I woke up around 2:45am this morning for some unknown reason and remembered the weatherman talking about a lunar eclipse happening tonight. I tried to grab a couple of photos of it, but it was really a stretch for my equipment.  While standing outside in my sleep shorts and t-shirt, it struck me that it was relatively warm for the end of August. Although the thermometer read 55F degrees, it was still quite comfortable.  For the twenty minutes or so I was outside the coyotes were howling up a storm, I couldn't count how many I heard, but it had to be anywhere from 5-10 hounds filling the still night air with their Halloween like song. Kind of reminded me of an old Sherlock Holmes tale, the Hound of the Baskervilles.

Today we took off for New Hampshire for the day. Michelle grew up there and I spent some time up there while growing up and lived there while in the navy for a while (which is how I met my lovely better half) so we wanted to get back and visit some of the old stomping grounds. As we were getting ready for the trip last night I wanted to see how far BCM Motorsports was because they're a fairly well known Ducati performance shop. Turns out it was only 2 hours from us here in Winthrop. Also turns out the Loudon racetrack is on the way as well, so instead of heading into tourist town Portsmouth and Kittery we headed up I-93 towards Laconia via Loudon to visit both motorcycle hotspots. Laconia is near Lake Winnipesaukee where there's a big quilting store in Center Harbor so we put that on the list of places to visit as well.

We headed up north and made our way to Loudon where I was blown away by the size of the racetrack at New Hampshire International Raceway. I didn't realize this was a NASCAR track and the guy at the gate told me on NASCAR days it holds 120,000 people!!!  Today the local Porsche club was running a track day so we stopped into the paddock area to view the cars and watch a few laps of the local drivers.

From Loudon we went to Laconia to find BCM. This place is literally on a little dead end road and built into a converted house with a barn in the back yard. What a shop! A beautiful collection Ducati's - superbikes, monsters, touring bikes and parts, parts, parts.  It was like a candy store for Ducati enthusiasts.  The main house is the new bike showroom, in the barn in back is the service area on the left and parts center on the right.

After leaving BCM, we stopped by Weir's Beach for an hour to walk the boardwalk and grab some lunch. What a fun place! Haven't been there for so many years but it still oozes old New England charm.

Here I am practicing my advanced leaning forms.

Michelle enjoys a lobster roll.

From Weir's Beach we made our way to Center Harbor to find Keepsake Quilting. Michelle got her chance to support her hobby and add stock to her material inventory. She came out a very, very happy quilter.

All in all, it was a wicked awesome day !

Since I was a small boy there was always only one place for classic beach food and was known far and wide - well as far and wide as Winthrop, Revere and Lynn and other beachfront towns near where I grew up - and that's Kelly's Roast Beef. 45 years later and Kelly's is now a chain but the original is still on the beach, renovated and remodeled several times over but it's still the same great beach food. hot roast beef sandwiches, fried fish, clams and of course lobster.  I don't get home very often these days, but when we do the first or near first place we always go back to is Kelly's. Today we returned again. My brother Elliot took time off from work to take Michelle and I along with my sister Phyllis to our old place of dining homage. As soon as we opened the car door the rich sweet smell of salt water enveloped us and filled our olfactory senses along with fine beach sand blowing in the breeze.  I used to skip school to come here for lunch. It was/is a favorite haunt for every teenager, young adult and retiree of the area and continues to be so. The usual Revere throngs were light as it was mid week, but the distinctive Boston accents rang out from every one. Many of the locals bearing the hardened looks of years of sunning themselves on the beach were prominent. Construction continues on the beautification of the beach promenades, condos have replaced the amusement rides, pinball joints and many of the bars. And the gentrification of the beach continues. But Kelly's still remains and is as good today as it was years ago when I skipped school for a Kelly's roast beef with sauce.

Here's a couple of new images take by Brandon Bones of Studio 819 at NESBA track day July 14th.

Getting some good lean on this turn. I love the reflection of the instruments in my faceshield. Check out the distortion in the rear spring! I need to get a stiffer spring for my fat butt.