View from the inside of Ken Hull’s Moto Shack and Lounge in Boalsburg, Pennsylvania.  Took this a couple weeks ago at the first Piston and Pints event of the 2013 season.  The pictures below will give you an idea of the event.  Pictures were made on May 2nd and May 16th.

If you haven’t ventured into Boalsburg on the first and third Thursday of the month to join the Piston and Pints crowd you should at least think about it.

Without further ado I’ll share some of the pictures I made.

Just one of many vintage machines that appear at Piston and Pints.  I could covet one of these if it had disc brakes.

Dave Dix and his BMW GS.  Great bike.  He had to leave early.  I think he was heading to Antarctica or something like that.  Those BMW riders…

Mike Mohney, faculty member in Penn State Ag Science’s landscape contracting program, surprised me by showing up on a cool, two-stroke, Yamaha cafe racer.  Those tires are fantastic.

Camera optics are funny.  I think.  Either that or Ken is really tiny or that fellow is really big.

I think it’s the lens…

Robert eats salad and rides a Harley.  I should have told him it doesn’t fit the image HD works so hard to develop.  Salad seems more of a Vespa thing.

Paul Ruby on May 2, 2013.  He bought the Ducati jacket from another rider attending the event.  Ken’s Moto Shack and Lounge building makes a good backdrop for a portrait.  Thinking I need to start making portraits of everyone who attends.  A new photo project perhaps…

The Piston and Pints Library.

A Honda CB cafe racer conversion.

Ken Hull took time from his busy day to demonstrate the correct way to apply condiments to a hot dog.

Paul D. Ruby, Ducati, BMW and Vespa rider, Ferrari owner, and recent acquirer of a Nikon D800.  That’s why he’s smiling.

More than one Vespa at Piston and Pints on May 16.  Still rare though.

Last week, a foggy morning on the way to work, a nice little ride across the far east end of the Penn State campus at University Park.  On days like this a Vespa makes life a little sweeter…

Author Thomas Wolfe wrote in his novel You Can’t Go Home Again, “I have to see a thing a thousand times before I see it once.” I understand the idea.

Over the years I’ve made thousands of pictures of my wife, dog, Vespa and the landscapes I frequent — a relentless, obsessive pursuit that many don’t understand while others dismiss as some irrational action of one of those “creative people”.

For years I’ve been venturing out on Sunday mornings, often riding the same routes looking at the same scenes. And I still see something new every trip, feel something a bit different, experience reality in a slightly altered manner.  So I keep riding and making pictures.

And Junior feels left out, wondering what attraction that silver contraption holds.  I remind him that I make a lot of pictures of him as well, thousands in fact, and still I haven’t seen him well.

A ride up Calder Alley in State College, Pennsylvania last Sunday morning.  New stories playing out, everything a bit different — special in its own way.

Riding across a valley I’ve traversed for forty years and I still find places I’ve not seen.  A short walk to the top of a weed covered promontory where I can survey this new place, take in the the sight, this time for the first time, another 999 visits to go before I see it.

Riding the Vespa, a means to an end, a part of a thousand journeys.  I keep trying to see these places and I’m not done yet.

So I’ll keep the camera handy and keep riding.

Rain over Mount Nittany this morning, an iconic landscape associated with Penn State, as seen on my way to work this evening.  I could see the fog and rain passing over the mountain as I walked the dog this morning and planned to make a picture.  Gray skies and mist are good for riding and photography.

By the time I returned home this evening the rain had passed but the sky still held on to that fairyland feeling that often sweeps overhead with a change in weather.  The red light in the distance was the tail lights of a car or truck at the edge of the woods.  Not sure what they were doing back there but didn’t feel like finding out.

A quick picture and I was on my way, minutes from home, with three Mexi-Hots from Meyer Dairy Store.  When I was a student (in 1972) there was a place called Pop’s Mexi-Hots in State College, Pennsylvania selling the luscious little hot dogs with mustard, chili and onions.  Joe Meyer acquired the recipe when Pop went out of business and a faithful few still show up to have one now and again.

I could myself as one of the faithful.