Sydney to Hallifax

LAST DAY OF RIDING!

It was our last day on the bikes, and an easy 400km ride back-tracking our route slightly but ending up in Halifax.

We ate breakfast at the hotel, with a lovely view over the harbor, before loading up the beasts for the final time and heading back out through the 'burbs of Sydney.

The GPS decided to take us on a scenic route, which was apparently the fastest route to Halifax, but all the same it seemed to take longer than the ride in. We just took it in our stride, as we hate back tracking as a rule, and will always prefer a new route.

The route took us North through some country backstreets to a Car Ferry, just like the ones we have back at home across the Hawksbury river.. almost identical in fact!.

We rode through some lovely scenery that reminded us a bit of the Hebrides, and eventually found our way to our hotel about lunch time -as usual- we were too early to check in. So against all better judgement, walked through the garden to the adjoining Wendy's to eat a meal that I would see again. and again... and again... *sigh* I just didn't learn from the first time I ate Wendy's.
Never again - this time for sure!

After eating our burgers and fries, we wandered back to check in and started to clean our bikes proper.  First order of business, was to take both bikes about 2km down the street to 'do it yourself' car wash. You know the places that have those high pressure washers that really don't do that good of a job, but are much easier than getting on all fours to clean the bottom of the bash plate.
Lucky for me this place took credit card, and we spent about $30 cleaning *most* of the gunk that had accumulated on the bikes since we gave them a little bit of a clean in Bangor.  To my surprise I was able to get the majority of the calcium chloride off the undersides, paying particular attention to the more stubborn deposits

My bike had no mud guard on the rear wheel (it broke in Russia and I never replaced it) so quite a lot of road grime had accumulated under there. A good blasting though and most of the junk came off. One small thing I noticed is that the little tool box pannier I had added, did appear to smack into the back brake caliper, despite the manufacturers (and the Internet's) claims that it would miss. Not a  biggy -now the trip was over - but there was still a Bleed Nipple shaped dent in the bottom of the pannier.

Megan's bike got a the same blasting, but being black, it shows up the dirt much less then mine. very handy to have. We rode both bikes back, being very aware of soap on knobby tyres, and also to avoid any puddles or dirt patches on the road.

Luckily our room had a sliding door that opened onto the car park, and we could just wander in and out to clean them, have a rest, more cleaning, more resting. The weather was hot, had turned overcast and was really muggy. I broke out my silly fold-up wide-brimmed hat, and despite Megans multiple protests, stripped down to a t-shirt and my boxers, after being dutiful to check for any holes that may become the locus of an eventual registered sex offender listing - should I crouch down the wrong way.

We went over the bikes with a fine tooth comb and checked everything.
We hand washed the bikes twice, starting at the front wheel, and moving very slowly back over the whole bike, paying special attention to the radiator/oil coolers, behind the front wheel and under the rear mudguard to make absolutely sure there was not ONE insect or any mud at all. even the smallest speck would not be tolerated by Australian customs.

We pulled off our number plate covers and cleaned the dust from under them, making sure the back of the AUS plate was also clean. I bought a scrubbing brush and tried as best as I could to poke between every fin of my oil cooled heads in search of debris and dirt.

We pulled off all the seats, and everything else that would come off, including push-fit fairings, inspection panels and the luggage and cleaned under it all.

Finally after there was no visible dirt, we gave both bikes a liberal coating with WD-40 on all the painted steel, and Mr Sheen on all of the plastic parts.

We went to bed that night, sun-burnt, arms aching, and reeking of WD-40. The mammoth task was now finally over. we had spent the best part of 8 hours cleaning the bikes and had only stopped because of the lack of light. We were happy and and relieved

Until about 1 am in the morning.

When it started raining.

It only lasted a while luckily,  and the next morning after a bit of a rinse off and some more Mr Sheen, the bikes looked mint again.

First order for this morning was to sort our luggage, repack everything, and send everything we didn't need back with the bikes on the ship.

We policed up all our clothes, separated them from our camping gear, and made two piles - one for the plane and one for the boat.

We cleaned the panniers inside and out, polishing them with Mr Sheen, and fitted them back to the bike. Looking at the giant pile of shit we had to take back with us, we called a cab and hit the local Walmart, and came back with 2 large and one carry-on 'wheely' suitcases.

After a bit of tetris-ing, we had our new luggage packed, and the bike panniers locked up like those practical-joke tins with the snakes inside.
We tentatively rode both bikes to the local Harley dealership for crating, (it would suck to dump the bike in the street now)  and sadly shut our helmets into my top box for the trip home.

We walked back to the Hotel, checked out, and we wheeled our luggage to the the Harley dealership to fill out the paperwork, before getting a Cab to Hallifax airport where we would spend the night in the transit hotel, ready for our early flight To San Fransisco the next morning.

The last day had gone like clockwork. Everything had fallen into place with no headaches, from the car wash down the road, to the Harley dealer within walking distance.. and finding luggage at Walmart easily. Seemed weird to me that things went off without a hitch.

At the car wash getting a blast down

All shined up and ready for customs

The sorting of the luggage has started!

This is what 15,000km will do to a TKC-80

At the Harley Dealership, ready to be crated

The last time we saw our bikes in Nth America

Moncton to Sydney (Nova Scotia)

We had a longish leg to finish off the ride today 430km to our final destination in an Easterly direction to a place called Sydney.

We were planning to then get a ferry from there to Newfoundland and finish in St Johns, but as you all know we have had to cut that part of the trip off! (*grumble...fucking dog...grumble*) Sydney had been our original finish point in the beginning, as it somehow seemed fitting to finish our trip in a city with the same name as the start point.

It was an easy highway ride for the first 200km or so, and then there road came down to 90km/h,as we wound our way along the edge of the interior sea cost.

The dual carriageway disappeared and we were down to a single lane in both directions. So we were stuck behind people who were taking their sweet old time. It was nice though, and we were treated to sleepy coastal towns, and more than a few isolated houses right on the edge of the water

We crossed onto Cape Breton Island via a bridge and a Dam wall between Aulds Cove and Port Hastings, and soon after the GPS helpfully turned us onto a back road,  because apparently it had forgotten about the last warning I gave it on the last fuck-a-round, where I threatened to run it over, stomp on it and finally pound it's guts to a fine powder with a hammer, before adding it to my breakfast cereal and eating it, before an unceremonious trip to the the local sewer facility.

We rode a little through some rough looking coastal scrub, looking for a place to turn around. After 10km or so of a rapidly deteriorating and narrowing road, I decided to take matters into my own hands and make a right hand turn to force the GPS to recalculate. Getting the dreaded 'make a u-turn' I finally stopped and fiddled with it, which wasn't helpful at all, and eventually we saw a sign back the way we came and took it, finally ending back up on the original road. Turned out the GPS had crashed, and I had to take the battery out of it to get it to re-boot. Thanks for that - you little grey Bastard.

We crawled our way the last 80 or so km through Sydney's suburban sprawl, and arrived at our digs - The Holiday Inn a little early for check-in and so had a a beer at the Hotel Bar. Another couple of bikers turned up, and the usual conversations ensued - where have you come from/ how far to go etc etc.

After about a hour we checked into our room, cranked the A/C, and then set-off on a single bike to finish the last little stretch of our ride, and that was to ride to the coast and gaze over the remaining 3000km of ocean to Ireland - our finish point of our 2012 ride across Northern Asia and Europe.



We rode through the burbs and shopping district to a place called Glace Bay, which seemed as good a place as any to finish. The sun was shining, and we wound our way through the back streets past the fishing co-op and eventually found a dead end where the road stopped near the ocean.


We made it. And no-one died.

We had ridden over 15,000km from Anchorage, and over 32,000km from Vladivostok on these bikes. All without a single mechanical failure, or even a flat tyre.

I spent a while taking pics of my bike with the ocean in the background, and we talked about how quick this ride had gone and re-capped what each of our 'tops' were - (what was your 'Top' days riding - top experience etc) Mine was a tie, riding through Jasper National Park was very special, but then again - the Going to the Sun Road in Glacier National Park was also amazing. It would be very hard to split those up. The most biggest disappointment for both of us had been Yellowstone, but that was all our fault really, we rode through it without stopping to look at anything, letting the crowds and the traffic get to us, which soured the whole thing. In our defense, there was NOWHERE left to park to see anything, and the queues looked like something that belonged at Disneyland.

We also had the inevitable "What/How would you do again?". we both decided that it wasn't worth starting in Anchorage. It had cost us an extra $6,000 Australian dollars to get our bike to Anchorage from LA. To put that into perspective, Sydney to LA only cost about $1500 and it only cost us $1200 to ship to Vladivostok. We both decided that 'next time' we would ride from LA to Anchorage, and see the 'apparently' beautiful coast of Oregon, and also see somethings we missed out on like Washington state, and the giant redwoods of California, and Lake Tahoe as well. We'd then ride up through the coast of BC, and around the gulf of Alaska as much as possible, and see Juneau, Homer and end up in Anchorage in time for the Salmon run.

We dreamed a little more, had more than a few 'do you remember' conversations, deeply breathed in the salt air, and with elated but slightly melancholy feelings, rode back along the bay to the hotel.


We showered, got changed, and went for a walk around the harbor, looking at all the WW2 memorials (Sydney was a big shipping port for merchant vessels to the UK) and had dinner at the pub just down the road.

We wandered back to the Hotel on Dusk, and had a few more drinks at the bar before hitting the sheets. Tomorrow we would finish the very last day of riding, 400 or so kms to Hallifax where our bikes had a date with a shipping crate.

The Hotel We stayed at (street view):
Holiday Inn, Sydney NS

The pub:
The Govenors' Inn

Welcome to Sydney!

World War Two Merchant Navy Memorial

Only a short Swim to Ireland - Where are the SeaDoos?

That'll do Bike - That'll do.

Inadvertent selfie.

A different Sydney Harbor to what we're used to

Sydney Harbor at Sunset, also the view from our window.

Bangor to Moncton (New Brunswick, Canada)

Big day today, and we must push push push to get our bikes to the shipper and make our flight home from Halifax.

We had to cover 488kms, and also complete a border crossing back into Canadia. We had no time for scenic routes, so we jumped on the I-95 pinned the throttle and burned all the way to the border.

Pretty soon we cleared the burbs of Bangor, and were then back to riding in the bush. It was almost like being back in the Yukon, with forests, and acres of  wooded country as far as you could see (from the road anyway)

Pretty soon we arrived at the Canadian border control, and we were filling out entry cards and answering all sorts of questions about the bikes. They asked us to pull over in the waiting bay, and the nice lady asked me for the original bike documents, but then when she saw that I had them in to bottom of my top box, and I started pulling our all manner of soiled clothing, (which probably smelled like it had been used to clean up roadkill) she said - "ahh... don't worry about it"

Eager to prove myself worthy - I fished it out anyway in its well organised plastic sleeve and she just gave it a cursory look and gave it back to me.

They also asked to see our 'bear spray' which we were told MUST say 'Bear Spray' on the label. I guess savvy Americano's try and sneak their Mace in under the guise of it being for the pointy teeth kind of Bear, and not the 6ft 6 Lumberjack border line psychotic type.

Satisfied that we weren't expecting a tryst gone wrong with 'Caribou Bill', we were allowed to keep our Bear spray. I re-packed my Topbox, deciding to bring some Hazmat labelled bags next time. and we continued on to burn down the remaining 300km to Moncton.

We hit a town called Woodstock, and afterwards veered south onto the Trans-Canada Highway, crossing the St John River. We stopped for fuel at a little service station just off the highway about 15km later. It was FUCKING hot, and we were both sweating like buggery inside our jackets. We had a cold Coke and an Icecream (Klondike!) and we ready to tackle the rest of the ride, but not put our gross stinky sweat soaked jackets again.

At one stage,  The guy in front of me veered violently off to the side of the road. Just as I got to the 'fuck' in 'what the fuck are you doing' in my head, I noticed there was a small Black Bear Cub running towards the road, the guy had aggressively swerved towards it and had successfully 'shooed' it back towards the forest and I saw it crash into the undergrowth in my mirror. Pretty sure if you tried with a Kangaroo, it would just keep on trucking straight into you.

We completed the remaining 245 kms and rode into Moncton around 4pm in the afternoon. We were buggered, but exhilarated to have finally made it back into Canada. We were also a bit melancholy realising that our trip was soon coming to an end in just a few more days. We were wondering exactly where the time had gone, and even though we had spent almost the same time riding in Russia, the Russia trip seemed to take WAY longer.

We checked into our hotel, and needed some assistance to get the Air Conditioning working. We had been FUCKING BOILING all day, and had been looking forward to some A/C, TV and a couple of beers. I called the front desk, forcing myself to sound happy, and only slightly put out, and the hotel 'maintenance guy' came up to fix it. We asked for another room, but they were booked solid, and sure enough a shitload of other bikers turned up. Fucking bikers.. :)

Eventually (after another visit from 'maintenance guy and the owner) the air-con kicked in and we had sweet relief from the heat.

I headed out to the local Bass Pro to do some last minute shopping, and was amazed by the sheer awesome size of the local store.

I thought the front of it looked like a Log cabin, and walking in - the entry way WAS A FUCKING LOG CABIN. there was a sofa, and a fire place (not lit) and thick wooden roof trusses, all made from logs. This was simply the mud room/double doors where shoppers could take off their coats and also not let all the warm air out of the shop during winter.

Walking inside - I was absolutely BLOWN away by the sheer scale of the place. There was a 25-30ft boat AS A DISPLAY. yep. perched up in the air what a fucking full size fishing boat. Jesus.

There were also loads of what I can only describe as full size dioramas around the place, with full size animal mounts, (set in the appropriate scenery - of course).

It was absolutely amazing, and quite frankly and animal rights activists worst nightmare. I am not a believer in Trophy Hunting -but- understand that due to human activity completely screwing the natural order, we must sometimes intervene at times to keep things in balance. In any case, most/all of the animals would have been eaten.

I also realise that I'm 'not in Kansas anymore', and for many people, Hunting is a normal way of life, and also for too many people; not not an option or choice, but a necessary part of their food budget.

anyways...

It was awesome... and I spent about a hour looking at all the amazing things that Canadians could buy, and lamented living in our pathetic 'don't run with the scissors' country that we live.

Amazing stuff, compound bows, binary explosive, and all sorts of rifles and guns. Some of them not even available to anyone with any kind of  gun license back home. *sigh*

I took lots of photos, bought a sweet new pocket knife. On the way back I bought some beer and dinner from Burger King. (not in the same place - although Beers at Burger King would be sweet!)

Getting back to the room, I made Megan look at all the pics, where she showed the kind of interest I show when she starts talking about clothes or shoes. :).. Boys eh?

Canadian Border!

waiting at the border

The front of BassPro Moncton

There was a GIANT fish tank with live Trout swimming in it

These are all real mounts

Look closely in the 'bush'

They are real Bison mounts above the Door. The are underneath is the Entryway

More dead animals...

I spy with my little eye.. something beginning with M.

Here is our Fuel stop Off the Trans-Canada Highway:

https://www.google.com.au/maps/dir/Bangor,+Maine,+United+States/Fredericton,+NB,+Canada/moncton/@45.975115,-67.4704138,3a,60y,278.5h,87.66t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s22U1ob0oDwQeKqV-T91GOQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!4m30!4m29!1m15!1m1!1s0x4cae4b46101129bd:0x4d0918b0a7af7677!2m2!1d-68.7778138!2d44.8011821!3m4!1m2!1d-68.6816771!2d45.2052414!3s0x4cafee98bead9a51:0x610114af337019e!3m4!1m2!1d-68.6816771!2d45.2052414!3s0x4cafee98bead9a51:0x610114af337019e!1m5!1m1!1s0x4ca4220ba498fb2b:0xe7de2f297a415db4!2m2!1d-66.6431151!2d45.9635895!1m5!1m1!1s0x4ca0b92918d41765:0xdc10a333a4e63c4!2m2!1d-64.7782313!2d46.0878165!3e0



Here is the Hotel we stayed in Moncton:

https://www.google.com.au/maps/@46.1022538,-64.7641233,3a,75y,127.98h,86.12t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sodq9vosSEcF-IgcbRskSmg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1

Old Orchard Beach to Bangor

YES! ONLY 200KM TODAY!

We've been burning it over the last 10 days or so so we can finish up early, we have done 400km of more most days for that time, and it was nice to have a leisurely ride for once!

We even stayed within the same state for once and didn't even have to stop for fuel! Amazing how small things seem like a big win at this stage of the trip.

We arrived in Bangor after a couple of hours, and the first order of business  was to check out Stephen Kings house which luckily was only 4km form our hotel, and the second was to make a dent in the mammoth task of cleaning our bikes down for Australian customs.

We rode the very short distance to Stephen Kings house, which seemed large-ish from the street , but when you walked along the road a bit could see that extended a LONG way back from the street with a number of other 'additions' out the back. Unfortunately, there was no Storm water drains to hide in while wearing a clown mask!

We posed for a couple of rare 'selfies' while pulling stupid faces outside his house. there were at least about 4-5 other cars pulling up while we were there... and this was a week day! I'm sure the neighbours LOVE all the traffic in the street, and all the dickhead tourists taking selfies in front of the gate! We spent about 15 minutes here generally being a public nuisance, borderline trespassing, and examining all the cool gargoyles on the fence.

It was then the time to get back to the Hotel and start the shit (SHIIIIIIT!) task of cleaning the bikes for transport.

Last time we spent a whole day cleaning a multitude of dead bugs and encrusted filth off our bikes in Ireland, and I was not keen to repeat the performance, deciding to split it up a bit over a couple of innings.

3 hours later, the bikes were a little bit cleaner, and mostly dead body free, however there is still quite a lot of calcium carbonate encrusted to the underside on the stands, from all the road works we have ridden through. This shit is a bastard to clean off, and sticks like glue. It's really weird. If you're reading this, and planning a motorcycle trip across the US, I recommend applying WD-40 regularly to the underside of your bike, possibly every couple of days, Just to provide a barrier to stop this stuff from sticking.

We got the bulk of it done, with just a little more scrubbing and a liberal (LIBERAL!) application of WD-40 to get off all the tar spots and to shine all the metal so it looks new.


 We also needed to off-load a few things, including our 10L Jerry cans that we had carried the whole way from Australia. We left them in the Hotel car park, along with some spare oil,  left a 'FREE' sign on them and posted on a biking forum that they were there and waiting. who knows what became of them...

Shit. Laptop screen just died. Gonna have to finish this on my phone!

Stephen Kings house. You can feel the weirdness from here.

You can see it goes further back from the road

Bike washing... what a fucking pain in the arse...

Fare thee well Jerry cans.
May you be a pain in someone elses' arse from now on.
So glad I won't have to strap you on and off my back seat every day.
Or have you dig in to my back, or snag my boot getting on and off the bike
in fact - Die screaming mother fucker.

Williamstown to Old Orchard Beach (Maine)

We left around 9 am this morning, after getting a half decent coffee from Dunkin Donuts. Good coffee has been unbelievably hard to come by, and I am ashamed to say that I have been buying coffee from Starbucks when we can. Other than Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts, all other coffee is 'Americano' or bitter, watery drip filtered coffee. They drink it black, or with a horrific substance called 'creamer' - which is probably made out of the ground up foot skin of old people. It sure tastes that way anyway :)

We had programed the GPS the night before with a number of waypoint towns to keep us off the Interstate and take us through the back roads through Vermont.

The riding was amazing, starting off with tall trees and lush green forest on both sides of the road, and some great twisties up and down rolling hills. I was wearing a shit eating grin, and flogging my loaded up bike through everything, only slowing down when a bastard truck decided to spoil my morning... on purpose of course!

We road through some amazing towns, including the ski town Willmington, which had an amazing town centre, and some beautiful old colonial style buildings. The streets were narrow (for the US) and all the stores were grouped together and it had a cute 'little village' feel.

All of the houses had planters hung on their verandahs with matching or alternating coloured flowers, and lots of the houses had red white and blue bunting draped over the railings out the front. They were also very patriotic, with about 70% of the houses having one or more flags out the front. It was very cool, and one of the better days riding of the whole trip.

All too soon though, we had exhausted all the back roads we could take, and did the last 100km on the interstate, and I soon lapsed into my usual stupor and dreamed of all the things I would build when I got home.

About 3pm, we rolled into Old Orchard Beach, which is a small holiday town right on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. First thing we noticed was the salt air, which we had not smelt since we left Sydney. The second thing was we seemed to have re-materialised in a world that was a cross between the Royal Easter show, and Surfers paradise in the 70's. There was an amusement park right on the waterfront, which reminded me of The Lost Boys - one of my favourite movies from when I was a kid; when Vampires were still badass and not dick loving nancy boys like Edward fucking Cullen!

We checked into our hotel, and spent a great afternoon walking down the Beach to the Pier, dipping our toes in the water, and stepping around all of the sand castles and various other 'excavations' kids had made all over the place. The Sand was quite strange, it was very fine, and seemed to have a very high silt content, because the wet sand stuck to the bottom of your feet in places a bit like mud. The sand was also very hard, and it hurt our feet after a while, it was almost like walking on concrete, even down near the water. The people at the beach were kinda weird, they were more interested in sitting on the sand, and there was only a handful of people swimming, kinda the opposite of home. The ocean was the opposite as well, bugger all swell and it was actually warm for some reason, I was expecting it to be freezing cold.

We checked out the pier, which was a bit 'seedy' and had a Lobster roll at a nearby (much nicer) restaurant. It was ok I guess, shell fish are not really high on my list of favourite foods. You can keep your alien sea cockroaches thanks very much - I'll have a steak please.

We made our way back the 3km down the beach to our hotel, just as a huge storm started to roll, in. We got a little rained on, but it was really nice to be near the ocean and watch and hear the storm chasing us up the beach.

BOOYAH! Twisties!!!

OH....HELLO DICKHEAD. GO HOME.

 

Wilmington Vermont

Amusement park on the beach... What could go wrong?

Walking down the beach towards the Pier

looking down the Pier

View back to the beach from the end of the Pier

Allentown to Williamstown (Massachusetts)

Our latest start yet today! 10am!! holy crap! I think I said 'out of here by 10' as a bit of a joke,but it just kinda happened by accident. It was already stinking hot by the time we went out to load up the bikes, and we were both swimming in sweat before we even started.

While we were loading up the bikes, we got talking to a woman who was picking up her sons dog. Turned out that her son,  his girlfriend,  and his dog were hiking the whole of the Appalachian Trail. They had stared out in Georgia in March and had hiked 1200 miles so far, but the dog had had enough and was just refusing to walk anymore. Poor guy was probably knackered or had some sort of pain that had stopped him from going on. Even so - what and achievement... I can't even think of hiking 1200miles! Mind you the guy was 20 something. We've even noticed the difference 4 years has made since we rode Russia as to how shit you feel when you get up in the morning.

We rode the interstate for 350 of the 400km, turning off into some great countryside towards the end that made the previous 3 hours totally worth it!
We ended up in a small town called Williamstown in Massachusetts right near Williams College which was first established in 1793 as an all male liberal arts college. For kids who -  you know - want to live off welfare and not actually contribute anything worthwhile to society :)

The town was loaded with old buildings and churches that looked amazing. There were big leafy green trees, big grand houses and long lawns all the houses having huge setbacks.

We checked into our hotel,  and walked a couple of km into the town to get beer (as usual!) We went to a rather snobbish beer and wine bar, and unfortunately already ordered a drink before we realised how pretentious it was based on the other clientele (faux-rich New Yorkers) and got the hell out of there. The second bar we went to was a proper student pub, named after the school mascot (The Purple Cow).

A couple of beers later, and it was time for an early dinner - we got a burrito from the mexican place next door, which was the best Mexican food we had so far, mostly I think because the shop was run by mexicans, the TV blaring out some show in Spanish.
After scoffing that down, we fell into bed exhausted as usual and I don't even remember Megan turning of the Telly.

Harrisonburg to Allentown (Pennsylvania)

420km of Interstates today! Megan's shoulder is fucked up, she can barely move her right arm to put on her jacket, let alone look over her shoulder properly to change lanes!

All happened by sleeping on it badly, but it's probably some sort of fatigue related problem as well. Megan hasn't had a good nights sleep the whole trip apparently, and our left over Russian Voltaren and a few Tylenol extra strength don't seem to help.

We left Harrisonburg late (9am) and arrived here at Allentown in Pennsylvania about 1pm. It was a straight shot with the customary fuel stop at the half mark, where I customarily have a diet coke and an Ice-cream sandwich, Megan has a full strength coke and a bite of my ice-cream!

It s still quite warm, but not nearly as hot or as muggy as it was further down south. I can't believe how far we have come in the last week or so. It just seems like yesterday we were at Rachel or Vegas in the Desert.

The trip seem to have lost a certain amount of luster (for me at least) since we decided to come home early. I just feel like we have missed out on so much, and now the riding is more a means to an end then rather than something I look forward to every day.

We didn't really have time to plan what we wanted to see on this leg of the trip, and I am kinda regretting not doing some more research on riding roads around here. There really is so much to see, and the US is a bikers paradise. Megan and I have already talked about what we would do if we had a chance to come back here one day and tour again, either on a motorbike or maybe.. just maybe.. A FUCKOFF HUGE F-350 FORD CREW CAB TRUCK WITH A 5TH WHEELER CARAVAN AND A TRAILER WITH QUADS ON IT AND SHIT!!!!! FUCK YEAH!!!! AND A GIANT COWBOY HAT AND FUCKING CAMO EVERYTHING!!!
(**deep breaths**)

man that was close... almost went full redneck...

Seriously though... the people down south have been so friendly, every time we stop at a service station, someone has had a chat to us, and they are so polite, even the kids say 'excuse me sir' etc and everyone holds the door for you. Its a real eyeopener, and makes you realise how utterly horrible the people back home are. Even people out on the street say good morning, reminds us of Switzerland where everyone said 'Morgen' or 'Grutzie' or whatever the local dialect was... such a shame people at home just don't do it.

Maybe there wouldn't be so much road rage if people where actually nice to each other. Back home if you hold the door for someone, they seem to look down on you, and barely say thank-you, as if you somehow weakened yourself by subjugating yourself to the role of a slave or something, as if you have assumed a servitude role, and thereby making the other person seem more important than you. Where as over here, the bigger person is the one who is humble and stands there patiently for you to go through in front of them. And everyone calls you sir. It just feels... weird.. and it makes me feel uncomfortable for some reason...

I have also been 'blessed' so many times I thought my skin would have caught on fire by now! While we're both massive Atheists -  we still appreciate the sentiment in the way it's given.

We managed to cross through into Pennsylvania today, but we also managed to clip West Virginia and Maryland on the way.

Megan seems to notice way more of the scenery when were riding then I do. I seem  to 'mong out' on the interstate, my mind drifts away, I have made so many plans of stuff I have seen here that I want to try out when I get home. Building a bigger Offset smoker has taken up a lot of 'brain bandwidth'.... I've also made mental recipes of a lot of the food I have eaten over here that I've liked.

There is still so much stuff over here I want to buy and take home with me. Problem is sourcing it and carrying it on the bike. A second hand compound bow for example... how the fuck do you source, buy on credit card, and then pack that on the bike?

We're off to Williamstown tomorrow, up near Vermont.... apparently all the rich people from New York go there to look at the leaves in Autumn.

Current track log from the GPS