3am, sharp. The alarm goes off and my eyes snap open, breaking me from the unpleasant dream I’d been having, where the alarm hadn’t gone off on time, and I was scrambling to pack the stuff I’d need (even though the bike was already packed and waiting), and I was freaking out because I was going to hold up the plan. (I love when my brain messes with me!) At any rate, the alarm had indeed gone off on time and I needed to get rolling! It was Iron Butt time!
Stuffing some breakfast down my gullet, I loaded the cooler and stored it into the bike. (I think the cooler may have thought I was playing some kind of odd trick, as there were no beers packed for this ride!) Checking the clock – crap, getting short on time – gotta gear up and head on out!
The weather reports had called for some overnight showers and they had been right, as the driveway, and the roadways, were still quite wet. Not a problem, though, as the overhead ceiling was showing signs of breaking. I hoped that trend would hold out for us, and that we wouldn’t wind up with the clouds returning to hamper our travels later in the day, but only time would tell.
The rally point was the Interstate gas stop on Rte 1 in Wrentham. I’d checked a day earlier to confirm they were open 24/7. They were, so we were good to go. Ahhh, but they lied. They were closed up tight and the pumps were off. Bastards! Fortunately, a couple of guys going fishing had pulled in to gas up as well, and they filled me in on a 24/7 gas station one town over. Cool, me and Matt hopped back on the bikes and headed over. We topped off our tanks, got our starting-point receipts, had our Witness forms signed, and we were off to our grand adventure!
Traffic was pleasantly light (as expected) at this time of day and we settled in for a good day of riding. We cruised easily along and the brightening sky welcomed us as we passed out of our home state, and into Connecticut. It was here that we had our first ass-pucker moment of the day. We were hammering the left lane along I-84 and passing an 18-wheeler that was in the right lane. Off to my right side, I caught motion…light-brown, erratic motion. The kind of motion that a scared deer makes when it incorrectly decides it’s a good time to cross the road. The trucker stomped his brakes, but I’m sure he knew he had plenty of room (he did), but he probably wondered if the two bikers next to him were going to be as lucky. Believe me; we wondered the same thing! I hit the brakes hard (while muttering an “Ohhh Shiiiit!” to myself), but as you can probably surmise, we did not make contact with the furry, four-legged critter. Exhaling forcibly, we ratcheted our speeds right back up to where they had been and continued blasting down the highway. Hey, it’s called Riding Hard and Taking Chances, and we were on a schedule!
That was probably the most exciting thing that happened during our ride. The only other unexpected surprise came at one of our gas stops. Matty had finished filling his tank and had moved up to a parking spot in front of the building. My credit card had been turned off (a minor setback – the fraud detection safeguards had kicked in because of the multiple gas station charges. One phone call to the credit card company, and I was back in business). But I digress. At any rate, I finished filling up and shot up to where Matt was. But see, I was going too fast. My eye was on the curb, and my intent was to turn just in time to miss it, and slide up nice and smooth next to Matt. In theory, it was a grand plan. But the problem was that instead of watching the curb, I should have been taking note of the oiled-up spots in the middle of the parking slots (from car engine drippings). I timed the turn perfectly; skimming just inches shy of the curb and looking all the part of Joe Cool (at least in my head, anyway), when my front tire hit the slick spot. Wham, the tire slid out from under me, lurching the bike down to its left side, where the engine guard banged off the pavement just as the front tire cleared the oil spot and found purchase again on the pavement. The combination of bouncing off the engine guard, plus the tire now having traction, caused the bike to lurch back over to the right side. Fortunately, the adrenaline was flaring and I managed to keep the bike from slamming over into Matt – who was standing there calmly, and without the least appearance of concern. (I guess we know who the smooth guy is.) A quick glance around the parking lot to ensure that there were plenty of witnesses to my spectacle (there were), a quick check of my shin (where the bike had whacked it) to view the growing egg, and I decided I’d had my fill of trying to show off.
Aside from those two things, the rest of the day was smooth and without major issue. We passed a Clarion Fruit Company truck at one point, which we took as a good sign that we were headed in the right direction. The funny thing is that the same truck shot past us about 40 miles later, and kept on racing, off into the distance. No idea why the driver changed his driving pace, but he was sure in a hurry all of a sudden. Maybe somewhere, some fruit was going bad, and he had to rescue it.
We did pass a dead black bear at one point. Sadly, it had had an encounter with a large vehicle, and had not emerged victorious.
The clouds returned, full of menace, as we were nearing the eastern borders of PA. We danced with some sprinkles for a bit but their intensity increased until we finally acquiesced to intelligence and pulled over to don our dry-ride gear. And of course, we hadn’t even remounted the bikes before the first rays of sunshine began poking out. Needless to say, the skies cleared up for us and we didn’t encounter any rain at all. (Best damn rain gear ever!)
The “Retard of the Day” award goes to the toll booth collector at the CT border, on our return leg of the trip. The toll booths at this spot have gates – even in the EZ Pass lanes!! Why have gates in EZ-Pass lanes?? It thoroughly and completely ruins the purpose of EZ-Pass.
Anyway, I digress again. Surprisingly, the booths also had attendants in them (why do lanes that are “EZ-Pass only” have attendants??) and as I approached, I had my transponder held high over my head. The attendant saw it, remote-lifted the gate for me and said “Go ahead”. I hit the throttle and suddenly she yells “STOP!!!” I slam on the brakes and come to a stop, still on the inside of the raised gate. I look back at her, she sticks her upper body out the window and motions me back with her hand. I start rolling backward when she yells “DON’T BACK UP!!!” What the hell, lady? Will you make up your mind??? First you tell me to go ahead, then you scream for me to stop, then you motion me to back up, then you shout at me to not back up. Stop screwing with me and let me go!! She then comes walking out, says the system didn’t read my transponder. Well hell, if you’d get rid of the gates (and yourself) and just let us glide on through, we wouldn’t be having this problem right now!! So anyway, she then takes my transponder into the booth. I’m assuming she ran my number to post the charge, but for all I know, she used the info to furnish her house with some new stuff. I guess I’ll find out when my statement comes out in a month.
Thankfully, that was it for headaches and we were soon rolling up the last few miles of I-84 in CT. We’d barely seen any LEO’s all day, and then we saw a single CT State Trooper pull over two vehicles, at two different times. We slowed and moved over as we passed him the first time. Shortly thereafter, a guy went rocketing past us in the speed lane, much too close to Matt. The Statie must have seen this, because he went flying by us, also, and a short while later, there he was, with the offending speeder pulled over. The funny thing is that they had crossed over the border and were in Mass at this point. I’d have loved to hear how that conversation went; “But you can’t pull me over – you’re a CT Trooper, and we’re in Mass”. LOL, too bad for you, d-bag, he can pull you over! Enjoy your hefty fine, you A-hole!
As mentioned, we were now back in Mass. And to be honest, the last 50 miles sucked royally. The stretch of I-90 between I-84 and I-495 is just plain ugly. Not scenic, not well paved, and never seems to move well. We did our best to skirt our way around the rolling roadblocks and before long, we pulled up in Sharon, where Rex met us as our end Witness. But even better, he invited us back to his house for our celebratory beer! (Ok; beers.)
Matt and I were still quite amped up from the day, and the beers were flowing mightily. He was planning on crashing on Rex’s couch, but I had a lot of things I wanted to make sure I got done around the house the next day, so I cut out after a couple hours. (But once home, I was still to wired-up to try sleeping, so I did my best to reduce the beerverage stock in my fridge.)
And there you have it; the Iron Butt adventure! Would I do it again? Hell yes – it’s not a matter of “if”, but “when”! (And, I might even take things up to the next level; 1,500 miles in 24 hours! But time will tell on that.)
Oh yeah; one last addendum. Folks have asked why I chose to do this. My initial response is the obvious; “CUZICAN”!! But going deeper, this was a challenge which I was legitimately wary about. I didn’t know if the bike would hold up (it did great), I didn’t know if my neck/shoulders/back would hold up (they complained a bit for the first 200 miles, but then settled right in), and I didn’t know if my mind would be able to keep focused for this kind of stretch. Having arrived safely back and in great spirits, that gets chalked up to a big fat yes as well.
A few pics for ya;
Mongo and Potsie were along for the ride. I caught them sneaking snacks on us, though!!
Midway point – half done, half to go!
A blurry shot of the 1,000 mile mark on the odometer, compliments of my crappy phone and highway vibrations.
Total tally for the day was over 1,050 miles!
Whaddya say, Matt - ready to do it again?
Riding Hard, and Taking Chances. It was F’ing Great!!
