The United States Capital Building

I have been on a RV vacation and trip of a lifetime for the past 36 days. I am presently sitting at the table in my RV in a campground somewhere near Cleveland, OH typing this update for all of you. It is now day 36 of my trip.

My last real update was on August 4, 2012 from the Washington DC area. I am giving another update now.

So far we have driven through or stayed in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Washington D.C., Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. We have many more places to stay and drive through before we get home.

We ended up staying in the Washington D.C, College Park, Maryland area for about 11 days. Washington D.C. was an important stop for us, and with so many things to see, and such a great RV resort, we were in no rush to leave. We toured the Smithsonian museums’ and major monuments, among other things. I have tons of video that I will process when I get home and upload onto here.

The only negative part of the Washington D.C. trip was the hot balmy weather on some days, coupled with thunder storms and rain on other days, and the horrendous drivers in the Washington D.C. area.

My Harley Electra Glide enabled me to park near monuments and areas where people in cars just cannot go. On a few days Liz and I used the bus and train due to the weather. We also took the double decker tour bus for 48 hours as well.

The RV resort in College Park, MA was off of the charts. I went swimming every night with all of the other tourist. Hell on one night I found myself alone in the pool with 20 or so bikini clad coed girls from Europe. I could not decipher what language they were speaking, but my god it was a very nice sight.

I did not want to leave Washington D.C.; it was almost as if I needed to stay there longer. Maybe I should run for Congress?

When we finally left Washington D.C., we drove through Maryland and New Jersey. Maryland and most of New Jersey are truly beautiful states.

I found myself getting pinched for tolls every few miles. It turns out I was on a toll turnpike. My GPS was not set up to avoid tolls. By the time the day was over I had paid almost 0 in tolls because my RV and motorcycle trailer have 3 total axels. They were charging me like I was a bus. It really sucked.

When we got to New York we were led to an expensive KOA campground north of Newburgh, New York that was billed as the New York City KOA campground; talk about fraud, we were about 70 miles northwest of New York City in the middle of a forest.

Upstate New York is a truly beautiful state let me tell you, I had no clue. When we got to the campground it was kind of late and almost dark because of the trees. When we hooked up I discovered that the trees prevented my Satellite TV from working, my cell phone did not work, nor did I have Wi-Fi. Then it started raining as well. I had to rough it with DVD’s from Redbox for the night. Further, we only had a 30amp hookup, so I could not run both air conditioners and my microwave at the same time :]

Anyway, we got the hell out of there first thing in the morning, opting to go to the Liberty Park RV resort in Jersey City, New Jersey instead where we would have to dry camp for $50 a day. The Liberty Park RV resort was billed as the closest RV Park to New York City just 15 minutes away from Manhattan, and with a local water taxi that takes you to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. All of this turned out to be true.

On the way in to the campground I noticed that we were in Orange County New York, so I figured I would check and see if Orange County Choppers was nearby. As it turns out, Orange County Choppers was on the way to Liberty Park in Jersey City, so I figured I would stop in and check it out.

All I can say about Orange County Choppers is that it was a huge disappointment. It is the only motorcycle operation I have ever seen that does not sell motorcycle stuff. They have all sorts of shirts and other crap with OCC all over it, but no motorcycle stuff. They don’t even have examples of their production motorcycles in the showroom; all they have is motorcycles that they built in the past. I did not even like those. It is what it is. I got some video and got the hell out of there. It is nothing more than a tourist trap. The bikes on display seem un-ride able and not practical to me.

It was a very interesting trip through narrow streets in New Jersey to the Liberty Park RV resort in Jersey City, New Jersey. My rig is 35’ long with an attached 10’ motorcycle trailer. Some of the streets and turns I had to make near the Holland Tunnel on the Jersey side were monumental, but I finally made it to the RV Park. The RV Park was a combo Liberty Park Marina and RV park. There were ocean going boats, sailboats and the like dry docked on the other side of the park, with an actual marina and a bar and restaurant there.

Since the RV Park was totally full, we had to dry camp which basically means that we had no external electrical, water, or sewer hookups. We had to rely on our RV, and our generator. There was a dump and water site in the park that we could use as needed.

Since we wanted to run our generator past 10pm they basically put us in an area that was by itself in the middle of a field next to a bunch of boats. On the other side of the fence was a construction site in Jersey City. The setup was kind of like in New Orleans where we were 3 blocks away from Bourbon Street but smack dab in the middle of a bad neighborhood.

The Liberty Park RV area of Jersey City was kind of like a small island of a good area in a real bad area if you know what I mean.

We were so close to NY City in the Liberty RV Park that we could see the World Trade Center and Wall Street just across the Hudson River, and I could see the Statue of Liberty from my RV.

Due to a breaker on my generator, I did not get full power until just at dark on our first day in NY City, so we decided to wait until the next day to hit the city.

The next day we immediately went to the World Trade Center site and the 911 memorial. It was a very rainy day.

We did so much in New York over the next week that it is too much to write about here. Like Washington D.C., I felt attracted to the city; as a matter of fact I fell in love with the city. We rode the subway and went all over the place.

Three days before I left New York I ended up partially tearing my calf muscle walking down the subway steps. The reason I know it is partially torn is because three nights ago I spent most of the evening at Jersey Medical Center ER where they confirmed the tear with an ultra sound.

My years of sports and injuries have made me kind of tough when it comes to injuries like this. I tooled around New York City for three days in severe pain because I did not want to miss anything.

We finally left New York City two days ago on August 20, 2012. It took a while getting out of the city, we did not really want to leave, but we had to so we could finish the 3^rd and final leg of this great trip that we are on.

We ended up driving to Northumberland, PA where we found a killer RV resort right on the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania. We got there just before dark. I swear I could live in this place. Pennsylvania is one of the most beautiful and big states in the United States.

The locals there upon seeing my Harley Davison in tow assumed I was there for “PA Rally on the River” which was set to begin on August 23, 2012, or the day after we were set to leave the campground.

Unfortunately the campground was booked and full months in advance for the rally. I was told that if I paid $50 a night, I could dry camp there with my RV. Had they gave me a regular camp site, I would have stayed for the rally. I think if they knew who I was, that they would have accommodated me. Liz called even after we left asking if there were cancellations; there were none.

Based on what I was told 2k people would fill up the camp grounds for the event which is adults only. I knew that if I stayed for the event, I would be stuck in the campgrounds until it was over due to the number of people. Further, there would be no way to dump the brown water tank or refill the fresh water tanks for the next week.

I decided to not stay for the rally but to instead spend the time tooling around Sturgis, SD when I get there. We left today on August 22, 2012. We drove all the way to near Cleveland, Ohio where I now sit writing this update.

We still have a long way to go on our trip and further updates will come soon.

By California Personal Injury Attorney Norman Gregory Fernandez

The post Day 36, Somewhere near Cleveland, OH first appeared on Biker and Motorcycle Accident Lawyer Blog.

I have been on an RV trip of a lifetime for the past month. I am presently in an RV Resort at the Jersey City Marina with a view of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island from my RV.

During the trip I have filmed hours of video which I will not be able to edit until I get home. I therefore have been spoon feeding here on the Biker Law Blog, small unedited raw video clips of interest when I have the time.

Here is another small video clip of Liz and I visiting Orange County Chopper aka OCC in Newburgh, NY on August 13, 2012. I will do a complete write-up when I return home from my vacation at the end of August.

By Norman Gregory Fernandez, Esq.

The post A little visit to Orange County Chopper first appeared on Biker and Motorcycle Accident Lawyer Blog.

 TLC is reviving “American Chopper” with the estranged Teutuls going head-to-head in competing bike shops.

The new show, “American Chopper: Senior vs. Junior,” begins filming next week and will premiere in August.

It focuses both on the original Orange County Choppers business run by Paul Sr., and Paul Jr.’s startup bike shop.

The new shop, Paul Jr. Designs, is located across from the original OCC shop in Rock Tavern, NY, near OCC’s Newburgh site.

The hook? Father and son haven’t spoken in over a year, ever since Senior fired Junior from the family business.

BIKE BATTLE: Paul Teutul Sr. and Paul Jr. haven’t spoken in a year, but will both appear on a new version of “Chopper.”

The split effectively ended their long-running reality show. TLC axed “American Chopper” last February and, in an ugly legal battle, Senior is demanding the return of Junior’s 20 percent stake in OCC. After a brief reconciliation, Junior rode out his one-year non-compete clause and moved into his new shop last week. Father and son remain at odds, with no resolution in sight.

“I’m always hopeful for a reconciliation, but sometimes these things happen for a reason,” Junior told The Post yesterday.

“Even though you never want dissension in any family, especially with your father, this has allowed me to break out and do things on my own.”

Senior also says he’s moved on to a point.

“Junior seems to say all the time he’d like to reconcile, but the thing of it is, he’s never come to me with that,” Senior told The Post. “I’m happy he’s making an attempt to go out on his own, but I don’t feel he’s ever really followed through with anything in his life.”

“But this way, if he fails, he can’t say, ‘My dad made me fail.’ ”

The resurrection of “Chopper” will be good news for fans of the show, including “Late Show” host David Letterman.

“Letterman e-mailed me when he heard the show was going off the air and said, ‘What am I gonna do now, Paul?,’ ”

Senior says. “He was devastated.”

It remains to be seen how “Senior vs. Junior” will play out, but series executive producer Christo Doyle says there’s no formula on how much air time the two competing shops will get per episode.

“This is a very bitter situation that runs really deep at times I feel I’m a family therapist and not a producer.”

California Motorcycle Accident Attorney and Biker Lawyer Website

The post American Chopper is Coming Back in a New Form first appeared on Biker and Motorcycle Accident Lawyer Blog.