Expect Delays Ahead

This is what the Garmin doesn't know about estimated time for travel:
- the stretch of I-95 between New Haven and Bridgeport, CT is a MESS!  Stop and go is an understatement!
- the George Washington Bridge through New York City is another mess!  Especially if you are not a New Yorker!
- a huge accident on I-495 created yet another mess, and we weren't even on the side where the accident was!

Our ride today was just over 10 hours, with four stops for gas, and at least three sections where we were mostly riding in "clutch"!  That being said, we did arrive home safely and that is alway the most important part.

Cameron remembered who we were and Meg and Annie clearly did a great job taking care of him.  After reuniting with Cameron, the next orders of business were laundry and SHOWERS!

Another successful trip!  :)

Thursday's post - early

This post is being sent out in advance of Thursday, well, because the weather as previously stated has not played nicely with us.  So instead of leaving Newport on Wednesday to go to Essex Village in Connecticut, we will be leaving Newport on Thursday and driving straight home.  For those statistics fans out there (according to the maps I accessed) that will be:
- 423 miles
- 7 hours, 40 minutes (yeah, RIGHT!!!!!)

That will take us across the Claibourne Pell Bridge which is:
- the 80th longest suspension bridge in the world
- 1601 feet long
- 400 feet above the water

The next bridge is the Jamestown Verrazano Bridge which is:
- a post-tensioned double-cell concrete box girder bridge
- 7,350 feet long
- I couldn't find out how high it is above the water ---I am just assuming that it is-above the water!!!!

After that we will be on I-95 for miles, and miles, and miles.  Or paying homage to Robert Frost, "... And miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep."

I am just going to assume that:
- we are going to leave here insanely early Thursday morning
- we will make it home safely
- our ride will be uneventful
- and long, but I think that goes without saying.

Rain ...and over the rainbow!

YUP!!!  We woke up to RAIN this morning.  Fortunately there is a restaurant at our hotel, so we unpacked our raincoats and headed out the door.  Our waitress was from Scotland.  We were greeted with "Hello, love!"  and "Would you like coffee, darling?"  And we learned that she came from Scotland 24 years ago for an 8 week vacation (and stayed), got married, divorced, and custody of the dog!  OK - a little too much information before my first cup of coffee!  But she's a hoot and makes absolutely everyone feel welcome.

We had to wait until 10:00 before the casino opened, but surprisingly (or not) by the time we got there people were already set up at the slot machines.  We are such gamblers  (NOT!) that we wandered around just looking at the different kinds of slot machines, trying to decide which ones would deliver our fortune!

Decisions, decisions!  But when we saw this, how could I possibly walk past the Wizard of Oz slot machine???  But this one was only a penny slot machine, certainly not a machine to deliver our fortune!

So we went to the nickel Wizard of Oz slot machines right next to the penny slots. OK - so we didn't make our fortune, but we (read that as Vaughn) made $67.  I only broke even.

If nothing else, it was entertaining to watch the Wicked Witch come through with her flying monkeys to grant 8 extra spins or Glenda the Good change a couple of the columns to WILD.  OK, so we are easily amused!  We left before we could do any more damage.  Scary that that single one hour was the highlight of the day.  But in spite of the rain and our small sum of winnings, we enjoyed our time together, as always.

It was a dark and stormy night....

...and the first mate said to the captain....  Oh wait, that's my dad's story.

So far the rain that has yet to make it's forecasted appearance, so we went to Benjamin's for dinner.

Newport apparently is known for a drink called a "Dark and Stormy" - ginger beer and dark rum.    With it being a local  speciality, of course I had to try it.

    With the other local specialties of lobster and "Cupcake  Charlie's ---  life is GOOD!  :)

I am resigned to a rainy day tomorrow, but with a casino right across the street, what could possibly go wrong........?

Plan B-b

Again the weather didn't look promising for the day - foggy, cloudy and then a 50% chance of rain for the rest of the day, increasing  towards evening and even more tomorrow - with flooding expected.  Our original plans were to leave tomorrow heading to Essex Village, CT.  We were planning to stay at the Griswold Inn.  Yup, I had visions of  National Lampoon's Vacation with Chevy Chase, too, but the Griswold Inn is a historic inn in what looks to be a charming town.  And it is near the Gillette Castle in East Haddam.  Google it if you get a chance - it looked like a photographer's paradise.  But you will note that I said "planning".  Rain on a motorcycle trip has a strange way of making plans suddenly become flexible.  So we cancelled the reservations at the Griswold Inn and will be staying here one more night.

But about today - we made the impulsive decision to ride our bikes into town to walk along Cliff Walk and get some pictures.  The nice young lady at the front desk gave us easy directions and ideas where to park.

I mentioned the foggy part of the forecast, right?  Well, here's the thing about fog and motorcycles.  Fog really is little tiny raindrops whose sole mission is to attach themselves to motorcycle windshields.  And driving to Cliff Walk, the fog did just that - accumulated on our windshields making it difficult to see.  But we pushed on!  We found parking spaces near the beach by Cliff Walk.  We paid for two hours of parking and headed to Cliff Walk.  The first 2/3 mile was the ocean, cliff and beach roses on one side and boxwood and bushes on the other side.

After that the mansions became visible and we were able to snap a few shots be needing to head back to the parking meters.  As you can see, the mansions are HUGE.  I can't understand why anyone would need a house so big.  Great views, but...

Plan B

The weather did not completely cooperate with us today, so instead of taking our bikes into Newport, we took a shuttle downtown.  We found out during the journey that Newport is way bigger than it looks on the map.   We had planned to walk along Cliff Walk (a 3+ mile walk along the cliff, basically through the backyards of the Newport mansions).  That plan changed when we were dropped off at the Visitor Center - about a mile from the start of Cliff Walk.  So although a portion of Cliff Walk is closed, we were easily looking at a 5 mile walk on a day where the weather threatened not to play nicely.  So we  opted for a bus tour of Newport where we learned a great deal about the history of Newport.

We were glad to be in a bus instead of these little clown cars that tourists were tooling around town in. There's an accident waiting to happen!  And why isn't this woman wearing a helmet?!?

We stopped by the church where John F. Kennedy married Jackie Onassis.  We loved the architecture and spent a while taking pictures of the church.

Finally, we stopped for a late lunch of lobster.  Oh, this is the "after" picture.  Yum!  Lobster two days in a row.  We are aiming for at least three days in a row to rise above "amateur" tourist status.   I am still hoping for good weather tomorrow, in spite of what all the weather maps show.



PS - the tour bus driver confirmed that the winds yesterday were brutal!  So it wasn't just us!!  Everyone was being blown around.

Thar she blows!!!!

Our original plans were to leave Grafton on Monday, driving out to the end of Cape Cod (Provincetown) for lunch and then heading to Newport, Rhode Island.  But a quick check of the Weather Channel showed a 50-60% chance of showers on Monday.  You may recall from the first post how I feel about riding in the rain, so we changed our plans and left Grafton this morning.  Beautiful morning with relatively light traffic until we got out towards the end of the Cape.  And this is where our plans unraveled.....

I had researched restaurants in Provincetown and found one with excellent reviews.  We were looking forward to being able to use this restaurant as an opportunity to stretch our legs (after a 3 hour journey) and sit by the water enjoying the scenery and delicious food.  However, Provincetown has tiny roads where pedestrians have the right of way (to include, apparently, walking down the middle of the street) and no observable parking.  After circling several blocks a couple of times (and avoiding hitting other cars, people and dogs) we decided it was time to get out of there.  And so we did!  Sighh!!!

We stopped by a restaurant we had passed on the way in and had our first lobster roll.  We really wanted to LOVE it, but it was "meh". Sighh!!!

Back on the road again we had about a two hour hour ride to Newport.  Yeah, right!  Heading out the only road in or out of Cape Cod, about 5 miles from "the next turn", traffic came to a crawl - or if you a riding a motorcycle it came to "clutch".  There was never a chance to completely stop nor to move out of anything but 1st gear, with the clutch in.  Sighh!!!  We finally reached our turn, only to find that it looked, again, like Garmin had mislead us.  However, after stopping at a gas station, I was reassured by the attendant that the Garmin was, in fact, right, and she assured me that we actually would be able to get back across the road and through two lanes of stopped traffic in order to make the turn we were supposed to.  And she was right, so that was a pleasant surprise.

But my feeling of it's-the-journey-not-the-destination was again dashed when for the next hour plus of our ride we were buffeted and blown by wind that came out of I don't know where!  It's scary enough being pushed by the wind on the road, it is something entirely different when crossing a bridge and unbeknownst to me the rest of our day's travel took us over three bridges. Sighh!!!  I was riding lead (with the Garmin) and I definitely couldn't wait to get to the destination!

So here we are in Newport, so completely exhausted that all we could manage was to take a shower, eat dinner at the hotel's restaurant and crawl back to our room.  Our plan is to have more energy tomorrow!  I am also optimistically hoping that the projected rain will choose to go elsewhere.  :)

Sorry - wrong kid!

Mary, with whom we are staying, and her sons David and Daniel, took us to see Water Fire in Providence, Rhode Island last night.  Water Fire was a pretty cool event.  There were dozens of braziers in the Providence River filled with stacks of firewood.   The sidewalks lining and the bridges crossing the river filled up quickly with people as dusk fell. We were lucky to find a corner on one of the bridges where we could watch the event.  Several gondolas filled with extra wood floated among the braziers.  At the appointed time, a smaller gondola came down the river; the gondolier carrying a single torch.  This small gondola floated past all the other gondolas, lighting a torch held by the gondolier of each boat.  These gondoliers in turn circled the braziers, lighting the wood.  This became quite a magical event as night blanketed the city, illuminating it by the fires of the river and their reflections.  David was entranced!

With the crowds and darkness, the adults in our group were keeping an eye on each other and the kids.  As we left the event we went up a flight of steps to avoid the crowds.  I saw Mary and Daniel head up the steps and knew Vaughn was right behind me.  David appeared to be lingering at the bottom of the steps, so I put my hand on his back saying, "Come on, sweetie..." getting ready to guide him up the stairs.  Immediately a woman reached out and grabbed the child.  I was horrified to see that this was not David!  David was going up the steps, holding his mother's hand.  I quickly apologized, but does one say, "I'm sorry - wrong kid"?  Vaughn kidded me about this all the way back to the car!

The author speaks

Vaughn's presentation/book-signing today was in an adorable book store.  He had double-billing on the bulletin board at the bookstore with a local favorite.  And needless to say Vaughn did a great job! The turn out was good, the audience had great questions and many stayed after the presentation to speak with him personally.  After the presentation, we were invited out to lunch with several members of the organization who had requested that Vaughn come speak.  It was a great morning and afternoon.






This evening we are headed to Providence, RI for an event called Water Fire.  It is an art festival that also features water lanterns (for lack of a better word) that will be lit in the river.  I am hoping that tomorrow I will have pictures to post from this event!

Here in Grafton

We arrived in Grafton, MA yesterday only 40 minutes past our anticipated arrival time.  I will continue to blame this on the Garmin which "chooses" to send us on roads that I didn't plan for us.  I mean it takes us off I-84 onto to three other roads, only to put us back onto I-84 for another 37 miles.  Make that make sense!

Anyway, another safe arrival to a friend of Vaughn's, Mary's home.  Mary and her family generously offered us to stay in their home while we are here for a few days.  In fact, Mary was the moving force behind our trip.  She arranged for a presentation and book signing for Vaughn (When the School says No, How to Get the Yes!) at Tatnuck Bookseller in Westborough later today.

Yesterday Mary took us on a tour of Grafton, a very quaint New England town, complete with a historic inn, Whoopie pies, and houses with amazing architecture, like this fireplace in one home we visited.

The good, the bad and the ugly

THE GOOD

• We left at 6:03 this morning - relatively close to the projected 5:45 take-off time!
• We arrived safely.
• Vaughn remembered an extra media card for the camera (see The Bad).
• We remembered the good stuff - Chivas and Captain Morgan (smuggled in empty Pepsi bottles).  Thanks to my parents for introducing this tradition to me (taking gin and vermouth on vacations for their martinis) and to my brother for continuing tradition (when he arranged for bottles of Chivas and Captain Morgan to be waiting for us in Maui several years ago).  What a way to end the day!

THE BAD

• We needed to stop before Baltimore  to re-secure (OK, actually secure (!) my luggage).
• I forgot to put the media card BACK in the camera last night after I downloaded pictures to my computer.
• Our leg (and other) muscles are seriously not used to 8 hours of riding.
• The less than 6 hour ride (according to Harley's RidePlanner) was more like 8 hours (OK, so that did include stops for breakfast and gas, but seriously?   8 hours?

THE UGLY

• The Garden State Parkway - ALL OF IT!!! Thank you Vaughn, for riding lead on this section of the trip!   :)
• Some road in New York or Connecticut that felt like we were riding along a railroad track!
• And the condition of the room after we hit it...

But the GOOD far out weighs the bad!

Nearly packed

Well, the packing continued and the stress level rose as we remembered items that were not include on my "relatively comprehensive" packing list - that will now have to be revised for our next trip.  At this point we  t-h-i-n-k  we have everything packed or ready to go.  Vaughn polished our boots and sprayed them with a water repellant.  Can you tell which ones are mine?  Yup, mine are the dainty ones!  :)



Meg and Annie will be watching Cameron for us,  but this sad little pup wasn't himself today.  I think he was trying to figure out how to squeeze into the top of my bag.




So, we are considering ourselves a bit ahead of the game since we've already taken care of some of the things we usually do in the morning before we leave:

• put the EZ Pass transponders on the bikes - check
• pair the Garmin with my headset - check
• put luggage on our bikes - check
• eat breakfast - OK, just seeing if you were paying attention

There are just a few odds and ends to take care of first thing in the morning.  The plan is to leave by 5:45 am.  Stay tuned for how that turns out...

Packing - light

We're getting ready for our 4th annual "Motorcycle Extravaganza".  This year to Boston and other New England points of interest.  The weeks before any trip are always a matter of what-do-we-need and do-we-have-everything?  For some unknown reason, I did not throw away our packing lists from last year's trip, so this year I made the lists official and typed them up.  I sure can fake being organized sometimes!

Clearly we can't take THAT much on a bike, but with it looking like rain on our first day of travel, I started by making sure I had my inclement weather gear together - rain jacket, rain pants, gators (they go over my boots and under the rain pants to keep water out of my boots - seriously, if it's raining that hard that I need to worry about rain in my boots, I'm not riding!), plastic/gortex liner for my ventilated jacket, and zip-on outside covers for for my ventilated pants. Oh, and of course the first aid kit.   All of this goes into this mini duffle that goes on the back of my bike.  

I guess (except for making sure we have everything we need) packing is relatively easy.  It's remembering how everything gets secured to the bikes that's a bit more challenging.  Oh well, we've got a few days to figure that part out...