Betreff: [Fwd: PC Treffen (meeting) 2008 - a trip report (very long)]
Absender: <Pacific.Coast@gmx.de>
Empfänger: <peter.schellenberg@honda-pacific-coast.de>; <Burkhard.Bartz@honda-pacific-coast.de>; <Uwe.Bock.HH@web.de>
Datum: 11. May 2008 11:11

Hallo zusammen,

das ist mal ein positiver Bericht über unser Treffen. Wenn Leland so weiter macht brauchen wir uns um Teilnehmer  nicht zu sorgen, dann kommen die Amerikaner auch noch.

Grüße aus Keltern
Wolfram


-------- Original-Nachricht --------
Betreff: PC Treffen (meeting) 2008 - a trip report (very long)
Datum: Sun, 11 May 2008 01:59:39 -0700
Von: Leland C. Sheppard <lcshepp@directcon.net>
An: Pacific Coast Owners <ipcrc@yahoogroups.com>
CC: Wolfram Theurer <Pacific.Coast@gmx.de>, Arvid Løvik <arvid@lovik.net>, Hermann Steffens <hermannsteffens@t-online.de>, Gerd Modrow <G-Modrow@web.de>, Heiko Speck <hopaco@arcor.de>, Wolfgang Kaufmann <w.kaufmann@aon.at>, Bernd and Ilke Franzen <berndfranzen@alice-dsl.net>, Emile Nossin <Emile@Piloot.com>


Hi Coasters,

I are back.  :-)

Had such a good time, I'm still on a high.

About the rally I attended:

The first one was set up by my host, Hermann Steffens, in 1997.  He ran ads in two motorcycle newspapers in Germany for PC800 enthusiasts.  He got 19 people together that year.  The meeting was held at his house.  His garage was turned into a dining room.  I got to see some of Hermann's pictures of that first gathering.

As I understand it, they have been meeting every year since then.  The high for PC attendance was in 2000 when 47 PCs were counted.  2006 saw their tenth meeting.  Another of my German friends, Wolfram Theurer, gave me one of the 10 year pins they had made up for that occasion when we were in Norway.

The planning rotates every year, as I understand it.  It was VERY well planned and organized.  The 3 groups they split into this year each had designated traffic blockers to facilitate going onto new roads and keeping the group together.  The tail gunner won't let anyone get behind him; I know because I tried.  I was taking photos and slowing down each time I snapped one and I didn't want to drive everyone nuts.  So I just drove the tail gunner nuts.  He finally dropped way back so that he would just be overtaking me by the time I was done snapping.  I finally got smart on the last day and just pulled in the clutch when I was going to shoot a photo.  That way I didn't slow down as much.

The routes they took were very complex and a leader and tail gunner was an absolute necessity to keep people from getting lost.  Even Hermann's GPS had trouble in a couple of cases; it found roads that turned out to be blocked off...

The trip:

On Tuesday, April 29th, I departed Sacramento, CA for Portland, Oregon.  The plane left Sacramento at about noon.  Horizon Air for that leg.  I was surprised by the amount of snow on the mountains in Oregon.  Departed Portland on a Northwest Airlines flight bound for Amsterdam.  The plane left Portland at about 4PM and arrived in Amsterdam at 11 the next morning, April 30th. 

Both flights were good.  That is to say, uneventful.  We took off in one piece and landed in one piece; doesn't get much better than that!

Wednesday, April 30th.

In Amsterdam, I switched to a KLM Cityhopper flight.  The plane was a Fokker D50, twin, high-wing prop plane.  I was the last one off the bus that goes out to the plane.  I saw someone wave at me from the cockpit; I waved back.  If my grin was any wider, my mouth would split and fall off.

I entered the plane last and the stewardess was going to direct me to my seat and I said, "I need to say hi to my friend Emile."  I turned left instead of right, stuck my hand into the cockpit and shook hands with the co-pilot, our own Emile Nossin.  He introduced me to the captain who looked even younger than Emile does.  Turns out the captain rides motorcycles too.  His name was Mike but I'm not sure how the Dutch spell it (Mik?).

I was instructed to step up into the cockpit, on a ledge, so that the stewardess could lower the jump seat behind me.  It was really going to happen.  I darn near wet my pants at that point. :-)

I sat down on the jump seat, cameras hanging off me on both sides and got my instructions from the captain on what to do if we had an emergency.  I listened very carefully.  I darn sure didn't want to cause any problems for them.  He put a headset on me so I could hear the tower and so I could talk to them (Emile and Mike).

They went through their check lists, the door to the cabin closed behind us and away we went.  I'm shooting pictures as fast as I can.

Emile is doing the flying.  He taxis us out onto the runway and lines us up behind another D50.  Pretty soon its our turn and up we go.  I'm still shooting pictures as fast as I can. 

They are both pointing things out to me on the ground.  It is the queen's birthday and there is a huge celebration going on below.  Something about orange people...  :-)  I'm busy shooting pictures, having the time of my life.  Literally.

We level off at about 20,000 feet.  I have alternately been taking pictures outside and of the instrument panel.  You can see the altimeter in the shots of the instrument panel.  The day is sunny and although there are some clouds, it's darn near perfect.  Completely perfect from my perspective.  :-)

Pretty soon (the flight is only an hour and a quarter) we are starting our descent into Hamburg.  During takeoff, I didn't get much in the way of pictures ahead of me because, with the nose up, there wasn't much to see.  Landing is another story and I have at least a dozen shots as we get onto final and start down toward the runway.   I got the whole thing including taxiing up to the terminal.

Emile is a good rider and, no surprise, also a good pilot.  Nice smooth flight.

I deliver a very serious thank you to both men for letting me sit with them while shaking hands with them and saying goodby.  One of the larger thrills of my lifetime.  The bus to the terminal was waiting for me when I finally got off the plane.  Sorry folks on the bus, didn't mean to hold you up but...

Off to the Avis rent a car desk.  They gave me a Fiat Bravo.  Interesting car.  Comfortable, handled well, quick, six speed transmission, had hell finding reverse but finally figured it out.

Had my Garmin Quest with me loaded with maps of northern Germany but it wasn't doing squat.  OK.  I've got Hermann's email with my listing of, and his confirmation of, the roads I need to follow.  So I follow them.  Also have some maps I produced with Autoroute Europe.

It appears to be rush hour in Hamburg so it takes a while to get away from the airport and onto the autobahn.  I'm heading north toward Husum and Hermann's house in Ramstedt.

It's getting along in the afternoon, about 4PM or so Hamburg time, and I'm poking along at about 120kmh (75mph).  Taking pictures as I go.  Of course.  I make wrong turns a couple of times but quickly figure out that I had done so and corrected myself.

Pretty soon, I pull onto Grosser Gang in Ramstedt and ask a young lady if she knows where I can find Hermann Steffens.  She points at the house I'm aimed at.  Good.  I got here.

Big hugs all around.  Hermann and I met in Norway last year.  His wife Christiane and I had not met but it was as though we had.  Really nice folks.  Met their kids.  Nice kids too.  Sat down and had something to eat on their sheltered patio.  Delicious food.  Lovely setting.

We talk a little about tomorrow and our ride to the rally/meet site in Bosau.  I get unpacked and start to move stuff over to Hermann's 2nd PC.  Now Hermann said it wasn't much to look at but I thought it was gorgeous.  It was a '96 with a Givi box on the back and, except for a couple of flaws in the bodywork (looked like areas that might have been patched), it looked gorgeous to me.  29,219 miles on it.  Shoot, that's brand new...  :-)  I thought he said the paint was faded but I must have misunderstood.  Either that or my eyes are going because I thought it looked fine.

OK.  By now it's 9PM in Hamburg and Ramstedt and I'm pooped.  So I bade my hosts good night and sacked out in the nice room they had for me.  I'm sure it took all of 30 seconds to go to sleep.  Unfortunately, I woke up at midnight.  And because of jet lag or excitement or all of the above, I didn't go back to sleep until about 4AM.  And I had my alarm set for O dark thirty (5:30 I think).  Sigh...

Thursday, May 1st.

We have a little breakfast.  Delicious.  Much like Norwegian breakfasts.  Good thing I don't have them all the time or I would weigh 500 pounds...  Sliced meat, cheese, rolls, coffee; I could eat these breakfasts all day!  I get a grand tour of their home and a lovely one it is.  We finish packing, last minute instructions to the kids and the three of us (Hermann, Christiane and I) leave for Bosau.

Hermann is leading with his PC.  Nice custom paint job.  He's pulling a small trailer with a load of good German beer in it.  Eine kleine bier Wagen.  Way to go, Hermann!!!  Christiane is on her bike (I can't remember the model or brand; reminded me of a TransAlp; I think it was a Suzuki); Hermann told me something of the history of the bike but I was so tired I didn't retain it and can't pass it on to you now, I'm sorry to say.

I'm bringing up the rear on Hermann's '96 and, as usual, shooting pictures (I brought a second camera this trip.  My Nikon is great for pictures when I'm standing still but not easy to use when moving - too big - the Canon I bought on the PCH ride last year after I forgot my Nikon at home is doing very well as a camera to be used when I'm moving.)

Hermann has picked lovely back roads for us to get to Bosau on.  Terrific ride.  Great choices, Hermann!

We stop in a town that has a stork and a stork's nest on many of the chimneys in town.  Also a couple of purpose-built nesting spots as well.  More pictures.

Of course, I'm furiously shooting pictures as we go.  Northern Germany is different than the central German areas I was in 50 years ago.  The countryside is level to rolling and very green.  Everything is in bloom.  Colors everywhere.  It reminds me of central Minnesota where I grew up.  The houses are mostly made of red brick, very sturdy looking, with very steep roofs even though Hermann says they don't get a whole lot of snow any more.

After an hour or so of winding around on some lovely back roads, we arrive at a river or deep water channel, can't remember which.  The railroad bridge over the river/channel is high enough to accomodate some very tall ships.  The ferry (boat?) is very interesting in that it is suspended by cables from the underside of the railroad bridge and never touches the water.  Looks like a boat but is suspended several feet above the water.

We pull off the road to take photos of a castle built in the early 1700s.  Huge barns/stables in front of the castle have dates built into the bricks in the wall (different colors); they show early 1700 dates.  Lovely place.

We continue on and in another hour or so roll into Bosau and then to Gasthaus zum Frohsinn, our hotel for the duration.  It sits along the shore of a lovely lake and consists of a couple of buildings and it is delightful.

The room is good sized and has a private bath; the latter is something I don't remember from European hotels (not just German ones) 50 years ago.  The windows are fascinating:  They swing open inward or slant in from the top or both, depending on how far you turn the handle.  Slick engineering on that.

The other PCers that have arrived are out for a ride being led by Gerd Modrow, another of the PCers I met in Norway last year.  Gerd and his wife Heidi were both in Norway and, much to my delight, are both here at the meet.

In fact, it ends up that all of the PCers I met in Norway last year save one are here at their annual meet.  Including my Norwegian host, Arvid, and his son Vidar.  They arrive later in the evening of this same day.  First annual Norwegian PC Rally reunion? :-)

I am still tired from the time change and Hermann suggests I get a nap for a while as Gerd and his group won't return right away anyway.  Another good idea, Hermann!  :-)  I do just that.

An hour or two later and I reemerge to find the hotel parking lot full of PCs.  It ended up that there were about 50 people (I think that's right), 40 bikes and 33 PCs.  Neat.

Hugs and hand shakes all around.  A number of the folks that were here I've talked with, some for years like Wolfgang Kaufmann from Austria and Heiko Speck from Hamburg, but never met before.  That was a kick too.

As PCers everywhere do, we sit around shooting the breeze.  People checking farkles on each other's bikes, etc.  And, in this case, consuming Hermann's beer.  :-)

Around 7PM we head into the hotel lobby building which contains the restaurant and dining room.  The meals are buffet style, the food is delicious and plentiful.  We have the dining room (banquet room might be better) to ourselves.  Good thing because we nearly fill it.  During dinner they pleased the heck out of me by playing the DVD slide show of the Norway trip that I made up and had sent to one of them.

After dinner, we continue shooting the breeze until everyone is tired.  About 10PM or so, we all retire for the night.

Friday, May 2nd.

The sun is up fairly early and so am I.  Nice hot shower and head to the dining room for breakfast.  PCs and PCers all over the place.  A veritable sea  of PCs!  What a great sight...

We are split into three groups for the day.   I choose Hermann's group.  Since he has removed the trailer I'm no longer following the beer but I am following Hermann!  :-)  The groups leave about 10 minutes apart.  The sun is shining, the temperature about 55F (a guess).  All is well with the world.  There is a whole line of PCs stretching out in front of me.  Yessssssssss!!!!

Once again, we take lovely back roads through small German towns, past beautiful lakes.  Soon after departing, we end up in Plon (with an umlaut over the O) which is across the lake from Bosau.  Plon has a large castle that can be seen from our hotel.  We take a stroll through the older portion of town, past the farmers market, up around the castle and back down to the area where we parked the bikes.  The area in front of the castle overlooks the lake and while there, we meet Arvid and Vidar and end up walking back with them.

My guide for this walk is Melanie (Mellie) Franzen, the daughter of one of the German PCer couples that I met in Norway (Bernd and Ilke Franzen; also at this meet).  Mellie wants to practice her English and has adopted me for this rally.  She's a sweetheart and makes me wish I was 40 years younger. :-)

After leaving Plon, we hit a brief rain shower.  We pull off under an overpass and 5 minutes later we are in the sun again.

Something new for me in Germany:  Wind turbines.  They are all over the place both in Holland and here in northern Germany.  Reminds me of the wind farms we have here in northern California.  We see them everywhere on this ride in Germany.

Next we head for Laboe, our lunch stop.  There we see the German Naval Memorial.  There is also a U-boat but they are small and I'm claustrophobic so I don't try to go through.  This U-boat is of WWII vintage and, as I recall, had a replica of it made for the movie Das Boot.  Instead of going through the boat, Mellie and I go up to the top of the memorial where we have a commanding view of the area.  The body of water we were facing here is part of the Baltic Sea, I think.

The day is nice enough that everyone is having their lunch outside.

A couple of policemen arrive on BMWs that have a 4 (I think) cylinder inline engine I've never seen in a Beemer before.  They drew lots of attention from the many motorcyclists (including and beyond our group) parked in the area.

After lunch, we take a cruise through California.  This was in my honor.  Thanks, Hermann!  Actually the town name is Kalifornien.  Close enough.  In fact, we went through Berlin and California within an hour or so.  Quite a ride.  :-)

Our next stop is Schloss (Castle) Panker.  This is a very pretty, 500 year old estate, horses, art galleries, restaurants and so on.  Lovely spot.  More photos, of course.

Finally, we are back at the hotel.  More good food, good beer, good conversations, PC ogling and then off to bed.

Saturday, May 3rd:

Good breakfast, a little foggy this morning and cooler.  Wore the insert for my Kilimanjaro jacket to stay warm.  And we're off again!

Today, we are heading for the "largest coat hanger in the world".  It is a beautiful bridge that from a certain angle does resemble a coat hanger...  The plan is that we will gather the 3 groups together and cross the bridge as one under the "video eye" of one of the PCers.  He has a video camera and is filming all of us as we ride past him.  On the way over the bridge it is still a little foggy so I manage to take only one photo that direction.  But the sun came out, burned off the fog and I got a BUNCH of shots going the other way.

And speaking of video cameras, another one of the group has a camcorder mounted on the left crash bar cover and he gets good movies with it.  They showed 3 of his films from 3 of the annual meets.  He also builds a set of frames with all of the license plates on it.  He gets shots of all of the people and places and generally builds a nice presentation.  I hope to get the DVD from this year when he finishes it.

This bridge leads to Fehmarn island and a lovely harbor town, Burgstaaken.  We are now out in the Baltic Sea.  We stopped and had lunch out in the sun here.  Warm, sunny, terrific.  Walked around after lunch looking at the boats including another U-boat (a current version).

Next, we rode to a place called Bauernmarkt.  It is a well known store complete with restaurant.  We stopped here for browsing, shopping and dessert.  Lots of seating out in the sun.  Warm and very pleasant out here.  I had some cake and coffee that was absolutely delicious.

After this, we headed back for Bosau and zum Frohsinn.  More lovely narrow back roads.  More pictures.

When we got back, we all gathered on the west side of the hotel for a group picture while the sun was still up.  Several people took pictures, myself included, and one fellow took several pictures with my camera so I could get in the picture too.

One more lovely dinner and a presentation by Wolfram Theurer of our planned Alps ride for next year (Wolfram, Arvid, Vidar, myself and ???).  After dinner lots of visiting; it is our last night together.  We sit up talking until near midnight this night.

Sunday, May 4th.

Breakfast is in the restaurant this morning instead of in the banquet room.  Some folks have already left.  Us die hards are still hanging around.  I got the bike packed and my room cleared out and went to pay my hotel bill.  I was amazed that my 3 nights in this lovely hotel with 2 delicious meals per day cost me only 120 Euros.  That's 40 Euros per day or a little over $60 per day.

We make our goodbyes and Hermann, Christiane, a Danish couple and myself head for Hermann's home.  More lovely back roads.  We stop for some lunch along the same river/channel we crossed on the suspended ferry.  From our lunch spot, I got pictures of large ships, mostly container carriers, going down the channel.  From where I was sitting all you could see was grass between me and the boat.  And the boat sticking up out of the grass.  Quite a sight.  After lunch, we take the ferry boat (in the water this time) to cross the river.  When we get to the "stork town", the storks are waiting for me and I get a couple more shots of them. 

Back at Hermann's house, we have some refreshments and the Danish couple continues on their way home.
 
Hermann, Christiane and I go to do a little shopping and a little sight seeing in the area where they live.  During one of our rest stops, Hermann had made the "mistake" of pulling out and sharing a bag of licorice.  I have an account with a company that imports licorice from all over the world; I'm a regular customer...  Hermann went walking down the line of bikes offering licorice to people and about every 3rd person, yours truly would pop up with his/my hand out.  Hermann finally gave up and stuffed the balance of the bag in my pocket; I saved the wrapper so I can be sure that my supplier carries this product.  It was delicious!

Anyhow, while we are out shopping at the store where Christiane works, she pulls out a handful of bags of licorice for me.  Thank you, Christiane!!!  I'm still working on them.  And it turns out that my supplier carries both brands (Haribo and Katjes) and most of the types that I got in her store.  I'm in licorice heaven...

We also visit a little town called Friedrichstadt.  It is modeled after Dutch towns and is quite interesting.  The folks that built the town built canals so one can take boat rides around the town.  It is a very popular tourist destination and I can understand why.  Very appealing place.

Later, we head for Husum and a good Chinese restaurant.  We have an excellent dinner and then walk around the old harbor section of Husum.  Very charming place.  Finally, we head back for their house, a final cup of coffee for me.  More hugs and goodbyes and I get into the rental car and head for the Hamburg airport.

At the point where I was about to give up on the GPS, Arvid told me a secret:  Leave it on all night in the window and it will find Germany.  Sure enough, the next morning it was pointing at Gasthaus zum Frohsinn instead of Olathe, Kansas (Garmin's home).  I used it for the rest of the trip to show me what was nearby and so on.  When I got ready to leave for the airport, I turned it on and it gave me turn by turn directions back to the airport.  Right to the point where I knew the car rental return to be at which point I just followed the signs.

I got back to the airport about 12:30AM on Monday, May 5th (left Hermann & Christiane's place about 10:30PM or so).  I sat there until the checkout counter opened at 4AM and checked in for my flight back.

No cockpit rides on the way back.  The flight from Hamburg was on a Fokker D70, a jet.  Emile doesn't fly those yet.  From Amsterdam to Portland was on another A330 AirBus which is a pretty good plane (apologies to Bruce Pickett who works for Boeing).

The lady next to me was also interested in getting photos so we just had to compete for "window time".

I got the best view of the crater of Mt. St. Helens and the results of the 1980 eruption I've ever seen.

Cleared customs in Portland.  They weren't particularly interested in my licorice which was the only thing I brought back.

Uneventful flight back to Sacramento where my roommate picked me up and delivered me to my house.  I left Hamburg, Germany at 6:30AM on Monday and arrived at home in Placerville, California about 4:30PM on Monday.  Pretty quick trip, eh?  :-)

My pictures will be on the web soon.  I've offloaded them to my computer, run 2 passes through the compression software I use so now I'm set to split them into albums and get them uploaded.  I took 1877 photos on the Norway trip and I have 1267 from this trip.  I deleted about 40 of them for being dashboard shots, cloud shots, out of focus shots, etc.  It's a good thing I didn't have the little camera on the Norway trip or I would have had 5000 photos.  :-)

When I get them split into albums and uploaded to Kodak, you will be able to see them at:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/lcshepp

I have several thousand pictures out there from motorcycle trips and a couple of class reunions going all the way back to 2000.  You are welcome to browse any or all of them.  The pictures are split into many albums, one per trip except for the Norway trip which was split into 1 or more albums per day.  The images out there don't blow up well as they have been compressed too many times.  If you see something you'd like to print, make a note of the file name and let me know.  I can email you a copy of the originals (either 7mp or 8mp) which will print much better.

I had a great time as you can tell.

Thanks again, Hermann, for making this trip feasible for me by letting me use your PC.  Thank you both, Hermann and Christiane, for your warm hospitality.  Thanks to everyone I've mentioned in this trip report and to a few I didn't mention for your friendship and warm reception at your rally.  Thanks again to Emile for arranging for me to use that jump seat!

Leland, now with a permanent grin on my face.  :-)

 
-- 
Leland Sheppard
Placerville, California, USA

...Life is good on the Pacific Coast...

'94 Pacific Coast, "Black Beauty", 211,500 miles
'89 Pacific Coast, "Shadow Dancer", 106,425 miles
'90 Pacific Coast, "Red Baron", 84,500 miles
'96 Pacific Coast/SuperSport sidecar, "Handsome Hannigan", 28,800 miles
'02 Ural Patrol, "Boris Blueanov", 14,600 kilometers
'89 GB500, "Little Bugger", 13,375 miles
'02 GL1800, "Copper", 37,400, '07 Aspen Classic, "Copper's Camper", 700 miles
'04 Helix, "Miss Bee", 900 miles (breaking in for my roommate)
iPCRC #72; IBA #10582; AMA #481368

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