Shirley, set up a tab and keep em comin to all who care to listen.
You can follow this trip on my website at
http://www.sloanclan.org/trackme and selecting each day for the
narrative. This was tracked by the GPS in my (previous) cell phone
(when it was working).
Day 1, took off work around 2pm on Friday July 18th headed for Sturgis.
First stop, Natural Chimneys Park (just outside of Staunton) Virginia,
555 miles. Pull in around 10PM and hook up with Tony for the rest of
the trip.
Day 2, Tony has his motorhome that he has to drop off at his
father-in-laws house in Staunton, and I need a new rear tire (didn't
have time to get one before the trip) so I head over to the HD shop to
get that taken care of. Damn, they have some sort of big thing going on
and the place is packed. They finally get me a new rear tire and new
brake pads (they were down to about 30%) and they noticed a broken
bracket for the left bag, but didn't have one in stock, so they use
several tie-wraps to secure it. Finally get on the road about 1PM.
Final destination is Tilghman Island, MD, but we have to make a stop in
Charlotte, VA first to visit an old friend, then we head up through DC
(and I mean through, down Constitution Ave.) getting lost twice in DC
before getting back on the hiway into Maryland. Pull onto Tilghman
Island around 7PM, 350 miles for the day.
Day 3, do some site-seeing all over the bay coast of MD before hitting
the road around 5PM with the intent of catching the Lewes-Cape May ferry
across to Jersey. Somewhere around Rabbittown, MD around 7PM, we
realized we weren't heading in the right direction, pulled out the map
and found where we went wrong and headed on our merry way. In Sharpton,
DE, we were supposed to take a right on hwy 24, but we kept on 313 and
realize we missed our turn when we got to Federalsburg, DE, where we get
out the maps again. By now, it's 7:30PM and we're thinking the last
ferry leaves Lewes at 8PM and we're gonna miss it. We pull into Lewes
at 8:20 and find out there is a 10PM ferry, now to find food. We find a
DQ and grab a bite and head back to catch the ferry. We get to Cape
May, NJ just after 11PM and decide to take Hwy 9 instead of the Garden
State Parkway. Traffic is light, and nice cool night air. We get to
Ocean City around midnight, gas up and decide we want to see Atlantic
City at night, and off we go. At 1AM, we're starting to get tired so we
head back to the toward the parkway and find a motel around 2AM, about
270 miles for the day.
Day 4, at 8AM, we're up and heading down the road again, heading north
on Hwy 9 and decide to take the Parkway just north of Port Republic.
We're pleasantly surprised by the light traffic and get to Staten Island
just before noon. We have some friends we're supposed to meet in
Manhattan at 4pm, so we decide we want to go see the hole. First is
lunch. We can't find a parking spot, so we pull right up on the
sidewalk in front of this little corner restaurant. Cop shows up just
as we are paying our bill and tells us we can't park there (there had
been at least 30 cops past by before then). We kindly thank him and
head toward the hole. Parking is tight, but we manage to squeeze the
bikes between some cages. Can't see anything through the fence they put
up, and we're still early, so we just kick back and relax in the shade
until 4. We go hook up, do some site-seeing, and they treat us at
Katz's (where Harry met Sally). We finally head out of Manhattan around
8PM. We've decided we were going to Orient Point to catch the ferry
across the sound to New London, CT, so up 495 on Long Island we go. We
get to the end of 495 near Riverhead around 10PM heading up to Orient
Point. Wow, these people go to bed early. We stop at atleast 5 small
motels with Vacancy signs, but no-one is answering at the office. We
pull up to Orient Point ferry at approx 11:30PM. They guy manning the
port tells us to pull our bikes up to the beach and pitch a tent, so we
pitch our tents and fall asleep to the fog-horn around 1AM, about 250
miles for the day.
Day 5, we're awaken at 6:30 by 2 semi's blasting their horns as they
pull into the waiting area to catch the ferry. We hurry up and break
down our tents and go get our tickets and catch the 7AM ferry across the
sound. We get to Mystic around 8:45 AM and decide we're going to check
the place out. 2 hrs later, and a boat tour around the port, we're back
on the road. We've decided to take Hwy 1 and about 15 min down the
road, we see this awesome structure off the side of the road that we
just have to check out. It's an ancient mausoleum in a cemetery, so we
spend the next half our checking out the cemetery. Back on Hwy 1,
around noonish, we see a sign that says "Ferry to Martha's Vineyard" or
something like that, so we're like, sure, why not, and we turn onto
Quonset Road heading to the shore. Holy crap, $75 ferry ride one way,
and we can't take our bikes. Nope, we're not going, but there is this
military air museum across the street, so we go spend the next hour
checking out the old war planes. We leave out of there, and decide to
skirt Providence, so we hop on I-295 did some zigzagging on some hiways
north of Providence and ended up on I-495 to get around Boston. The
company I work for has an office in Littleton, so we stop in Littleton
and I call the IT guy who works for me in that office to find out where
they are located (they had moved office buildings just 2 weeks prior)
and he said he wasn't in the office that day, so we head on our merry
way. At just after 4PM, Tony blows out his rear tire while we're
running side-by-side at 85 MPH in the left lane. I heard the bang and
saw the bike wobble, and I backed off, keeping traffic off us as he
eased off the throttle and moved off to the right side of the road and
onto the shoulder. I run ahead to this little town of Merrimac (we
stopped about 2-3 miles from the exit) and find out the closest HD shop
was in North Hampton, NH, but there is an chopper shop about 5 miles
away. Back to where Tony is sitting, he has gotten in touch with his
insurance company, and they won't pay for towing in Mass, and the
closest tow company wants $500. We finally got in contact with the HD
shop in NH, and they send out a wrecker from near them for $180. By the
time we get into town, the HD shop is closed, the wrecker driver says
he'll drop it off first thing in the morning when they open up, so off
we go to find food and a motel.
(Too be continued)
--
Odinn
RCOS #7 SENS BS #154
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>
> You can follow this trip on my website at
> http://www.sloanclan.org/trackme and selecting each day for the
> narrative. This was tracked by the GPS in my (previous) cell phone
> (when it was working).
huh?