2011 Vital MX Summer Tour, Part 1 9

Are you ready for another dose of summer road fun? This year is the second time we've done the road trip throughout the Lucas Oil AMA Pro Motocross Championship series, going from California, to New York, and all the points in between. Of course, the primary objective is covering the events, but we also do some visits in between races, like to Levi Kilbarger's place in Ohio, Cycra, Allsport Dynamics, and a few other stops that we'll highlight soon. Then there's the day-to-day road sights, and other fun stuff. Here's another installment of what happens between races. We didn't want to cover exactly the same routes as last summer, and had a few other spots we wanted to visit. We also learned that sometimes the schedule makes flying more attractive...especially when fuel prices have made a big jump updward, like this year. Last season we opted out of going from Millville to Washougal and back, and this time we also skipped the haul from Budds Creek to Thunder Valley, and back to Red Bud.

The majority of these photos were shot with my iPhone, which is my point-and-shoot when I don't want to drag the big camera along. It go upgraded somewhere during the summer from the 3GS model to the 4, and the newer one does shoot much better photos.

Last summer was all about picking up the trailer and just going, and basically buying things that were needed along the way. This time around, there was room for a little more fine-tuning, like adding trailer mirrors, which makes life much nicer while towing, and especially while backing up. This set is an XLR Dual Head Ratchet Series from Prime Products. They go on pretty easily, come off even faster, but watch that the attachment pieces don't scatter when you do take them off. We lost a strap from the right side, though having one a mirror on the left only worked fine, allowing a side view of the trailer, and traffic behind it. These came from Camping World.

I always intend to take more photos on the drive from California to Texas, but since it's sort of a cross-country sprint, that always seems to never happen. I did think this one was pretty funny, though. That's how I knew I'd made it from New Mexico into El Paso.

Rather than shower in the trailer, I have a 24 Hour Fitness membership, which also has the added bonus of making it sort of mandatory to also go in and get in a workout. That works out pretty cool, since the hot weather makes ice cream all the more tempting. This 24 Hour location in Austin also featured a Lance Armstrong theme. An LA Fitness membership was added later in the summer to help fill in gaps in the 24 Hour locations.

While in Austin, we took a stroll downtown to check out some of the clubs there. While it was a Wednesday night and a bit on the slow side, it was fun to walk along the streeets and check out the vibe from the various places. Most have windows or doors that open up near the stage, and you can walk almost up to where the band members are playing to see what they're up to.

Music seemed to be sort of an unofficial theme to the early part of this summer's action.

Yeah, the seat on this one was down by the transmission. It was low...really low.

As you can see, the themes of the various clubs (and there are a ton of them) vary wildly.

While near Dallas, we visited the guys from N-Fab, who helped out with a much-needed visual and performance upgrade on our Toyota Tacoma tow rig.

Continuing the drive east towards High Point, we went through Memphis. The intent was to check out Beale Street (home to a ton of blues clubs), but on the way there, we stumbled upon the legendary Sun Studios, where artists like Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Johnny Cash recorded.

There was a really cool soda fountain next door, but it was closed when we were there. Both of these will be on our list to revisit...during business hours.

If you like the blues, Beale Street is a must-see, with spots like BB King's Blue Club (where we also stopped in for dinner), the Rum-Boogie Cafe, and a ton of other clubs. The one image that I didn't understand was on a window, and it featured Elvis, who had angel wings, and was playing guitar while straddling a Harley with flaming wheels.

If you're an iPhone user, and like monkeying with photos, PS Express (basically a lite editing program) is pretty much a given. But one extra one that I do like is one called TiltShiftGen, which makes it pretty easy to get some cool selecting bluring options, like you see below.

Checking in at the box van Austin Howell and his dad were using to travel around the country while at Blue Diamond MX.

The Lucas Oil AMA Pro Motocross Championship really is a traveling road show, and these are just a few of the semis used to haul equipment from race to race.

One of our favorite parts of traveling the country are the characters you run into, whether it's Jonathan Beasley, who got married at Southwick; or the waitress in a southside Chicago pizza place that had been working there for 45 years and asked if we wanted some "Michigan on the rocks" (water).

After the Budds Creek race, we stopped in Washington, D.C. and toured around the city via mountain bike. Some of the momuments are pretty far-flung, so making it from place to place would be tough on the feet, and the bike worked well. Here's the Jefferson Memorial, both interior and exterior.

Part of the WWII Memorial.

The reflecting pool was closed and rather dismal looking.

No one can accuse the t-shirt vendors in Washington of being classy.

Washington Monument. Cool end to another day of sightseeing.

We spotted this Dunlop truck on the road (no relation to any of the races we'd hit) this summer on the road in Ohio.

Chad mulling things over at Red Bud.

Yeah, the pits in Red Bud were just kind of like this. Sandals are good for driving, and working your way through the pits (particularly after bad weather). This pair died about three races later. Of course, they'd just hit perfectly-broken-in status. They got replaced by a pair of Oakley sandals.

We'll have a couple more installments from the summer coming up soon.