Back From The Fingerlakes BMW Rally

Every year, on Labor Day weekend, the Fingerlakes BMW Riders Club, has it's annual rally, and this year was no exception. The weather started out a bit iffy on Friday, but improved as the weekend progressed. A bunch of us from the Western New York BMW Riders Club, went down and set up camp for the weekend in our usual location at Watkind Glen State Park, and proceeded to have a great time, as usual. There where all kinds of BMW's from all over.


On Saturday, a group of us headed to the Keuka Lake area to visit some of the local wineries and do a little wine tasting. The ride to Hamondsport was just beautiful, warm and sunny. We had a great time at the wineries, and most of us came back with a bottle of wine or two. More pictures here.

The S.P.O.T. Personal Emergency Locator

Test Track

S.P.O.T. Personal Locator

Well, as I mentioned earlier, I will be taking the S.P.O.T. Personal Emergency Locator with me to South America in January. I now have the unit, and have had a little time to try it out to see how it performs. I received the unit when I was in Oshkosh, Wisconsin at the EAA Airshow. On my return trip, I set the unit to the "Track" mode when I left Oshkosh, and headed to the Mississippi River. I left the unit running most of the time until I reached Cleveland, Ohio. As you can see from the composit picture above, the unit worked as advertised, saving my location every ten minutes, and if you look at the location of Oshkosh, you will note that the unit also sent an "I'm OK" message home, as well. (green OK logo)

The software to manage the messages is all Web Based, and it is not the most user friendly software around. There may be a learning curve here, if any of you want to use it to keep track of my progress on next years motorcycle trip to the southern end of South America. If you are interested in using it to follow me down, send me an email to rguzman@rochester.rr.com , in advance, and we will practice with the software together.

What A Beautiful Day For A Ride

Finally!!!! Mike gets his long awaited "Peach Shortcake"

The Whole Group: from left to right, Me and Sharon, Howard (AKA Harold) Joe, Rick, Paula, Mike, Penny and Don

Howie and Joe came over to the house early this afternoon and sat out on the deck until Mike and Paula and Rick arrived, we then rode over to Don and Penny's house in Medina. Leaving Don and Penny's, the whole group headed to a near by ice cream stand where Mike, after waiting seven years, finally got to taste the "Peach Short Cake" that he waited so long for. It seems Don had mentioned to mike how good the Peach Short Cake was at this place, but never invited Mike out to try it. Well, today it finally happened. Mike got his Peach Short Cake, and I must say, it was very good.

After the stop at the ice cream stand, we all mounted up and took a very nice ride down the back roads to Batavia to see the big muscle car show. Batavia closed down Main Street and lined it with some of the nicest cars around.

After a great afternoon at the car show, we all headed over to the Log Cabin Restaurant on Route 77 for a great meal. A fitting end to a great afternoon of riding.

Day 3: Off To The Mississippi River

Entering Minnesota

Entering Iowa

The Mississippi River

Lock and Dam on the Mississippi River


On Wednesday I decided to head west into Minnesota and Iowa, two states that I had not bin to by motorcycle. I packed up the camper an headed toward the Mississippi River. My plan was to cross the Mississippi at La Crosse, Wisconsin and then head south along the rivers west side. Well, just my luck, I stopped at the No. 7 Dam and Lock and was told that route 16 south along the west side of the River was closed due to a train derailment and a spill of Methanol. Now I had to re-route and got to see a lot more of Minnesota than I had planned. Then once I made my way into Iowa, I found that Route 76 South was closed due to resurfacing. Now I had to re-route and got to see a lot more of Iowa than I had planned. I finally made my way to Route 80 East and started for home.


On Thursday, I was about two miles from the New York State border when a tire on the trailer blew. It was about 4:30pm, and I had to hustle to find a replacement tire, which I did find. When I returned to the location where I had left the trailer, I called AAA to get someone to come and change the tire since I didn't have tools large enough to remove the lug nuts. I was shocked when the person from AAA told me they would not help me, because although I have the "Premium Plan", I did not have "RV" coverage. I was livid when I realised that AAA would be so petty, and had the nerve to leave me stranded far from home with a broken down vehicle. Needless to say, I gave AAA a piece of my mind and then hung up the phone. By a pure stroke of luck, just about the time I started to figure out how I was going to change the tire without tools, a gentleman in a pickup truck came by and asked if I could use a wrench to change the tire. Thanks to the gentleman in the pickup truck, I was able to change the tire in less than five minuter and get back on the road. I arrived home at about 9:00pm about three hours later than scheduled. I want to give a VERY BIG THANK YOU! to the gentleman that offered to help me.



More pictures of AirVenture can be seen at "My Picture Album", area on the right side of this page.