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Published: August 11th 2009
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We left you in Washington D.C. where we had been staying in the D.C. suburb of Bethesda, Maryland while we toured D.C. We left our bike parked in our hotel garage while we used the very efficient D.C. subway system to tour the capital city.
Back in the saddle, we head north into Pennsylvania to take a look at Gettysburg. Our traveling weather was wonderful and we camped for two nights at Codorous State Park which is just a handful of miles east of Gettysburg. No mosquitoes! Not one! We cooked stew over our campfire, played cards and slept in our snug little tent which withstood the overnight squall that soaked our campsite.
We spent a day touring the town of Gettysburg and the surrounding battlefields. Civil war history everywhere in and around this beautiful Pennsylvania town. We were astonished at how many men died and were wounded during the terrible battles that were fought here. We stopped at the Dead Dog Saloon on the way back, anticipating rain, but the weather fined up and we got lost on the most beautiful country lanes on our way back! Rolling green hills, old farms and horse farms…spectacular countryside in Southeast
Pennsylvania.
Moving on to New Jersey we had to check out the Las Vegas of the east… Atlantic City. Found a great hotel right on the boardwalk (Thanks, Priceline!) and walked a couple miles of boardwalk which had every tourist trinket imaginable for sale alongside slices of pizza and t-shirts (THREE FOR $10!!!). We popped into the Trump Casino where Dan had a quick $170 win so we left the casino in a hurry with cash in hand. The general feel we took away from Atlantic City is that it is a downtrodden, run-down has been. The beach is very nice, but everything else was just in disrepair and it all looked depressing. There were any number of drug deals to observe from our balcony.
After a couple nights in the sin city of the east, we rode the New Jersey coast where the seediness of Atlantic City quickly disappeared. We camped at Allaire State Park, NJ, where we scored a roomy yurt for just a couple bucks more than a tent campsite. Dan went for supplies and as soon as he got back, there was a mad thunderstorm, tons of rain and lightning. We were laughing at
the weather in our comfy yurt but the noise of the freeway (which curiously runs right through the state park) was a bit annoying.
We wanted to give NYC a good look-see so we booked four nights in a room in nearby New Brunswick, NJ where we could train into the Big Apple. Manhattan is an overwhelming city. It truly is a maze of concrete and steel canyons. Our first full day, we rode the bike into Manhattan (it was a Sunday, so little traffic) and the following days we took the train into the city and used subways to cruise the city day and night with our friend Kelli and much of her family. Visited all the usual spots - Ellis Island (Rebecca loved it), the Statue of Liberty, Ground Zero, the U.N., etc…also checked out the night life in and around Times Square. We also finally got to meet Bo who works for us as a translator. Bo works at the Thai Consulate in NYC and took us on a mini-tour of midtown Manhattan where we feasted on what else…Thai food!
We moved east into the rolling hills of Connecticut (more beautiful, old homes and towns)
where we spent one night near Middletown. It doesn’t take long to transit Conneticut and even less time to pass through the postage stamp sized state of Rhode Island which isn’t an island at all. We cruised the Boston downtown and waterfront and then sped off to visit Rebecca’s friends Toni and Dave in Bowdoin, Maine. Dave cooked up a BUSHEL of lobsters to celebrate our visit and we spent a great evening cracking lobster and drinking beer. After an hour or two Rebecca actually refused to eat any more lobster which is possibly the most amazing thing Dan has seen on this entire trip. Our second dinner with Toni and Dave was homemade fried chicken, mashed spuds and all the fixins. We hated to leave!
Maine is a vast state with people and towns few and far between. It took us several hours to work our way east to the beautiful seaside town of Lubec which is the easternmost point in the United States. We had fish chowder at Annabelle's waterfront café overlooking Campabello, Canada and shared our deck with a big group of bikers from Canada who were on a rally. Went to the lighthouse at Quoddy
State Park and tagged our furthest flung point in the Northeast U.S.!
Now we begin the 3,300 mile ride back to Seattle. Stay tuned for Niagra Falls, Mount Rushmore, Yellowstone, the Black Hills and more as we wander homeward.
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john
non-member comment
hey
hey Dan and Rebecca what an absolutely marvellous trip! I just hope you're not moving at toooo great a pace.....I used to like to settle in some places and stick around a while. Still you're grown up boys and girls!! Dogs are Ok luv John the Neighbour