Advertisement
20190509_080117
taking hygiene a bit too far? So it was time to hit the road again, Rich in Waldwick NJ who most graciously kept my bike hidden away in a retreat for abused bikes, his garden shed, was to be relieved of his burden.
Last year as I came to the west coast of the US I had an idea of going up and down the coast and then ship the bike back to jolly olde Sweden as the last leg of the American odyssey.
Then I met Grant in some hotel in Bumfuck Nepal and we got talking about riding in Mexico, one of my favourite countries, and we talked about going there together.
Grant lives in Dallas and that is close-ish to Mexico and he said that I could park my bike in his garage, so now I'm on my way to Dallas.
I've yet to pick up the bike but in about two hours I'll crank up the mighty V-twin and wander down the Appalachians in search of adventure.
I've as usual no fixed plans, just a starting point and a goal, and I've go plenty of time to do it, that is unless I get waylaid by som buxom
20190509_102157
A quick oil change in Rich driveway maidens, highly unlikely , but when there's life there's hope.
Suffrajet-lag, new word that was born when I woke up according to my bio clock that has no inkling of where it is ,my head is filled with mush and my neurons whizz around not know what to do, well it'll work itself out.
Most hotels that feature themselves on booking sites are very adept at using photoshop and never tell that they're close to some major road that is filled with lorries with broken silencers, the Best Western in Ramsey is a bit of a dump, well you gets what you pays for and as the Swedish national bank has a goal of getting the Swedish krona on par with some third world countries good for nothing currency, it's expensive in the US for a Swede.
Enough moaning, I'm back in the country of the obese and free and I'll have super trip, no I'll not drop any acid, I'll just enjoy a new sight every day and meet some nice people and have fun in general.
The next day I went over to Rich's house to get my bike, a quick oil change in
20190509_153714
odo at the start his driveway and we were ready to go to get some new tyres, holy shit they charged me a king's ransom just to change tyres, had i but known I cold have spent half a day and done it myself, but what the heck, Mastercard is your friend.
I took farewell of Rich, a nice bloke who hosted my bike and set of towards Milford, Pennsylvania and smooth start of my trip, a couple of hours later i found an inn with good food and a bit of a dingy room, but nice all the same.
I spent the whole evening talking with people in the bar, had some wine and a crab cake, so in stead of crashing at 8 pm i managed to stay awake until 10 o'clock and a bit.
I went up the narrow staircase and hit the sack with the ambition to read a bit before I fell asleep, well that did not go vey well, 2 words and i was done and I got myself a very good nights sleep.
Breakfast was to be served until 8.30 and the I chatted with the inn keeper, a 74 year old bloke
and a good cook , until 10 o'clock .
10 o'clock, what decadence, rise and shine, the early bird gets the worm, but then again the second mouse gets the cheese.
Someone had opened up the out door shower, not all the way but water was coming from above, what a great start, haha!
I set the sat nav for Hagerstown , some 450 km, away and ignored the not so golden shower and set forth to infiltrate the country side of Pennsylvania.
I never got to Hagerstown, doing backroads takes forever, a very nice ride by all standards but for the fact that there more red lights on the road than in the red light district of Amsterdam, it took forever to get through some towns.
I decided to stop and take it easy as the skies had turned rather black and It started to piss down big time, it was cold now but I was ok, wet on the outside but dry as a bone on the inside.
Some parts that I went through was in Mennonite " territory", some religion or other where the still live in the age where a
horse is the machine, lots of horse carts and farmers plowing with horses instead of tractors. To each one their own, but it's a bit of a laugh when the buggies have brake lights and indicators.
The weather being what it was did not entice me to take out my phone to get some pics, sorry about that.
The landscape and flora could be anywhere in Europe mostly leafed trees as it obviously rains a lot everything was green and lush.
Another motel and a quick trot up to the liquor store and a beer and a bag of crisps and later on some kind of food with a questionable nutritional valour and thats all for today.
Tomorrow I get a head start and ride the Blue Ridge Mountain Parkway.
I did get to Front Royal after some strange meanderings thanks to Messrs Garmin, but are you lost when you don't know where you are but really don't care?
I speak a few word of the local tribe's language so I should be ok.
The countryside keeps on being nice with some really nice houses and some really terrible trailer homes.
I
stopped for a coffee along the way in some quaint little town, that had bars and restaurants bu no rooms within walking distance from them.
Sad sad, what will happen to the brewery shares?
B&B in Europe is allegedly the cheap alternative to a hotel, in the US it's the high way robbery alternative, 190 bucks for a bed and a breakfast, holy ruminant!
Well I ended up in some 60 buck motel within walking distance from a pizzeria that had beer and a quite nice veggie pizza, so a pizza it was and some instant aid to the breweries.
The next morning rain chose to show it's wet face in a good downpour, but being equipped with some high end gear with Goretex I set forth to hit Skyline drive up in the Shenandoah national park, 'twas to be a high light but as the park warden said the weather was shite with loads of rain and heavy fog and that I really should not go there, I didn't. Damnation!
I took the low road and looked a the mountains hidden away in the clouds.
After a while the rain was stopping just
a mere drizzle and I thought that it would be an ok mornings ride, but it turned out that it was only catching it's breath and hit me with a nice down pour, cats, dogs, racoons and some other beasts.
It did stop eventually, but by then I was half way to the Mexican Gulf, well not really but more than enough to have missed the Skyline drive.
For tonight, the forecast is some big assed storm coming in that hopefully will have abated by tomorrow.
No pics today either, so use your imaginations ;-)
Advertisement
Tot: 0.174s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 14; qc: 29; dbt: 0.1442s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb