Thank you to everyone!

Thank you to all those wonderful people that I met, reconnected with, had dinner with, caught a baseball game with, gave rides to, and/or crashed their couch/spare bed.  You made this such a unique vacation experience.

Shauna and JT; Richie & Magaret; Hector & Susan; Katie-lynn; Howard & Joy w/ Eliad and Ariel; Ian & Heather; Johnnie; Jim my chess opponent; Emily & Mike, and Megan; Chris & Jana; Sarah and Nicholas; Leah, Ellie and Chris; Shannon & Scott w/ Meghan, Logan and Finnegan; Tony; Anna-marie, Carolyn, Jimmy, Trevor, and Guillaum; Andy the Brewmaster and Erica, Martina and Mike; Alex, Tim and Jason of Springwagon; Samantha and Katie; Olaf; Eric & Nadine; Matt, Mike and Ryan; Anna and Weldon;  Blainory, Steve, Stacie, Nicole, Monica, Jenn, James, Danny and Legend; Jon & Stacy.

Home At Last

I arrived home safely Sunday July 4th in the early afternoon.  My motorcycle looks like it was an entrant in a paintball match.  I look like a tanning mutant - that is one with nice olive brown arms and face but a white chin strap, white raccoon eyes, pink lower knuckles (from wrapping my hands around the bars keeping them out of the sun) and everything else pastey white.

Washed the bike once today just to make it somewhat presentable.  I will need to really go at it after work tomorrow.

One More Stop

Not much can be said for PA other than there are many dead deer on the highways.  I opted for the northern rural route 6 instead of the multi-lane highway route 80.  Big mistake...kind of.  The road through the mountains along the Allegheny River was fascinating, but the industrial trucking parade that followed it was unbelievable!  I just don't understand why they would all want to take a twisty two lane road instead of two major parallel highways within 20 miles (Rt 90 to the north and Rt 80 to the south).  As soon as I passed one logging truck, I was behind a giant dump truck.  And there were not many options for passing.

The first order of business after reaching my brother's house in NJ was to head to his office, which is conveniently located above a bar, and meet many of his coworkers. The second order of business while visiting...is to mount the baseboard in his new house. Motorcycling carpentry may be my new vocation!

Close to home

I know I'm getting close to home when: there are more than 3 FM radio stations, and they aren't all playing country music; I actually have to lean the bike around any type of corner; my GPS shows more than a single line in 20 miles indicating any other road whatsoever; I can hit five states in one leg of my trip instead of five nights in one state.  Too much riding today so no pictures - my theory was the more miles today, the less I have tomorrow for my trip across PA.

Long day

I left Chicago a bit later than I should have.  And I forgot about the time zone change.  And I took a route not recommended by Mr. GPS.  So at 9:00pm after having driving 500 miles, I wind up in western Pennsyltucky with no hotels in sight, the sun has gone down, it's now about 55F and I'm freezing and hungry.  I stop at the first 'major' town, and my GPS lied about one motel and the second one had no lights on or people/cars nearby.  I flip on the fog lights and tail another car into the wilderness - at Yellowstone I was straining my neck to see wildlife; now I'm praying I don't see any (cross the road in front of my bike).  GPS will tell me of any motels nearby...except out here where there aren't any.  I figure the more East I keep riding, the closer I'll be to tomorrow night's destination and hopefully I'll find anything.   Luckily I wind upon Warren, PA and find a nice Holiday Inn.  It was just about 10pm and I've just ridden 530 miles.  I still haven't figured out how to make 1,000 miles in 24 hours.

Ohiology

Can someone explain this?  I pulled into a rest area on the Ohio turnpike this afternoon.  The signage was poor, and it wasn't clear if the spot I went to was "auto fuel" or "auto food".  About 100 other cars had the same concern, and now everyone was driving back a one way route to park for food or to get gas.  Once inside, it was not marked Men's Room unless you walked past a concrete divider - I just guessed at where it would be.  There were ton's of snacks here, but you could only pay for them at the Cinnabun register - so if you wanted a water, you would have had to have gotten it before you got in line for the cinnamon roll (which I did not).  There was impossible traffic flow inside the rest stop, and everything seemed out of place - like the seating area which was separated from the food area by a little opening.  Upon exiting, there were only a few gas pumps, and two of them were out of service.  Most of them had a card reader at the tank...except mine.  So I had to prepay with the debit card, but the door to the little island store opened up into a concrete pillar that held the roof up.  Two people could barely fit inside, but the door wouldn't open far enough to let two people pass at the same time.  Very weird this state!

Skydivers

This was a first for me.  I rode underneath a large shadow and thought it was just a plane flying overhead.  It was two skydivers landing about 60 feet from the road, and they were less than a few hundred feet over my head.  They were coming down a few miles north of Chicago.