Never trade the thrills of living for the security of existence
After we accomplished our first goal of the day it was time to work on the second – find moose.
We got some tips from a waitress at Mr. Pizza and set out to find them. She gave us great advise because in no time at all I saw my first moose!
I have to say that it was pretty exciting to finally see one! We had been seeing signs for hundreds of miles warning about them, but never saw any. Byn the time our ride was over we had seen six in total, including one that ran down the road with Mark and I!
Early in the morning Friday our luck finally ran out. The hurricane that was making its way up the coast finally caught up to us.
This was not entirely bad because we needed some rest. Every time I woke up I would check the radar and if there was no end in sight I went back to sleep. It was frustrating because we were on the westernmost side of the storm, almost out of the rain, but the storm was moving pretty much straight north.
The rain finally cleared up around 2:00, so I packed up and headed for the mountain. I thought Mark had already left, but when I got top the mountain he texted me asking when we were going to leave. I told him I was already there and I would wait for him. While I waited I talked to this lady:
She gave me a bunch of inside information about the area and was really nice to talk to. I was a little worried because their signs were kind of scary:
She said “Just stay away from the edge and you will be fine.” That seemed like good, solid advice to me.
After a while Mark showed up.
By now I was just itching to get to the top. We started up and the higher we got the worse the weather became. Mostly fog and rain with a decent amount of cold thrown in and a bit of wind. Here is some video of the ride up.
It was very strange at the top. It almost felt like we were on another planet.
A lot of folks chose to ride the train to the top or ride in one of their vans. I think that would have taken much of the fun out of it.
The tracks just seem to drop right off the side of the mountain.
After we had explored the top we were very cold and wet and decided to head back to the bottom. I think the weather was actually worse on the way down.
If you are ever in the area this is a place that you need to visit. It was an amazing thing to see, and I hope I can do it again on a clear day. The ride looks scarier than it actually is on the video, and any reasonably skilled rider on most any motorcycle should be able to make the ride safely. The few hours at Mt. Washington will always be one of my fondest memories.
Last night I had the most uncomfortable bed I have ever attempted to sleep in. I got about 3 hours sleep last night, but I am pretty fired up about this ride so that was enough.
I kept checking out the window and it stayed dry until about 5AM. Then it rained, but it was a light rain.
We got a laste start at about 9:30 and by then the roads were dry. Just a quick shot up the freeway to the Adriondacs.
I have to say they were a disapointment. The area would be spectacular for hubters, fishermebn, and kayakers, but there really is not much to offer motorcycle riders. The scenery is pretty ubspectacular and the roads are pretty dull. They are so dull it is really easy to go 71 in a 55 zone, as verified by the New York highway patrol. Yes, we got tickets… I can’tt complain, we were speeding so we deserved the ticket. The cop was a nice guy. The only complaint I have is that 71 was in no way a dangerous speed for that road and there was no traffic, but the law is the law and we were breaking it so there is not much I can say.
shortly after the ticjket we had a very close run in with a turkey. I almost took the turkey to the head, but he changed direction and Mark almost hit him. Mark said it just suddenly went straight up and he never saw iit again.
Further down the road we saw a porcupine.
Things finally got interesting when we hit Lake Placid. We saw the olympic ski jumps and they werevw=ery impressive.
People have to be absolutely crazy to ski off these jumps. They were enormous.
On down the road a bit we rode through a spectacular gorge.
A few miles later we hit the first rain of the ride. We were only in the rain for about 10 miles, but it really dumped the rain!
From there it was once again mostly ordinaryb riding until we got to the White Mountains in New Hampshire. What a spectacular place it is! We will be spendingg tonight and tomorrow night here, so tomorrow will be devoted to exploring them and there should be some great pictures tomorrow!
We did not make very good time today so we could not go to the special destination I had in mind. It was Ben Aand Jerrys, and it would have been spectacular….
The two main goals for tomorrow is to ride to the top of Mt. Washington and to see a wild moose. Click here to see the current weather on Mt. Washington and watch for us on the webcam!
We got a good start at our usual Dunkin Donuts!
We started off with a quick bit of freeway to get us to the Allegheny Forest, and from there it was pretty much all two lane to Syracuse, NY.
We stopped at the gas station above at the freeway exit for Rt. 66 and I got some really excellent locally made jerky.
At the intersection of 6 and 66 I got more jerky at the place below!
Once we got to the finger lakes we saw a sign for a scenic overlook. We have a really hard time passing those up, so we pulled in and this is what we saw:
What the crap? Is this an overlook? Can you even see the lake? What is wrong with these people in new York? They seem to have no idea what an overlook is.
Overall the finger lakes were interesting, but I doubt if I would ever desire to go back.
This thing was way out in the lake and we can’t figure out what it is.
This was closer to shore and we still don’t know what it is either!
We walked out on a couple of piers.
All in all it was a pleasant day of riding and we were very lucky to not hit one dropn of rain. I hope our luck holds out for the rest of the week.
