.

All the pictures are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thestevensons/sets/72157622558585052/

Here's some video from Day 2. This time I happened to be the rider in front of the guy with the camera so that's me you see barreling through the woods.

And a much better video:

My buddy for 15 years.

Had a chance to go to Delaware for my niece's birthday party this weekend. It was held in the Georgetown fire hall and the girls had a chance to pose with my father, a volunteer firefighter with over 40 years of experience running into burning buildings and pulling people from wrecked cars. My admiration for him is immeasurable.



.

Went riding with a group of guys from D.A.M.N. Riders this past weekend and enjoyed the massive Pine Barrens area of NJ.

I know that it is hard to conceive, but about a third of the state of New Jersey is actually wilderness as evidenced by the map below:

Imagine a sandy area roughly the size of the entire DC metropolitan area covered with pine trees and bogs and that's the Jersey Pine Barrens.

Here's a couple of us taking a break, sucking sweet, nourishing water from our Camelbak packs.

Here's a video of the riding. It's not my video but one of the guys that rode with us giving you an idea of the fun we had.

Mackenzie and I went on our annual motorcycle trip recently. Deciding to head South after going West and North the last two years, we took Beth's advice and stuck to the high altitudes to counter the heat this time of year in the southern latitudes.

We headed down two of the best motorcycle touring roads in the East - Skyline Drive and Blue Ridge Parkway. During the week these roads are essentially devoid of the traffic that clogs them during the week. Mackenzie and I lolled along at the speed limit (imagine that) and enjoy the slow sweepers, putting both of us in a blissful, calm state. Even spotting a couple of black bears on Skyline did not take us out of our daze.

Mackenzie chilling at a rest stop on the Blue Ridge Parkway



In Boone, NC getting ready to ride



All pictures here


.
Jeff Stevenson

Beth and Mackenzie ventured to Prague in the Czech Republic this summer. Mackenzie is back home but Beth stayed over there for a photography course.

Beth's Prague Blog

.

Ever wonder what would happen if you turned a kid loose with your cameraphone and told them to "have at it"?

The kid is Jenna Donovan, my cousin Aerin and her husband Matt's little one.

The complete results are here

In West Virginia for the annual West Virginia State Folk Festival.

Beth and I journeyed back to Glenville, WV for a weekend of family fun with my cousin Kelly (Campbell) Jansen and her family, camping in Cedar Creek State Park and off-roading on Kelly's property in the nearby mountains.





Tom Weaver, Kelly's SO, his son Brode and I spent Saturday riding motorcycles and 4 wheelers on the mountain trails while Beth took cousins Lynsey, Kelsey, Zeke and his friend Paul Akers mudding with the Tacoma. I followed their tracks later and noted that she drove though some mud holes that I probably would not have gone into. Oh the joy of youthful ignorance.



All the vehicles survived but I am pretty sore as I had a couple of low speed get-offs on the DR650. I even managed to get a picture of the bike sleeping after one uphill wipeout. The tree it is resting against is all that is keeping it from a fifty foot drop off.



The GPS tracks are here and the Google Earth (KMZ) file can be downloaded here

On the left side in Google Maps, expand tracks and you can deselect/select certain tracks to be displayed.

- The red line is the ride into town from Cedar Creek.
- The lighter red, orange and yellow lines are the trip to the property that Brode and I took early in the day from the Lynch Run side.
- The green lines show the route I took following Beth in the truck.
- The light green lines shows where I went from the Rock Riffle side back to the Lynch run entrance after being unable to climb the hill to the property. This is also where the DR650 took the dirt nap pictured above.
- The blue lines are short rides up on the property.
- The purple lines are a trip up to the top of Hiney Hill and back into town.

You cannot imagine how difficult these "roads" were as West Virginia county roads aren't quite the same thing as in other states. They make the dirt roads in Delaware look positively modern.

West Virginia has this curious habit of routing a "road" down a rocky creek bed if it is convenient. The more civilized portions of these so-called "roads" consists of two muddy, foot-deep ruts usually bounded on one side by a steep hillside and on the other by the afore-mentioned creek bed. Next time up I will take more pictures of these



All pictures can be found here in the Flickr set "WV Folk Festival 2009".


.
Jeff Stevenson

Home again, home again... after 850 miles.

Pictures from the entire trip are here.

GPS track is here.

Left the hotel in Glenville, WV around noon:

Stopped at an overlook somewhere between Holly, WV and Guardian, WV:

On top of Spruce Knob, WV:

1st half of the day:

View Larger Map

2nd half of the day:

View Larger Map

We ended up rolling back into Gaithersburg, MD around 11:00 pm. That's 11 hrs....we were tired. . Jeff Stevenson

Today was spent sleeping late, eating lunch at the local Glenville, WV restaurant and riding the local back roads.

View Larger Map

West Virginia is a great place to ride- smooth roads, no traffic, no police to speak of, beautiful scenery.