TLWH - Day 7 - Catskills

TLWH - Day 7 - Catskills

Today brought us from New Paltz, NY to Matamoras, PA.  The weather report called for rain but I didn't believe it.  Hank was a bit wiser and donned his rain gear.  It was only a 70-mile day taking us through the Catskills and then through a 10-mile section called the Delaware & Hudson Canal Linear Park.  

On the way out of New Paltz, we  swung through and took the five-minute tour of Huguenot Street.  This is a historic area founded in 1678 by French refugees.

The Catskills were beautiful and we could really see how amazing they would be in the fall.  From the top of the mountains, the forests spread out in all directions with lots of oaks, maples, and birch.  

We were disappointed to find that the trail that was advertised as open on the official site was actually not open to motorcycles.  

We didn't let it get us down.  We just squeezed through the bars and gassed it! :)  

-not really, we went back to the road and routed around it  :(.  It turned out to be a good thing that we saved some time here.  Remember I mentioned that Hank was smart enough to put on his rain gear?  Well, about 10 miles out of town it started to rain a little.  I figured it was only another 10 miles so I passed on the chance to put on mine.  At about the five mile out mark, the rain had turned to a downpour.  The streets were flooded and I was soaked.  To top it off, we couldn't check in until 3:00 so I was stuck in soaked clothes.  I learned another lesson.

We took the time to shop for a few items we needed and change the oil on the bikes.  

Tomorrow's track takes us to Jonestown, PA.  Total distance is close to 200 miles and if I remember right, there will be some fun stuff.  Unfortunately, there are thunderstorms forecast for tomorrow!

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TLWH - Day 6 - One big surprise

The Day 6 plan takes us from Greenfield, Massachusetts to New Paltz, New York:

When we pulled into Greenfield last night, I really figured our days of really cool back roads and trails were over.  Greenfield is a nice town but it's really big compared to the towns that we have gotten used to.  In  my mind, there was no way that any remote back country could exist between here and New York.  That's where the surprise comes in: As we left the hotel we rode maybe a mile and took a right turn up the hillside to run into this:

It felt like we had just been dropped into another place on the earth.  The noises of the city were gone and all we could hear was birds, wind, and water... until we fired up the bikes! :)
I stopped right away to take some pictures because I was really expecting it to be over quickly but it just kept going.  More farms, miles of woods with no one around, streams, and lakes.  We had this for over 100 miles today!  Some of you are thinking "didn't he put together these tracks and why wouldn't he know?"  answer: I forgot

At times, the road gets smaller and less traveled.  We always take the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. (don't quote me on that)  This is an example:

As we were riding we would come accross little towns that usually consisted of a church, some city building, and maybe a house or two.  At lunch we found a town called Becket.  This is a page out of The Andy Griffith Show.  We had lunch at a cafe but everyone that came in knew everyone else there.  They would all check in with each other and then go on with their day... Don't they know there is a huge city just an hour away where no one does this stuff?  strange but very cool!

Old Stuff: We have frequently come across really neat old stuff.  This old truck was just too cool to pass up without a photo:

and I bet this old house was quite spectacular in it's day.  I bet it has some stories to tell:

And I've always been fascinated by these old stone walls.  I'm sure that many of these were put here by the original settlers to this area.  It's funny to think that the original farmer who was just stacking rocks around his field would decide where the road would go that we were riding on today.

OK. One more thing, then I'll let you go.  Remember how I said that Hank loves heavy machinery?  We passed a quarry and Hank had to get a closer look but the crew working the site would have nothing to do with us so we went down the road a bit and snuck through the barb wire to get a closer look.  It was pretty amazing.  That's a jumbo size excavator down there and it looks like a toy.  It was loading those dump trucks that are the size of a two story building - you can barely see one on 5th level.

Tomorrow is a shorter day so we have some time to service the bikes.  We will be winding our way through the Catskills and just across the border into New Jersey.

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TLWH -Day 5- Rain

Today we woke to the sound of rain!  I have to admit that we were dragging our feet a bit getting ready hoping it would let up - it didn't.  We donned all of our new plastic rain gear and all of our clothes underneath.  We got to the bikes looking like the sta-puff marshmallow guy.  Headed out from Waterbury with Greenfield, MA as our destination.  We had 190 miles to go today.

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We both have to admit that once we got going, it was not that bad.  Sure our hands were wet, our faces were getting pelted with rain, and we both had leaks here and there, but there were dry places on us also!  But most of all, the riding was completely fun!  We found 90% dirt roads and trails today.  Who knew there could be that many miles of dirt in Vermont.  They love the dirt road here and these dirt roads are the best maintained I've ever seen.  In some areas the mud was extremly slipery and we had fun fishtailing our way down the road.

 Hank thought TLWH stood for The Long Wheelie Home!

Lunch time brought us down into Bethel where we found this great cafe in an old area of town.  Most of the towns around here show a lot of history.  

  

There were sections that were very challenging.  The pictures do not do this justice but this a steep up hill and with the leaves and water running down the middle, we both had to make multiple attempts to make it up.

Not only did Vermont invent Ben & Jerry's Icecream but they also figured out a way to breed a skunk with a cow.

While the Maine back woods was all about logging,  Vermont is all about farms.  They come in all shapes and sizes

If Frotto walked out of this one and waved we wouldn't even have been surprised:

Vermont has a lot of these covered bridges.  It was nice to be out of the rain for a few seconds!

By the end of the day we had covered 190 miles in the rain but we had a blast doing it.  We have to admit though, that being damp and cold all day take's it's toll and we are both exhausted.

Tomorrow we continue down through Massachusetts, cut the corner off Connecticut and end up in New Paltz, NY.

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TLWH – Day 4 – Canada!… whoops

Today, we dragged ourselves out of bed “early” – not as early as I wanted but we were up late working on the broken bike.  It was a relief to find that Hank’s bike started up and my clutch worked perfectly all day.  ‘Even has fresh oil now!  This was destined to be a 300 mile day so we were on the gas before 8…OK, so that’s not ‘early’ but it’s over an hour earlier than we have been doing.  We are starting to get the hang of the schedule, packing, etc and I hope we can get on a smart schedule of early starts and early returns to  give us a bit of extra daylight –just in case.

Today’s ride takes us from Stratton, through the top of New Hampshire, and into Vermont.   Our first new states!  The red is the leftover from yesterday and the blue is the planned ride for today.

 Truthfully, I was a bit disappointed that we completely missed the New Hampshire borders.  I was really looking forward to seeing the “live free or die” attitude they advertise on their license plates.

The morning offered some great riding but we took a short cut and got foiled by the loggers again!  Only a quarter mile from hooking up with the main track, we were stopped by a quarter mile of small logs and branches piled over the road.  I’m finding that the loggers do not like dirt bikers!  Yesterday, we were being courteous (really!) slowing and moving way over to the right on a wide dirt road and a logging truck aimed at us.  Hank was safely by but I was hitting bushes with my right shoulder while I squeezed by his fender.  He was pointing at the ground like he wanted me to sit or something!  I decided it was best not to stop to have a “conversation” with him.  He didn’t look like he was in a reasonable mood.  Back to the road block: This quarter mile roadblock cost us almost two hours of back tracking – luckily it was some beautiful country and it was Saturday so there were no loggers and we could play on their equipment!

 look for the moose!  I also took a video and got very close but I havn't figured out how to load them well.

Bunny!  Hank was very bummed that he couldn’t avoid this little critter. 

Crash!  Hank loves heavy machinery and when this prime piece of equipment jumped up out of the bushes, it drew Hank’s eyes to the right – and his bike followed! 

 Before he knew it he has off in the grass and down the small embankment.  As he was coming back on, there was a drainage culvert that threw him and his bike up on the road – inverted!  No father should ever have to come up to a scene like that.  The bike landed upside down, Hank landed 15 feet further down the road and the bags came separated and landed somewhere else.  Thank God Hank was OK.  The bike turned out to be ridable and we were able to attach the bags (the mounting tabs were ripped) with some extra straps we had.  OK – we are learning lessons here – leave early to have time and slow down!

Canada!  I was looking for a photo op at the Canadian border so I mapped out a lesser traveled road to the boarder.  We rode up looking for the border when we started to notice the street signs had changed.  Then we noticed that the car licence plates had changed also – to Quebec.  Whoops.  I was expecting a gate, guard, line in the road, … something?  There was nothing.  This nice church is in Canada. 

Coming back into the US there was this sign but the back says nothing. 

            

As we were about a ¼ mile from the boarder, in the US, there was a nice border patrol standing in the street pointing to inspection.  First thing he did was ask for our passports – we had none.  Luckily, it all worked out when he realized we were from California!  He did ask why we were riding bikes with Maine plates – I explained they were my friend Nick’s bikes (thanks again Nick from Friend and Friend!).

After that we worked our way to the destination doing an occasional part of the track but staying mostly on roads to make up time.  Some of you may recognize Waterbury VT as the home of Ben & Jerry's.  Yes, Hank's favorite place in the world.  We arrived 30 minutes after closing:

As an emplyoee appraoched the door from the inside, Hank described his emotions ranging from the highest high (she is going to let us in) to the lowest low (she is going to tell us to go away).

Victory!  She let us in and gave us icecream 30 minutes after closing.  A great finish to another fun day.

 We rolled into the hotel around 7 – but we made it!

Rain forecast for today!  We are riding the green section marked on the map above.  We will be in Massachusetts tonight.

TLWH Day 3 Bike Slayer Alley!

I'm going to keep this short.  We had a long day with some great riding and some very challenging situations.

Great riding:

Several dead ends:

Hank named this logging road the "Bike Slayer".  It started out difficult:

 and then got really difficult:

 and then became impassable:

By the time we went to turn around, we had invested about two miles of really tough riding.  The road was a crazy mix of mud and shredded trees.  there would be bike swallowing holes and mud that would practically pull our boots off with suction.  I completely fried my clutch to the point the bike wouldn't move at all.  Luckily I had just reached a dry and clear section.  We layed it over and got to work:

We were able to get the clutch to work, but now it wouldn't disengage.  Started it in gear and rode out without a clutch.  This was truly a miracle that I made it.  Not fun but somehow got really lucky and made it out.  This is what happened next:

Hank's bike had a dead battery and these bikes do not have kick starters.  There was no place to bump start it.  We could have hiked out to get the battery out of my bike but we decided to push it out.  Bad Decision!  It took us over an hour in the mud to get it out to a place to bump start it.  

At this point it was almost 5 pm with over 100 miles to go.  We found an alternate route down to a nearby town where we decided to stay for the night.  This gave us time to fix the clutch in my bike and get ready for tomorrow.  Tomorrow now has an extra 100 miles.

We will be passing through New Hampshire and into Vermont near the Canadian border.  Then we start traveling down through the center of Vermont. 

When in Maine... LOBSTER!

The Long Way Home – Day 2 – Turtle and Lobster

Machias to Dover–Foxcroft:

                                                                                                                                                    

Day two started the way I hope the rest of the days start: Bright, sunny, and perfect temperature.  We ate a quick breakfast of granola bars and water and jumped back on the Down East Sunrise trail from yesterday.  More great miles on this trail with only a few people all morning.  This guy was the only guy who gave us any trouble:

Looks like he was crossing from one pond to another and he didn’t appreciate having his picture taken so we left him alone and moved on.  When the dirt ended, we took some pavement out to Penobscot Bay and had a fun lunch at Young’s Lobster Pound. When in Maine you eat lobster - right?

From there we left the coast and headed west.  All of the trails that appeared questionable worked out and we found ourselves on some fantastic back dirt roads.  We even managed to get the bikes really muddy

At the end of the day we stopped for some homemade ice cream and then continued on to our hotel, where we have our own cabin. 

Day 3 will bring us up into very remote areas of Maine near the Canadian border.  

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