Aug 27 evening, trailered two bikes, the 1989 Honda GB500 and the 1976 Honda CB550 Super Sport, down to the Driftwood Inn in Chestertown, MD on the DelMarVa peninsula. We unpacked the bikes with the help of the hotel proprietor, and then walked to dinner at Brix, a tapas restaurant in downtown Chestertown.

Saturday morning, Aug 28, we saddled up and headed to Essex, MD. I had rigged up a GPS mount for the CB550F, and I programmed the GPS for "shortest route", which usually means a more entertaining route than "fastest route". Fastest route always ends up putting you on the interstate highways.

Turns out, the "shortest" route from Chestertown to the Route 50 Bridge over the Chesapeake Bay is also the fastest route, on the main (two lane) roads, MD 213 and US 301 to US 50. Nice roads, not much traffic, perfect weather.

Once we crossed the Rt 50 bridge over the Chesapeake Bay, the GPS put us on two lane roads all the way to the entrance to I-695 right before the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which we needed to take to cross an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Then, on the other side of the Key bridge, the GPS had us exit on to surface streets again, which we followed all the way to the Mods vs Rockers rally site.

The rally was well attended in it's inaugural year, with I would guess about 50 to 75 bikes in attendence. There were booths for a t-shirt vendor (lots of Triumph shirts etc.), Rider Insurance, Maryland Rider Education, Roller Derby Girls, some home made jewelry, several bike customizers, plus excellent beef or pork sandwiches, soda, and beer, at very reasonable prices.

Kate and I entered our two bikes into the show, cost was $5 each to enter, otherwise, with no other admission charge.

There was a decent band doing rock and roll covers. The Maryland Rider Education people had one of the new "bike simulators" that one could try out -- very impressive considering it's running on a PC and you sit in a folding chair, but with your hands on a set of real motorcycle handlebars and controls, and your feet on pegs with "working" brake and shifter levers.

I took too many pictures of bikes, one of Kate in her Rocker outfit, and generally had a good time talking to the other attendees. There were two "organized" rides during the day. We joined the second one, which ended up being a ride south to downtown Baltimore and a loop around the city. Interesting, but not what I thought I had signed up for. Kate spent a while listening critically to the band.

We watched the judging for "Best Pin-up Girl", which surprisingly had about a dozen entrants who really dressed in period 40's and 50's hair and fashion. At the end of the day, we watched the award ceremonies for the bike judging (we didn't win). Then we saddled up and headed back to Chestertown.

There was a little excitement due to the GPS trying to route us through a stone wall. Apparently, a sound barrier had been erected since the (Tom Tom) GPS map was updated. Ask us sometime about getting around that barrier.

There was medium heavy traffic eastbound on the Rt 50 bridge over the bay, but it moved along OK, so we lived through it. The GPS routed us off the main road (US 50) and onto MD 18, and through the little village of Queenstown, MD. As we rode into and through town, there were people lined up on the sidewalks and in their front lawns, awaiting the start of the annual Fireman's Parade! Eventually, we got to the "start" of the parade, which hadn't begun yet, and the Fireman directing traffic told us we'd have to park and watch the parade, as there was no way through the assembled parade traffic about to head our way.

So we watched the parade. We sat the nearest front lawn with some of the locals, and were entertained both by the parade itself and the local's comments about the people in the parade, most of whom she knew.

Half an hour later we were on our way, back to Chestertown. We put the bikes back on the trailer (again, with help from the proprietor), and then walked into town for dinner, this time at "Oconnor's Pub" on upper High Street. After dinner, we had a nice walk back to the motel to work off (some) dinner.

Aug 29, drove the trailer back to Jackson, NJ; under three hours and 28.5 MPG for the Toyota Matrix pulling my trailer with two bikes on it.