Finally got on the road this morning, about 16 hours later than planned. Last night I figured it was probably not the best idea to start a long trip on brand new tires, in the dark, in a thunderstorm, so I convinced myself to stay home and get on the road early. The staying home part worked great, the on the road early part, not so much.
The upside is I managed to avoid the worst of the storms, the downside is two 300 and one 400 mile days became two 500+ mile days. Trying to make up time right from the start, and expecting bad weather most of the day, I left myself plenty of opportunities to bail out to slab, and started the trip with a blast down the pike 2/3 of the way across MA, getting onto secondaries when rain stopped and the sun finally came out. Stopped for a snack & some gas in Great Barrington, where, as usual, my superpower kicked in and all of the creeps and weirdos homed in on me.
Finished my snack and got back on the road in time to enjoy a beautiful ride through New York. Stopped to top off the tank and grab a quick drink before heading into the Catsklls, and was approached by an older gentleman who wanted to talk bikes for a while. Nice guy, good conversation, but it turned my planned 5 minute break into something closer to an hour. Oops.
Finally made it into PA several hours behind even the revised plan. Stopped for gas & a drink, took a look at a map and realized I was about three hours too far north to even stand a chance of making it to Seneca Rocks much before midnight, so decided to suck it up and get on I80, quite possibly the worst motorcycling road in the world, but the fastest way to get north-south through PA.
Stopped for dinner about 50 miles north of MD, just before dusk gave in to dark, and spent the meal searching for likely places to spend the night. Found one that suited, started the booking process, and the stars aligned in my favour–free room! Even better, when I arrived the manager upgraded me to a jacuzzi suite. Serious score at the end of a long riding day; 545.3 miles is tiring when you aren’t used to it anymore, even if a lot of it was on superslab.
The soak completely revitalized me, and reminded me of my old belief that every ride should end with a soak in a hot tub. Shame the universe doesn’t always cooperate on that.
Ok, tired or not I should really get to bed if I want to make it to the lodge in time for dinner.
