OUR MOTORCYCLE TRIP TO EAST COAST

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

We left for our motorcycle trip East this morning at 8:30. We traveled to Rt 80 East and connected to Rt 90 toward Cleveland. Traveling on Rt 90 brought back memories of the many trips we made to Cleveland when Taylor and Kyle lived there. I am so happy that they are now so close to us and we do not have this 9 hour trip to face each time we see them.

Things went well until we were coming into the Joliet area on Rt 55,  when suddenly the spare tire from under the motorcycle trailer came loose and went flying by me at a very high speed. Thank God I was traveling far enough behind the trailer that the tire missed hitting me. It went  past me and off into the ditch on the side of the road. I speeded up to catch  Larry to let him know it came loose and he said we were not turning around to try to find it. I'm hoping we do not have a flat tire on the trailer now that we have no spare.
 
The weather was beautiful today, with the sun shinning bright and the temperatures around 80-85 degrees which is much better than the horrible temperatures of most our summer.

We traveled on Rt 90 and went through a couple of toll booth's and paid our tolls, which were somewhere around $3 each. The next toll booth we came to was a pretty long distance from the one prior and when I pulled up to pay,  I found it was more than the money that I had in my tank bag. I told the lady I was going to have to get my purse out of the saddlebag and when I put the kick stand down on the motorcycle to get off, I was too close to the curb for the toll both that the stand did not lock. When I went to get off the motorcycle it fell with a crash to the pavement. It was so close to the curb, I could not get a good hold to pick it up. I was sooo- embarrassed and a lady in the car behind me came running up to try to help as well as the male toll clerk in the booth  next to me. I was so upset by the time I got the motorcycle back up, I was shaking! I then had to further hold up traffic to dig out my purse for money. I paid the lady in the toll booth and she was so nice and kept telling me it was OK and to take my time and not worry about it. I finally got everything together and rode on up the road where Larry was waiting. I was still shaking and upset about the stupid mistake when I dropped the bike. These things happen so fast that there is no way to stop the downward motion when it happens. Oh well maybe that is out of the way for the rest of the trip.

We drove to within about 20 miles west of Cleveland where we stopped for the night. Not a bad day, mileage-wise, for the first day of travel. I was so tired when we stopped that I was ready to drop. I woke up this morning at 4:00am and could not sleep so was traveling today with very little sleep. I can say that at 64 years of age,  motorcycle travel is not as easy as it once was. We both have a thousand different aches and pains while traveling. Hopefully, the more we travel, the less pain as we get conditioned again to riding.

Thursday April 23, 2012

I did not wake up this morning until almost 7:30, however that was Ohio time which is an hour ahead of home. I think I actually died when I went to sleep but I felt very refreshed when I got out of bed.
I showered and got ready and we went to the lobby of hotel for breakfast, included in room price. When we walked back to the motorcycles, a guy from one of the other rooms walked up and said he was in the lane next to me yesterday when I dropped my motorcycle. I told him how embarrassing it was and he said it happens to a lot of people. When he was leaving in his car he said to have a safe trip and I told him maybe he should follow us and pick up my bike when I dump it. He had a good laugh as he pulled away.

 We left by 9:00 so even with the time change, we didn't leave much later than yesterday. Again, the weather is gorgeous! So far, it has been so enjoyable riding as there has been no humidity and in the low 80's. We are still traveling the toll road so I made sure I had plenty of cash where I could get to it for tolls. Don't feel like a repeat of yesterday!! The tolls are unbelievably high. Yesterday Larry paid $14 for one toll because of the motorcycle trailer. My toll for the same booth was $7.50. Seriously, even with the motorcycle trailer he has only four wheels on the highway so is this so different than a regular vehicle?? Even paying these fees, we drove in construction for a great portion of our toll road travels. Of course they also have a captive audience in the fact that everyone is forced to spend 20 cents a gal more for gas and eat their EXPENSIVE junk food offerings.  We ran out of the toll road about 5 miles from Cleveland so was glad to get off of it for awhile.

From Cleveland we traveled across Pennsylvania and into New York. When we were getting near the New York state line, we started seeing massive areas of grape vineyards. We saw vineyards on both side of the road for probably 50 miles. There were many signs indicating various wineries and I had no idea that this area was such a wine producing area. We saw a few fields of corn but then it would turn back to vineyards.

We ran into another toll road when we got into New York. At the rate we are paying tolls, I hope we will have enough money left for tolls  to get back home!

It appears Ohio and New York has had more rain than the Midwest as everything is very green. So refreshing to look at green grass and trees after the brown look of home.

We stopped for the night in Hamburg, NY which is about 20 miles west of Buffalo. Again, we are both wherry and very tired. Hopefully, a good night of rest will work it's magic for our ride tomorrow!