Lusby MD
Had a good breakfast courtesy of Quality Inn, and asked for directions to Memory Lane leading to Hwy 30, Arsenal Road, to get to the H-D York assembly plant. The directions were either wrong or I misunderstood as I could tell after a couple of miles that I was not heading in the general direction where I knew the assembly plant was located. I saw the hwy 462 sign and turned onto it…it was Philadelphia Ave, then saw a sign directing me to historical downtown York, cool, I’ll head there and check it all out…but wait, is that a baseball stadium over there to the left? Gotta check it out!
It was the Soverign Bank Stadium, home to the York Revolution, an independent baseball team that is the 2011 Atlantic League Champions! How about that? With that I decided to pass on the downtown ride and check out my Droid Maps GPS to get to the H-D plant…aha! I was about a mile away from the place.
The tour was fantastic! Their manufacturing operations are fantastic, very advanced. It was like being in the Renton Boeing plant watching a 747 being assembled….pretty cool J. This place makes the touring, softail and trikes for the whole world. Australia/New Zealand is the #1 importer of Harleys and Japan is #3. California gets a special color because of the emission controls…go figure…always thot CA was a country of its own!
Frames are assembled on a cart, VIN stamped on the finished frame (given birth) and that cart then is driven by under floor magnetic drivers to each place to begin the assy of whatever bike it is to become. Hydraulic presses apply 300 tons of pressure to stamp out tanks and fenders from sheets of steel. Painting is done on site, very sophisticated. QA is abundant, employee empowered groups exist. The place is clean, organized, well laid out. I applied for a job but they rejected me due to lack of experience….bummer.
Afterwards I jumped on the 30 and headed to Gettysburg Battlefield 33 miles away. That too was impressive. I got to stand on a knoll overlooking the killing fields for the artillery. Really spooky standing there listening to the dead souls scream as hot lead ripped into them. This place can only be appreciated by doing some research well before arriving so you know the battles, etc. Then one needs to stay there about 2-3 days…I only had 1 hour.
When I went into the visitor center I noticed some older fat and outa shape folks all sitting on the low wall outside the entrance…I greeted them all in a loud voice and said, “I’ll be back in 5 minutes and we’ll start the Physical Training….so get limber and warm up”. When I came out 5 minutes later only one person was left….he was laughing and said I scared everyone off J. We chatted about the Battlefield, I finished some tweets, then headed out the 30 for the US-15S towards MD.
My ride was a nice one with clear, clean air, little traffic….until I hit the I-495 to go around DC. It was Friday night at 5pm and way too much construction in addition to the rush hour traffic…took me an extra hour to get around to MD-4 that led to Lusby, about 70 miles south of the 495 interchange.
As I turned off onto MD-4 the sun was setting and the trees' shadows darkened the road. It was like a blanket of cold folding upon me and Sophia as we came upon Upper Marlboro. It was a damp cold and I knew that I had to cover up to ward off the wind chill. Fortunately the Marlboro exit came up quick and I was able to find a desolate country road to pull off on the shoulder and get out the raingear. This raingear is sure turning out to be valuable when there’s no rain!
The rest of the ride was fine. Just cruising along the MD roads with a ¾ moon lighting my way. Seeing familiar sights as I closed in on Lusby was encouraging…the ride was soon to end.
I’ll set down here in Lusby with bro for about 3 weeks before heading to TN…sure hope all those chiggers are frozen up now and no longer awake to feast on me.
C ya mañana,Gonzo
twitter: @GonzoCrossUSA
email: GonzoCrossUSA@gmail.com
Hello Gonzo,
ReplyDeleteGlad to see that your trip is still going strong. We met in central NY in September--you were on your way to Niagra Falls and we were on our way to a family reunion.
Keep it up, and stay safe!