The Long Way Home

Sunday, July 5, 2015

The Long Way Home - Day 11 - 4th of July!!

As promised, our two friends, Allen and Kieth from North Carolina, showed up Friday night with their KTM 990s. Kieth will continue up to New York on the 4th but Allen will ride south with us for a day.

During the day on Friday, I rode out to Baltimore to visit with my brother. On the way, I snapped some photos of some of the towns. This picture is pretty typical of the houses in the more populated areas. They all have front porches. Out west we have all gravitated to the back porch but out here, all the houses have front porches and people use them. We frequently pass through towns and people are waving to us from their porch. It's a really neat neighborhood feel.

This house won my unofficial "best 4th of July decoration" contest. There were many that were done up this well, but I chose this one because the color of the house and car contributed to the overall.

I'm going to interject a quick plug for our new friend Abhi at the Knight's Inn in Knoxville. We stayed there for two nights and the place was really well run, clean, and well priced. Thanks Abhi!

The ride started in Maryland, just north of the Potomac River. We crossed into Virginia and eventually entered West Virginia. We have not seen any signs or markings as we move from state to state. I only knew I had entered West Virginia when the sound-track in my head switched to John Denver's "Country Roads" ("take me home, country roads, to the place, I belong, West Virginia...") I'm not sure if that's corny or eerie.

Allen did a great job getting that huge KTM down all the trails we had for the day. This river crossing presented a challenge but no mishaps:

Hank decided to put his rain gear to the test!

The countryside and forests were amazing.

You can see that Allen's bike dwarfs our bikes, but we have really grown to appreciate the lighter, smaller displacement bikes we have. They are very quiet, so we figure we see a lot more of the wildlife, they are lighter so they are easier to handle in the slippery mud and narrow trails. and they really halp us maintain the back roads attitude that we were after because they are not much fun at highway speeds!

We got a chance to visit with this turtle that was crossing the road.

We decided it was best to move him to the side. He looked a lot like a rock and there was the occasional car.

By the end of the day, we had covered 260 miles (our longest day yet). We rolled into Warm Springs Virginia around 7:30 so we unloaded, got cleaned up, and headed into neighbor Hot Springs for a bite to eat. After dinner we followed the locals to the golf course where we were treated to a live band and fireworks thanks to the Omni Hotel. The Omi looks amazing and the fireworks show was one of the best I've ever seen.

Sunday's ride will take us down to Marion, Virginia. Allen will be heading back to North Carolina. Thunderstorms are in the forecast for Sunday.... again!! It's also another long day with just over 250 miles to cover.

Where are they now?

Friday, July 3, 2015

TLWH - Day 9 - Deer, and Fox, and Snakes..Oh-my!

Day 9 puts us at just over 1600 miles! The day started in Jonestown, Pennsylvania and ended in Knoxville, Maryland.

The day went down without a hitch and covered more wonderful back roads, farm roads, gravel roads and dirt roads.

We encountered some of the local wildlife today. We saw quite a few of these deer in the last few days.

Today, Hank had one of them dart out in front of him and he only missed it by inches. This was on a fast dirt road so we are thankful that he avoided this disaster.

A group of 8 to 10 baby foxes were on the road and scattered hilariously in all directions. A few seconds later some of them reemerged to cross the road to join the others. I wish I had the camera out in time.

We also got to meet this snake. I'm not sure what type it is,

We wondered if decorating our handlebars with him would gain us some respect with the Harley riders. It didn't look like he was going to be able to hold on so we sent him on his way.

The preparation for the fourth of July started early in this area of the country. We've been seeing flags everywhere from the back dirt roads of Maine to Maryland (so far). This is an example where someone took the initiative to put these flags along a guard rail on a very remote section of road. The patriotism is contagious and we are trying to come up with a way to do our part. We will have to figure out something for Saturday, July 4th.

This is a typical example of the towns that we have been passing through.

Visitors: We're expecting a visit from two of our good friends from North Carolina on Friday evening. Kieth and Allen have frequently traveled west to join the group that I ride with out there. They are coming up to Maryland to visit. Kieth has to continue on to NY, but Allen will ride with us a bit to give us some local knowledge of the area. We are excited to have our first ride along!

Unfortunately, I did not plan our ride on the Fourth of July very well. It's our longest ride yet at 250 miles! We will have to leave early if we want to get in in time for the fireworks. On top of that, thunderstorms are predicted so it will be a challenging day.

Friday is a day off for Hank. I'm riding out to Baltimore to visit with my brother and because thunderstorms are on the forecast, I encouraged Hank to take the day off. We will resume the updates on Saturday night.

Thank you for following us.

Where are they now?

Thursday, July 2, 2015

TLWY - Day 8 - I "Heart" N J

Our hotel for the night was in Pennsylvania, but it was basically on the border between NY, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Our goal for the day would be to ride south through New Jersey and then head more west into Pennsylvania to Jonestown.

If any of you were following our spot tracker, you saw we got a late start. I hate to admit it, but I had left my backpack at the restaurant the night before and didn't realize it until we were ready to go at 8 am. We were waiting at the restaurant when someone came in around 10:15 am and we were off. Our tracks looped up into NY briefly and we caught this freeway sign as we entered. That's the cool thing about motorcycles - You can stop on a skinny highway shoulder and have your son ride down the embankment and onto a freeway sign like this! OK, not the smartest thing to do but it was our first state border sign we've seen!

After that, we headed south into New Jersey on some really fun well-maintained gravel roads. Hank is still on his Long Wheelie Home!

The roads and forests in New Jersey were amazing! This is not the New Jersey of reality shows, this is the reality of New Jersey. Our tracks kept getting better and better. There was the occasional gate - we figure they are to keep those pesky cars out!

Sometimes some fallen trees

...or washed out roads

Stream Crossings

Are you getting this?? New Jersey is awesome!

Stream running down the solid rock hillside side onto the trail.

Little streams were everywhere and running really well due to the thunderstorms of the previous days

By lunch, we had riden almost 50 miles of beautiful back roads. We were having so much fun! I had a soundtrack of Bruce Springsteen (New Jersey Boy) in my head the entire morning!! Especially "Born in the USA" and "Born to Run". We stopped at this deli in Hardwick, NJ. Again, this was one of those places where everyone knew everyone else.

I was born in New York and I love NY, but today, New Jersey ROCKED NY! I applied my best photoshop skills to this and fixed the sign:

After lunch we continued through New Jersey farmland and eventually crossed into Pennsylvania farmland. I could be thinking of this wrong but I think these farms were mostly Pennsylvania Dutch. They were huge beautiful farms. We wound through these for miles.

We passed this forgotten FJ40. Hank has been restoring one of these and he wanted to take this one home and save it.

I think it might be an early indicator that we've been on the road too long when we find signs like this funny:

We finished out the day on this really neat dirt road:

We continue through Pennsylvania today and down into Maryland. Yes, Hank is riding side-saddle trying to ease the ache. We've travelled almost 1500 miles so far.

Where are they now?

Thanks for following us!

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

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!

Where are they now?

Monday, June 29, 2015

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.

Where are they now?