Ok, ok, so I fell behind again. The charity run that I was supposed to do a couple of weekends ago, fell through. In the interim, the only riding I’ve been getting in is commuting to and from work. Bleah. So what’s the cure for that?
Why, a motorcycle vacation, of course!!
I'm jumping on the bike first thing tomorrow morning (tires hit the street @ 6:30 am) and heading west, finally pulling up the reins in Olean. I should be arriving around 4~ish in the afternoon, and King and Queen are once again graciously lending us the comforts of the rolling Legenbauer Palace.
We’ll keep a low profile while we’re out there…well, as low a profile as one can keep while blasting through mountain roads, shoveling down Mickey’s subs and causing a ruckus at the local VFW outpost! That’s right; I’ve spoken to Marshall Jerry and he’s all set to bring us on one of his world-famous mountain-highway rides. Which means we’ll be puckering our bungholes and sending many a prayer skywards as we follow the Marshall around hairpin turns at breakneck speeds, teetering much too closely to sharp drop-offs, and basically testing our collective riding skills.
Thursday evening will find many friends gathered at Mickey’s Restaurant for some of Tommy’s delicious fare. We’ll wash all the mountain road dust out of our throats with many a fine lager, too! After this, we’ll find our way to the V for more fun and frivolity with even more friends, long into the night.
Friday morning will arrive much too quickly, but there’ll be no time for dragon-asses. We’ll be rolling out of King’s driveway nice and early, heading over to TC’s AOH for a nice hot breakfast to send us on our way. Hit the road from there around 8:00 and point our tires eastward. A pleasant ride up 17 to 86 to 88, then into Troy where there’s always too much feet-to-the-pavement kind of riding. Traffic backs up something fierce – we hate Troy! LOL
Once through that parking lot, we get to ride a mere 30 miles before we get to (oh rapture!) place our feet to the blacktop once again. Yes; we’ve arrived in Bennington! A great town, actually – lots of scenery in the area, but you’ve got no chance of riding straight through. (This town suffers from the same ailment as Troy; Maximus Trafficus.)
No worries, though! After Bennington, we follow Rte 9 through the Green Mountains in VT – now THIS is scenery! Depending on how well we’re moving along, we’ll probably pause at Hogback Mountain to gander at the horizon (100 mile view, 4 different states!) and enjoy the usual Cherry Garcia (Ben & Jerry’s) ice cream. Once saddled back up, we’ll continue along, finding a place to lay our heads for the night somewhere in the vicinity of Brattleboro. (Hopefully we’ll have better luck securing accommodations this year than we did last year in Great Barrington…)
Saturday morning, we’ll be up and on the road again, heading for our final stop on this crazy ride; South Thomaston, ME. We should be able to arrive by mid-afternoon, giving us plenty of daylight to set camp. There, we’ll enjoy the annual spaghetti-fest, hosted by Rob and Tina, and then Sunday will be the annual lobster-fest, hosted by Karmen and Dave. We’ll fill in any empty spaces with many bouts of F*ck-your-neighbor (card game), poems and tales of loved ones passed, and scenic riding the likes of which we Massholes are not privy to down here in our little boroughs. But it seems like I’m forgetting something…oh, right; Beer! Fear not, for we shall do more than our fair share of depleting the stockpiles of the local brew houses.
Come Monday, it’ll be the long, dreaded ride home…home, and then; to work on Tuesday. But I’m not going to think about that now, for between this time and that time, is a whole lot of "Island Time"!
Get ready, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine! We’re coming…and we’re thirsty!!
Ride Hard, Take Chances
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