After our lackluster tour of the “rally” events we decided to head back up north to Wilmington NC to visit the USS North Carolina Battleship Museum. Our butts were feeling much better after our previous slow day! Wilmington is about 80 miles from Myrtle Beach, and on the way is Shallotte SC, where Beach House HD is trying to take up the lost crowds and revenue from the Myrtle Beach Rally.
We stopped at the HD dealership and crossed our fingers that no one would decide to buy a new motorcycle and checked out the vendors – there weren’t many set up, still too early in the week? but there was a delicious BBQ sandwich stand run by the local Volunteer FD and EMS, and also this very cool fire truck:
Then we continued on up to the battleship. This tour is SO COOL. it’s a self-guided walk through the entire ship, and it took us several hours to make it through the whole thing!
What is it about the fisheye camera?
Seriously, I was using some old film…
But every single photo is either totally unintelligible or it is SERIOUS.
Seriously Epic.
Exceptionally seriously epic.
The tour is so neat, you walk all through the ship and up and down and down and down and down –
as we walked out right at closing we saw this sign:
nothing reminds you that you’re in the southeast like alligator warnings!
after our visit to the battleship, we looked up the location of a Golden Corral and headed out for dinner. I wasn’t kidding, we ate there a LOT. Getting there required a Flying Circus Technically Complete U-Turn in Formation. Actually, I think we did a couple of laps around the neighborhood before we could find our dinner! We even stopped and asked for directions. Bellies full, we headed home to Myrtle Beach.
Unfortunately Mike F won our hero of the day award when he ran out of gas on the way home. It was pitch black and getting chilly and his fuel indicator light didn’t go on. Happily, we were really close to a gas station and it was just a slight derail of plans. Pro tip: if the gas station won’t let you borrow a gas can, buy some windshield wiper fluid, dump it out, and put a little gas in side. Easy to cap and bring back to your buddy, and just a little gasoline goes a long way when you’re motorcycling.
[[check out the summary post with lessons learned, and a full index to this ride report post.]]
