| 9:00am |
Left Waltham around 9am after last minute packing. Here I am all packed up and ready to go! And here is the obligatory shot of the odo. The theme for the day: Make time. I live in the northeast and can ride that area easily, so I wanted to get down to the roads I never get to ride, and to visit friends I don't get to see as often as I would like. So, much as I hate them, the interstate was the name of the game. Jump on the Mass Pike, make my way out to I84, through MA, CT, and into NY. I managed to make it through a full tank of gas before having to pull over for a nature break, that was about 200 miles and 3 hour. After gassing up, I decided to parallel I84 on Route 6 and rode into Port Jervis. There I found a little dinner and had an OK cheeseburger. |
| 1:00pm |
Left the diner and continued on Rt. 6 into Milford. That was a mistake, traffic was just stop and go. In Milford onto Rt. 209 through the Delaware Water Gap. Traffic was moving OK for the most part, got caught in a short but strong downpour. As I reached the end of the gap, traffic went for OK to major suckage. Finally made my way onto I80 and went on a quick blitz along there then continued to follow 209 into Jim Thorpe and through Nesquehoning. Funny how I'm somewhere I hardly ever am, and I ride through the one town I've visited several times. Heh. Anyway, kept following 209 where I came across some big trucks. Now Bruce, *these* are trucks!! I kept going until I got to Rt. 61, then followed that into Centralia, PA. This is a town that sort of closed several years ago due to a mine fire, and it is still buring! Rt. 61 has been rerouted around the area, but I was able to ride the bike around the barrier to check things out. Check out some of the pictures of the smoke coming out of the ground.Pic1, Pic2, Pic3, Pic4, Pic5 Kept following 61 into Shamokin then I took 125 south. That was a fun road. Too bad it had just rained very hard a little while earlier, soaking the road. But there was a nice rainbow. |
| 7:00pm |
Followed 125 to 25 west into Millersburg where I had planned on catching the ferry, but by the time I got there, it had stopped running. Interesting note, the second 200 miles of the day took me 6 hours. Oye. Followed the river south, then I jumped on I81 to continue to make some time. Ran into all sorts of traffic, and while sitting in traffic, talked to another rider and asked about camp grounds. He didn't know of any, so I just started to keep my eyes out. Into Maryland, then West Virginia where I stopped at the welcome center, but of course they were closed. Changed face shields to the clear one, called Bill in Chattanooga to see when would be a good time to stop by, then kept going. I say a sign for a campground, and followed the signs, but it turned out to be an RV campground. Grrrr. Kept going and at about 10pm, I called it quits and found a nice little, cheap motel just south of Winchester, VA. Dumped pictures to the laptop, wrote this little report. |
| 11:30pm | Bed |
| Ending mileage: | 68790 |
| Starting mileage: | 68214 |
| Miles for day: | 576 |
| Total: | 576 |