Day 21...I turn west

Today ends the 3rd week of the trip and I find myself on the outskirts of Ft. Drum NY...
Here's a departure from my normal musical selection.  An homage to Vermont, which I thought was a very attractive state...Vermont

The Capitol of Vermont in Montpelier

This morning I awoke in my snug little tent.  Just wide enough and long enough to sleep in and a little covered vestibule in which to store boots or other such items.  Amazingly, I slept very well once I got used to sound of pine needles falling onto the rain fly of the tent.  That took a while to figure out...I didn't think it was raining and it happened at odd intervals.  I suspected a chipmunk or some such but finally I took the flashlight and surveyed the tent and found the issue.  Silly me.

My mind sometimes works in mysterious ways.  As I packed and stowed my gear I found myself thinking of Samuel Peps.  Why?  I have no idea.  But Mr. Pepys and myself share the same birthday (albeit he was born 300 years earlier) and as I write this it comes to me that he is best known for his diaries written during the time of the great London fire and the black plague.  So we are both documentarians...he did London in the 17th century.  I'm doing a self-indulgent motorcycle trip around the US.  Will I be known someday for this blog.  If so, the world will be in serious need of some good literature.  As Pepys would have written, "I arose and danced my dance...", but I did the dance of packing the bike and hitting the road.

The morning was a trifle cool and I actually broke out the jacket to start the day.  That only lasted until about 9:30 or so when the cloud cover lifted and the sun got serious about warming the day.  I rode out of Maine and into New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York.  I stayed off the interstates again and enjoyed the scenery of the portion of New Hampshire through which I rode.  Rolling hills and beautiful well-kept fields made for some beautiful scenery.

 

 

I needed a break and lunch seemed to be in order, so I found a quiet little village and went into the local bar/grill for a quick bite.  My waitress was a very pretty 19 year old lady named Selah.  She is out on her own and paying her own bills and I very much like both her attitude and ethic.  In many ways she reminded me of my own daughters... she was charming, outgoing, and a very good waitress.  She commented on living in Vermont: "It's like being in a snow globe.  It's pretty but it doesn't change much.".  If she reads this blog I want to remind her that there is a world full of opportunities waiting outside the bar and when she sees the opportunity she shouldn't be afraid to reach for the next rung on the ladder.

 

I left the rolling hills of Vermont and crossed over into New York for my second time this trip.  The state line is on a bridge that crosses the Hudson.  Just a little further down the road I came to a T-intersection.  On the right was the Canadian border crossing.

 

The Hudson is a big, briskly moving river where I crossed and from looking at the boats that filled the yards and the anchorage you could see from the road, yachts are in much demand around here.

Another thing worth mentioning, since I talked about it in yesterday's post, are the prevailing aromas.  In New Hampshire and Vermont the air smelled damp and sweet.  In New York it smelled of freshly fertilized fields.  I don't know why that was, but the area of New York through which I've been riding is agricultural and I swear that everyone has a functioning manure spreader.  It was so prevalent that it was nearly funny.  The last interesting thing that I want to mention on today's ride was the wind farm I saw in New York.  I thought all the wind farms were in Texas and California and other western states.  While not as large as the farms in Texas or California, it was a pretty respectable number of windmills.

 

Day 20...backroads with rough roads

Day 20... was spent on the back roads of Maine...a beautiful state.  It wasn't west Virginia, but it was definitely 'country roads'.  Country Roads

What a difference one day makes.  Yesterday, a Saturday, traffic on the non-interstate roadways was maddeningly slow.  The roads were packed with what I believe were tourists going to and from beaches and other attractions.  One town, remarkably, advertised a 'whatever' festival as their primary attraction

Today, a Sunday, and I had the roads to myself.  There were a lot of motorcycles out today and it was a beautiful day to ride.  On the down side, some of these back roads are ROUGH.  The biggest pothole/bump of the trip happened today and it actually scared me.  There were shadows from the trees across the road and it masked the bump.  I thought the bike exploded!  I stopped and inspected the wheels and forks... they were OK, but dang it was scary.

Today I finally saw some wildlife.  I saw a beaver tugging a tree branch down to a stream.  I saw a wild turkey.  I saw a doe and fawn white tail deer.  And I saw a perfect skunk and 3 perfect porcupines... they were perfect because they were all road kill!  Skunks and porkies are the natural enemy of bird dog owners.

I changed my planned route today after I looked at my calendar.  I'm 30% into the time I thought it would take and I'm not quite 30% of the way around.  So instead of going all the way to Houlton and the Canadian border I decided to trend back towards the west of the state.  My goal became to visit Knox, Maine and the Henry Knox (think Ft. Knox) Mansion.  If my memory is correct my branch of the Knox family came from a brother who was just a common revolutionary soldier.  Henry was a Major General under George Washington.
The town of Knox was a cluster of unremarkable buildings on the south side of nowhere.  And, because it was Sunday, the Knox mansion/museum was closed.  But I walked around the outside and read the markers.  There is a bell on display that Knox bought from his pal Paul Revere and donated to the church or, as they called it, the "meeting hall".  There's a piece of history.

 

 

 

 

it fell into such disrepair it had to be taken down and rebuilt

 

I could live here....

 

As I road the back roads it came to me that it is too bad that there is no 'smell-o-vision'.  All day today I have enjoyed the smell of wildflowers, alfalfa, new mown hay, and freshly cut grass.  With the notable exception of a road kill skunk today was like riding in a "summer fresh" perfume commercial.

 

Besides the fields and forests I also noted a lot of rivers.  These are some of the prettiest I've seen on this trip.  Clear, wide, and inviting.  This is Rumford Falls on the Androscoggin River... according to the info on a plaque, the tallest waterfall east of Niagara.

As the sun got low in the west I began to look for a place to stay.  I was navigating off an iPhone map and had no real sense of what lay ahead, so when I came to a beautiful camping site I pulled off.  There was a pizza place in the main lodge along with shower facilities and a rec room.  The lady running the 'store' said the troopers and ambulance just left an hour before I rolled up... there was a motorcycle fatality.  Evidently someone turned across the road in front of a bike. It give a fella pause to think about the hazards of riding tired, so tonight I type this in the rec hall and will sleep in my tent.  Let's hope this works out well!

Day 19...a late start and new friends

Day 19 begins in Cape Cod and ends in Main... because I got off to a late start today I felt liked I walked, not ran....Walk, Don't Run

Ronnie was going to take me for a daytime whirlwind tour of Truro, the village in which she lives this morning so I was up early and finished my laundry.  Then I got the bike packed up while the furniture delivery people delivered a new bed to the house.   When the delivery people left Ronnie and I grabbed a bagel and diet coke and set out for the beaches of Truro.

 

The beaches are, for the most part, private.  In order to park you must display a permit available only to residents.  The walk to the majority of beaches from public parking is just too far for most people so the beaches are not heavily populated.  We ate our bagels while sitting in a beach patrol tower and watched seals and water birds cavort just offshore.  In the summer the beaches, both on the bay side and on the Atlantic side are calm and have broad, sandy beaches.

I got the grand (albeit quick) tour of Truro and the last place we visited was an old, abandoned USAF radar site from the cold war days.  We walked past empty and dead looking government housing that is quickly going back to scrub oak and pine forest.  It really felt like a ghost town.

Back at Ronnie's I helped her move some boxes, took things off the top shelves for her (she is vertically challenged), and generally tried to be a help as she put together the house for today's arrival of her husband and daughter.  I said it before, but she is a super lady and a great host.  I look forward to maintaining a friendship with her and her husband,

By the time I left Cape Cod it was noonish and I knew I wouldn't ride a long way.  I abandoned the interstate and jumped back onto highway 1 for the day.  I did use the interstate to skirt the worst of Boston traffic though.

Highway 1 was extremely slow today.  I probably averaged 35mph for the hours I rode today.  Some was faster, but much of it was creeping along through the villages.  If it doesn't get faster tomorrow I'll be forced to jump onto the interstate because I have a long day planned.

This evening I made two new friends, retired state troopers, who were also out on their bikes.  Tony and Andy (and their wives) invited me to join them at a motorcycle 'bar' called Bentleys.  It was full of riders and the parking lot had LOTS of bikes.  The décor was fun, the music loud (but good), and the crowd was pretty well behaved.  It was nice to unwind and swap motorcycle stories with new acquaintances.

Day 18...I continue to be amazed...

Day 18 (June 27) ... Today was all interstate, not my favorite roads.  But the day ended in the bohemian, celebratory, city of Provincetown, MA.   Time to party... The Good Life!

"On the road again...". Day 18 saw me wake up in Pennsylvania with a plan to stop in Cape Cod, over 400 miles away.  Since it was a Friday and I anticipated (correctly) weekend traffic I decided to stay on the interstate highway for today.   Traffic was heavy but not dangerously so... the worst places were the traffic slowdowns at the toll booths.

I did notice several things that stood out regarding the days drive.  First, the interstates were not as smooth as the ones I drove up to this point.  I really had to pay attention to potholes and cracks in the asphalt that wanted to grab my front tire.  As long as I stayed heads up it wasn't bad though.  I also noticed that, per mile, I saw more troopers patrolling the road in New York than in any other state so far.  On the plus side the traffic didn't speed much, if any, above the 55mph limit.  I also was pleased to see so much empty land with trees etc.   I was expecting it to look industrialized and one long strip of civilization all the way across to the ocean... and I was very pleasantly surprised.

Hey, seriously?  You couldn't make this a $220 fine?

Cape Cod was a pleasant enough drive once I got over the bridge, but the traffic was extremely heavy and really very slow.  I averaged 25-30 mph and Ronnie, my hostess for the evening, lived about 59 miles down the Cape.

When I arrived at Ronnie's house there were construction guys working on completing the new room added to the beach house and finishing up the electric.  Plumbing in the new mater bath is still a work in progress. 

 

A word about Ronnie.  This will sound a bit unusual, but I met Ronnie for the 2nd time EVER when I arrived at her house.  Prior to that my only other meeting was in the salon where Ronnie was a client of my daughter's.   When my daughter, Jennifer, told her about my planned bike trip Ronnie said, "if you need a place to stay in Cape Cod you are welcome."  And she gave me her phone number along with the admonition to "Call me.  It's OK.  Really.  I'll find a place for you."  So I got close to the Cape, called her, and had a place to stay.   The house was in disarray from contractors working on some renovations...a fact that caused some consternation on Ronnie's part, but she gave me a bedroom, a bathroom, and a great big smile.

The only drama upon arrival was parking the bike.  The driveway was sandy and both the side stand and the center stand sank deeply into the sand.  Luckily there was some scrap wood nearby to put beneath the kickstand and I was able to safely get parked.   It was dinner time and after a shower and change of clothes she took me into Provincetown for dinner at a great restaurant named Napi's.    The food was excellent and everyone from the host and servers to about half the clientele knew Ronnie.  Ronnie is NOT a shrinking violet and she has no compunction about talking to anyone that looks interesting. 

After dinner she took me for a walking tour of 'P-town' with the heads-up that it was a FUN place.  It was.  There was street music and people dancing (Ronnie joined in, of course).  There were drag queens hawking their shows.  There were tee-shirt shops and souvenir shops selling all manner of things that it was hard to live without.  There were couples of every conceivable gender combination holding hands and strolling the narrow lanes.  It's a dog-friendly place and there were lots of dogs accompanying their owners.  It was indeed a FUN town.

 

 

 When we returned to Ronnie's place to call it a night she showed me one more treasure that really put the icing on the cake.  She isn't just sweet.  She isn't just a hoot-and-a-half to be around.  She isn't just the singular best advertisement for living on Cape Cod.  She is also LIVING HISTORY!  Ronnie was at Woodstock.  Yes, THE Woodstock.  In her home there is a poster showing the crowd in front of the stage... in the legendary mud bog that happened after torrential rains and thousands of dancing feet. (She was sitting on a pallet though that her soon-to-be husband procured).   In the lower right hand corner of the poster is the indomitable Ronnie and her future husband.

Ronnie at Woodstock (just above the bottom edge).

I continue to be amazed and delighted at the kindness and hospitality of others on this trip.

Day 17...'something old...'

Day 17 (the 26th of June) ... I leave my in-laws house and have a visit to Gettysburg  This isn't really a civil war song, and it's about outlaws not in-laws...but it still sets the tone for the day...Outlaw Josey Wales

I left Charlottesville this morning after a very good day of relaxing and visiting with my in-laws. Ruth and John were great and treated me like family.  Well, of course I AM family, but that's beside the point.  They went out of their way to make me feel welcome in their home and I appreciate it.

Once on the road I headed north... again avoiding the interstates, I went North on Hwy 15 out of Virginia, through a part of Maryland, and into Pennsylvania.

The drive was scenic and for the most part, low stress.  The traffic wasn't bad except for the areas of road maintenance where we were reduced to one lane of roadway and we had to take turns using the road.   That was annoying... but necessary, I know.  I just wish there was less of it on MY roads.

I arrived in Gettysburg around noon and went to the visitor's center and soldier's cemetery.  I've studied the battle of Gettysburg and know pretty much what went on and why... but walking around Cemetery Ridge, the Devil's Den, and Little Round Top really managed to make all my studies come alive.  I know it has changed in the last 150 years, but mostly that would be vegetation related.  The hills and valleys are all still there.  I recommend a visit to the battlefield for everyone.

I continued my journey up to Harrisburg PA.  There I paralleled the Susquehanna River to Millersburg before turning east again.  I've swung far enough to the west to avoid both Washington DC and New York City.

One of the unplanned delights of today's trip was the accidental finding of the last working ferry boat on the Susquehanna River.  What a treat!  I saw a historical sign and slowed to read it, and then noticed that you could drive down to the river.  When I got there I saw the ferry but assumed it was a floating museum piece.  It was ready and waiting and the skipper asked if I wanted a ride across.  I wasn't about to miss that.

The not so highlights of the day was losing a lens cap for the camera and my left glove somewhere between Gettysburg and Harrisburg.