Our Amazing Race adventure began actually on May 17, when I was informed that I was going to Florida to view the launch of the GOES N satellite that I have been working on for the past 2 years. NASA paid for everything for me and I told Bev that I wanted her to join me on this trip, so we got airline tickets on my flights for her to join me.

On Friday May 19, we hopped on our bikes along with Raymond and his wife Donna and headed for the “All American Motorcycle show” in Santa Maria.  We took the long way there and arrived at about noon. We parked our bikes and went in, I had paid for the 3-day package, so they let us all in because we said we were only going to be there that one-day. Worked out to be a good deal. The show was your basic biker show, lots of customs and vendors. I had originally planned on being there ½ day Friday and Saturday, but we were done with the show by 3pm, and decided to head out to our hotels and meet up for dinner. I did however have one good find at the show, SLIME. After having my rear tire blowout on the 405 while I was going about 80 MPH a few weeks ago, I decided to buy this stuff. You squirt it into your tires and it stays liquid and keeps your tires from going flat if you get a nail puncture while you ride. The guy selling it had punched over 150 holes into a motorcycle tire and it did not loose any air pressure. Very cool. I bought 4 bottles for $15.

Saturday, Bev and I headed on our way, leaving Raymond and Donna in Pismo beach, and we rode up to Hollister, and stopped at the Corbin motorcycle seat factory so Bev could have a custom seat made for her 1100 VStar. They made the seat while we waited, and they even bought us lunch at the Corbin Diner. It took about 3 hours and we were able to watch every step of the manufacturing process. Corbin has quiet the operation there, and very friendly workers.  Leaving Corbin we headed on our way up to Stockton.

Sunday morning my son Doug meet us on his nice Marauder- my old bike, and we headed for the hills, up to Calaveras County and the Frog Jumping Contest made famous by Mark Twain. It began to rain on our ride there, and it is coming down pretty good when we arrived. But that did not dampen our spirits and the frogs did not let us down either. Bev was in heaven- she got to hold the frogs and even kiss a few of them. The rain stopped and started a few times while we were there and by mid afternoon we had seen enough and got back on the bikes to head back into Stockton- then the rain kicked in again- non-stop the whole ride back to the hotel. We took off our leathers and Doug went and got his truck to drive us out to dinner. We had a nice time and after dinner we went to see ‘Over the Hedge’- a cute movie, from what I remember :)

Monday morning Bev and I hopped on the bikes and headed home- the long way. Our flight out of LAX wasn’t leaving until 9:30 that night, so we could take our time home. We only had a few sprinkles of rain the entire 425-mile ride home and it gave Bev a chance to break in her new motorcycle seat too. We got home at 4pm, feed the fish, the Scorpion, unpacked our luggage and packed our suitcases and by 5pm we were out the door on our way to LAX for the redeye flight to Orlando.

We had a brief stop in New Jersey before changing planes where Bev got to see the sun RISING on the ocean for the first time.  Then we flew into Orlando at 9:30 am. Neither of us slept much on the flights that night- but we were up and ready to go. I got a call from the Boeing QA Manager Venita, upon our arrival and she told me to meet her and my NASA boss for lunch in Cocoa Beach. We got to Cocoa Beach about noon, and had a nice seafood lunch and caught up on the latest launch activities and heard that there were no issues being worked prior to launch the next day. After lunch Bev and I headed to our hotel to rest up before the VIP dinner that evening. The pre launch dinner was nice, but it had a few too many speakers.

Wednesday morning- launch day- it began with a bus ride out to the launch site for a photo op. Launch was planned for 6:11 PM EST, and we were brought back to the hotel after the photo op, and then about 2 hours before launch we boarded the busses again for the ride out to the viewing area. Boeing had a nice setup for us there; we were fed and had drinks under a huge canopy on the NASA causeway. The countdown was smooth and error free, and I don’t think I took a breath when the countdown got under 3 minutes. At 6:11 the Boeing Delta V ignited it’s solid rocket motors and the rocket jumped off the pad and streaked into the sky. The sound and the vibrations of the launch were amazing. Something that everyone should experience once in their life. Following the launch, Boeing hosted a post-launch party, food and drinks, and a live band.

I had made plans in case the launch did not take place to fly home on Thursday night, so since we launched on time, Bev and I headed to Epcot on Thursday. It was her first time there. We had fun visiting all of the areas and eating lunch in the German pavilion. Our flight home was at 8:30, so we left Epcot at 6 and headed to the airport. The flight home was through Houston and we arrived back at LAX at midnight. We got home at 1:30am and went right to sleep.

Waking up Friday morning we did a load of laundry and then set out for the third leg of our adventure to Big Bear… via the car. For the past 31 years I have attended an astronomy conference in Big Bear during Memorial Day weekend. We had fun drinking wine and partying with my astronomy buddies for the weekend. We headed for home on Monday morning and were back in Simi Valley by noon. The first priority was of course… wash the motorcycles.

8,150 miles in 11 days via the motorcycle, airplane, and the car. It was our Amazing Race, and we are both winners!