Gaspésie Gambol, Day 12

Here Comes the Sun
Friday July 3, 2009
Copyright(c) 2009, Jim Beachy

Here comes the sun, here comes the sun,
and I say it's all right

Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
and I say it's all right

Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...
- Excerpts from Here Comes the Sun by George Harrison and The Beatles

For the first time in a week, when I look upward at the sky like every motorcyclist does every morning, whether in a tent, a picnic table at the Iron Butt Motel, or in a five-star hotel, I see blue sky and sunshine. It’s a wonderful thing and it just makes me happy. We may yet need our rain gear today, but for now we pack it up and stow it in the right-hand saddlebag. All the covers for the bike and trailer are wet, and we have multitudes of damp and waterlogged cleaning cloths. Water is everywhere and we drape the stuff all over the bike to dry out just a bit while we have breakfast. Yesterday we made a tactical error in not covering the cloth-covered bike seat in preparation for the heavy rain even though we have a fitted vinyl cover, and by the time we could stop it was too late — water runs off the rainsuits onto the cloth seat where it collects, and now we have a wet seat. But at least we have sunshine!

Packing up and figuring out what to do with all our wet stuff is a slow process but finally we’re finished and ready to go. I replace yesterday’s clear helmet shield with the customary dark one. Our dark shields are the darkest allowed by law, so dark they look black from the outside; I actually prefer the dark shield in rain, but only my clear shield is fitted with a Fog City anti-fogging setup and I had to use the clear shield yesterday in the heavy rain.

We run through a few little sprinkles this morning but sunshine rules the day on this last leg of our journey. It’s been a great ride even though, as Kitty says, we’ve have more rain and fog than any other trip. We’ve learned to make friends with the weather and take it as it comes, but still, everyone loves a sunny day. Yesterday riding through the pouring rain, Kitty started laughing as she noticed the car beside us videotaping the Wing and its passengers. Nobody takes pictures of us on a sunny day.

We’ve done pretty well with Kitty’s Kardinal Rules: No snakes, no cities, no traffic. Although, yesterday’s six miles of backed-up traffic approaching the Tappan Zee Bridge pretty much violated Rule #3, but there were extenuating circumstances: I actually tried to find a better country route but a large vicious thunderstorm blocked my way. I’m hoping I’ll get a pass on this one. Otherwise, her trip parameters have been met. We haven’t seen any snakes, and we’ve not been to one large city. However, New York City is not far away, probably 30 miles or so, and on the GPS I watch it slide by to our left as we travel southward on I-287.

“Hey, Baby, I hope you notice that we’re not in New York City!” I volunteer, trying to regain some points from yesterday’s deduction for the traffic jam I got us into.

“Yeah, but I see road signs for New York City,” she says.

“Yeah, but if you notice, we’re not following them!” I respond hopefully.

“Yeah, but even if the name is on any road sign, there’s always a danger of being too close to it!” she says with finality.

We catch I-78 West and head west toward Pennsylvania. We have one more toll. “I’m sure they will charge us for the extra axle!” Kitty says. She’s right. Almost always, our motorcycle and trailer get charged tolls for three-axle vehicles, same as a typical dump truck. It has 10 wheels. I have four, and the entire weight of the bike (815 pounds) and trailer (300 pounds with luggage), and two passengers (say, another 300 pounds) is probably one-fifth of just one of that truck’s wheels even empty. What’s up with that?

Rolling west on I-78, an old waypoint for my WOTI friend Bill Jermyn’s house slides into view on the GPS. I select the waypoint and see that it’s less than five miles off the Interstate. “Let’s check it out!” I say. I let the GPS generate route to the waypoint, and we arrive to find Bill relaxing and getting ready for the big NASCAR race tomorrow. His wife has just left for an out-of town trip. We sit around for half an hour, talk about some old times, old friends, and new adventures, then we’re off again. I haven’t seen Bill in years and it was great to renew our acquaintance on this spur-of-the moment drop-in visit.

We follow the GPS instructions around Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and catch US 15 south. Sunshine and blue sky continue to be our good friends.

“I’ve been thinking about something all day,” I tell Kitty. “I’ve given this careful consideration, and I do believe I prefer this kind of riding day more than yesterday!” I get a nice little back rub for my lame attempt at wittiness.

We talk about our favorite parts of the trip. Both us of were somehow charmed by the town of Percé, a friendly little town with comprehensive services but completely without pretense or commercialism. Just a working seacoast town doing its best to transform visitors into friends. It sure worked for us! I’m sure our experience was enhanced by our stay at Hotel la Normandie, and we had a most wonderful evening walking hand-in-hand on the boardwalk through the fog and sea spray to a nearby restaurant, La Maison du Pecheur, where the charming bilingual staff did their best to help us laugh our way through a spectacular (if expensive) seafood dinner and French language “lessons.”

In our travels, I asked many people in many businesses how the economy has affected their livelihood. Almost universally, in Canada and the United States, the answer was that bookings and business are off by fully one-half compared to last year.

One pleasant surprise was the availability of high-speed Internet access. Before the trip, I was concerned about Internet access, but we’ve had high-speed Internet availability every single night, even in the smaller towns of the Gaspésie.

Cruise control on the Wing worked perfectly after that second-day switch-cleaning in Binghamton, New York. There were no other mechanical flaws, although there was the trailer tire thing in Paspébiac. I just think of it as bringing home some good Canadian air. I’ve checked the mileage log I keep with the trailer and wow, was I wrong about the tire mileage! The trailer tires I replaced had nearly 18,000 miles of service and had been to Nova Scotia, twice to Texas, and to Key West. And there was the electrical problem that may have been caused by an erosion of the insulation in the trailer electrical pigtail. I’ll never be sure what caused that fuse to fail.

“And now,” I say to Kitty, “it’s time for a most important question.” I wait for a couple beats, then finish: “Where do you want to go next year?”

She laughs and says something about the grandkids. “And where do you want to go?”

“Well, I still have that three-week tour sketched out starting from the Canadian Rockies all the way to New Mexico and then home through Texas.” We will see.

We arrive at home around 4:50 PM, still enjoying our sunny day. We’ve ridden 327 miles today, 2,828 total miles according to the GPS. The odometer shows 2,841 miles and I always defer to the GPS. It has been one of our shortest trips and certainly the wettest but yet filled with rewarding moments when we least expected them, and a store of great memories to cherish always.

So another trip is on record, in digital pictures, and in our memory. I made friends with Slow-Down Guy even though he seemed to be in hibernation during the last two days of the ride. Kitty is the ultimate travel companion and I am extraordinarily blessed to share my life and my trips with a woman of such exquisite sensitivity for the small blessings and the tiny things, yet such a perfect sense of balance for the big picture. It makes me happy just to be with her. Being with her on a motorcycle is a bonus.

I haven’t been everywhere but it’s on my list. — Susan Sontag

GPS Track Log, Day 12

GPS Track Log for Entire Trip

Gaspésie Gambol, Day 11

Country Roads
Thursday July 2, 2009
Copyright(c) 2009, Jim Beachy

This morning, Bailey Island is fog-shrouded, rain-lashed, and wind-whipped, just as it’s been for the past 34 days if we are to believe the locals. Kitty and I are in the Bailey Island Motel intently watching the Weather Channel. I am indecisive. Centered on Boston, 125 miles southwest from where we are near Brunswick, Maine, is a monster red splotch, a huge storm churning northward, dumping inches of rain and generating 700 lightning strikes per hour. The mountains of New Hampshire, where we intend to ride today, are relatively quiet at the moment but this storm will reach them this afternoon. A quick BlackBerry WeatherBug check on several cities in New Hampshire and Vermont shows that they are forecasting extremely heavy rain this evening with flash flood warnings in all the places I check.

So there’s the dilemma. Do we ride the mountains and hope we are in a motel somewhere before the heavy stuff hits? Or do we ride into the storm and find a rest area if it gets too bad? And if we skip the mountains, should we try to make it home in two days? Or should we hang out at Bailey Island for a day in this warm and friendly environment?

Working through the possibilities, I finally decide that with a 34-day history of bad weather and with no sign of any new emerging weather pattern, hanging out for the day on Bailey Island probably won’t help all that much. So that leaves two possibilities, both of which involve riding somewhere today, so I tell Kitty “Let’s pack up. By the time we leave, maybe I’ll know what to do.”

Kitty recuses herself from any decision-making process. “You’re the driver!” she keeps saying.

Checking out of the hotel, Doreen tries her best to entice us to stay until tomorrow. I have to admit that is a tempting option with the temperature at 53F and the landscape shrouded in fog and lashed with rain. “I’ve never seen him so indecisive!” says Kitty. “Usually he can make up his mind in a minute and we have a plan.” She’s right. I am indecisive.

We have already done the Dance of the Rainsuit and are wearing our helmets so everything stays dry as we walk out into the rain and I back the bike and trailer out of its parking space. Just then a hotel employee comes running up in the pouring rain holding my leather riding jacket. “Is this yours?” she asks. Wow, close call! I’d hung it in the closet with Kitty’s last night and she thought I’d wear it this morning, but I usually don’t wear my leather jacket with the rain suit, just layers of other clothing. Somehow I missed it in the last-minute room sweep we always perform. We’ve never left anything behind but this was close.

I still don’t know what to do as we slowly ride the 14 foggy and soggy miles back to the mainland where I refuel the Wing. Finally I say, “I almost feel irresponsible taking us up into the mountains knowing there’s big dangerous weather moving in. I guess that settles it. Sorry, but I think we need to stay on the Interstates today.”

To this moment, never in all our travels has weather caused us to eliminate or change a major trip component. We have circled around thunderstorms or waited a few hours for weather to clear, but never have we completely deleted a part of the trip. But today we will. No mountain riding for us on this trip. We’ve been over nearly every road in New England and we’ll be back, but for today we resign ourselves to a day on the Interstates. And thus we ride onto I-295, I-95, I-290, I-90, and other Interstates that will bypass Boston and New York but are basically heavy-duty business routes. My least favorite routes! Country roads, not!

We run into the big storm within 50 miles, much sooner than I anticipated. It has been raining hard but soon after we pass a rest area where we could have pulled off and waited, the rain intensifies; it comes pouring down, snapping hard raindrops that sound almost like hail against our helmets and the Tulsa windshield. Traffic is slowing to 35 mph. The Tulsa windshield actually doesn’t clear very well at such speeds, but visibility is decent. Fortunately, as the rain has increased, the fog has dissipated.

“Remember those times I said I didn’t want to think about my tires?” I say to Kitty in the headset. “Now this is what I’m talking about! Wouldn’t you just hate to be wondering right now if we should have changed the bike’s tires?” These new Michelins are amazing. To add to the complexity of this morning’s little ride, in the midst of this downpour we have a 9-mile stretch of construction where the road is milled. I’ve ridden over lots of milled surfaces, and my fellow bikers well know the twitchy feeling in the handlebars and the seat as the bike constantly tries to find its line and never quite achieves it. Kitty hates riding those surfaces because the bike feels so unstable to her. At least the rider gets feedback through the handlebars and can feel what the bike is doing. These Michelins defy logic as they refuse to twitch on the milled surfaces we’ve experienced on this trip. Of all the tires I’ve had, never has a set been so impervious to the “twitchies”! It’s very gratifying as we ride through the downpour.

I don’t use CB Channel 19 a lot when traveling with Kitty, but in this weather, it’s important to be able to talk to the truckers so I have it on, very loud in our headsets, apologies to Kitty. I’ve discovered that in general, truck drivers really look out for motorcycles and when they find out they can talk to us they are usually as fiercely protective as a mother hen with her brood.

They are talking about our motorcycle, the “Evel Knievel” in the right lane. Now, since this is a family story, I have to edit out about two-thirds of the actual words we hear over the CB.

“***, there’s a *** Evel Knievel in the *** right lane!” says one. “That guy must be trying to collect a *** insurance policy on whoever he’s carrying on the back, or he doesn’t have any *** brains!”

“***, I know I wouldn’t want to *** be out here on a *** motorcycle. I know I’d do something *** stupid and fall down.”

I let them talk for a while without saying anything. Finally I key up my own CB and say “Hi, y’all big trucks, I’m the Evel Knievel in the right lane. That’s my wife I’m carrying on the back, and I sure don’t want to collect any insurance policy. So I guess that leaves me without any brains!”

“***, you *** ok back there?” asks another driver.

“Yeah, we ok here,” I respond. “Just easin’ down the road, 40 mph. Only problem is when you guys pass me, then I can’t see much for a while!”

“Where you headed?”

“Been in Canada for week, just wondering home to Virginia. Lovely day for a ride!”

Suddenly, at the limits of my forward visibility, the world disappears into a white cloud of mist.

“Oh, *** *** ***!” yells a driver over the CB. “We just hit a *** big puddle of water up here! I mean a *** POND of water all the way across the road! Can’t see ***!”

I’m riding 40 mph and there is no time to slow or for evasive action (whatever that might be). My big bike plows into the standing water and I pull the clutch, hold my breath, and it’s the longest 5 seconds of my life with a complete white-out as torrents of water cascade over the entire rig. It must be like standing under Niagara Falls. Then we’re through it, and I can breathe again, and I can see again, and we’re still upright, and the engine is still running, and a trucker is yelling “Hey motorcycle! Did you make it through ok?”

“Yeah, we made it,” I say on the CB. “I just pulled the clutch and rode through it. The bike never wobbled or had any indication it was in trouble.”

“You’re a lot more *** calm than I’d be!” says the driver. “I think I’d need me a new *** pair of shorts! We were three abreast up here and couldn’t see a thing! It’s a good thing one of us wasn’t beside you!” It is indeed! After this, many of the truckers that run up beside us to pass issue a fair warning over the CB. They do protect their motorcycle buddies.

At a little before 1:00 PM we stop for fuel, then enjoy a welcome warm cup of soup and a full lunch in a nearby Chili’s Restaurant. We take our time and talk about what we want to do. One option that would get us some more “country roads,” albeit Interstates, would be to ride I-84 to Albany and then return to Binghamton, New York on I-88. At least that would get us out of the East Coast business corridor.

We travel over 250 rain-soaked and weather-slowed miles until we are finally out of the worst of the weather and there are patches of clouds and even a hint of blue sky. At the cutoff for I-84 West, we see another huge and well-organized storm exactly in the path we would be taking.

“I’ve had enough vicious storms for today!” I say. “Sorry, Baby, looks like even this attempt to find a country road is going to fail.” And so we keep to a route that will eventually take us to I-287 and bypass New York City.

From lunch until we stop for the night at 6:30 PM just across the Tappan Zee bridge in Nyack, New York, we’ve ridden 198 miles on a single tank of fuel, farther than I ever remember riding while two-up and towing the trailer, and the low-fuel light hasn’t come on yet. I suppose the rain-slowed pace has had a good bit to do with the unusually high fuel mileage. Kitty and I have been on the bike without a break for exactly four hours. Once again I’m astonished at how much longer she can ride than in the old days.

And thus a rain-soaked 342-mile day draws to a close. We’ve ridden 2,502 miles total. Because of the vicious weather that blanketed New England today, we have decided to just ride out the miles until we get home, which will probably be tomorrow, a day earlier than I’d sketched it months ago. Slow-Down Guy is in serious hibernation today!

It was sunny and 72F when we arrived at the motel in Nyack, but now rain is once again pouring down and thunder is booming across the sky. It seems fitting that we should end our search for country roads in the rain and fog. We’ll see about that tomorrow.

See you then.

GPS Track Log

(Blue route is the foiled New England country road plan)

Gaspésie Gambol, Day 10

Beyond Gray Skies
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Copyright(c) 2009, Jim Beachy

“Have you looked outside?” Kitty asks sometime before 7:00 AM.

I am hoping for sunshine but instead there is more of the same fog, mist, and rain we’ve seen for almost a week now. So after breakfast we once again do the Dance of the Rain Suit and head into the fog and rain with our newly-cleaned motorcycle and trailer. It was so dirty and covered with grit and grime yesterday that I couldn’t even entertain the notion of not giving it a new start regardless of today’s weather.

We stay on the slow coastal road, Rt. 1, which for the most part is a pleasant and well-surfaced road. The coast once again is always to our left and in good weather we would probably ride off the main road into some of the little villages and historic sites but as it is, we keep to US Rt. 1. Within 50 miles the rain has mostly stopped and only the relentless fog remains. At some point we see a majestic bald eagle perched in a large dead tree of the type where eagles might pose for postcard pictures if eagles would pose for postcard pictures. Kitty and I laugh as we watch his eyes clearly lock onto our rig and his head slowly swivels to follow us as we pass. I hope he is not contemplating us as a potential breakfast. Or perhaps he noticed the Gold Wing’s eagle emblem on the side panels and the front bumper and is thinking of investigating.

We talk about our experiences in the Gaspé Peninsula and hope our Canadian friends are enjoying their day of celebration. Yesterday we noticed many of the neatly-maintained and brightly-painted homes draped with Canadian and New Brunswick flags, so they appeared ready to celebrate. “Au revoir a Canada!” Kitty says.

After a fuel stop where we take off rain gear for the day, the GPS estimates our arrival time in Brunswick, Maine, at 2:30 PM. “Well,” says Kitty, “that will give us time to do some shopping at Wal-Mart, do our exercise workout, and make it to Cook’s by six.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” I say. “Except I’m thinking more along the lines of a nap instead of exercise.”

I suppose if one were so inclined, a traveler could follow this road from Maine to Miami with the coast always on the left. There would be many different experiences to enjoy. One of those is Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park. We almost always stop at Bar Harbor when we’re in the area but we talked this morning to a couple on a Wing from Ohio who’d been there for three days looking for any kind of break in the pervasive fog and found none. As we look to the left across the bay toward Bar Harbor, the banks are solidly immersed in a gray blanket of fog that hangs near the horizon. There seems to be little point in going to Bar Harbor today unless it were a destination, which it isn’t, so I watch a little sadly as Bar Harbor slides by on the GPS screen and we continue past Ellsworth toward Bath. It’s one of our favorite places when we come to New England.

Route 1 runs through some towns between Ellsworth and Bath but in general it’s not too bad. It is lined with bed-and-breakfast places, inns, and cottages for rent. For the history and “quaint village” buff, this could be a three-day ride in itself to explore every nook and cranny along the coast and visit all the villages and historical sites.

We reach Brunswick, Maine at about 3:00 PM and decide to shop for a few items at Wal-Mart before checking in to the motel. Since we haven’t made reservations, we can go where we want, so we decide to try a small motel on Bailey Island within walking distance to Cook’s. This will avoid the 14-mile ride to and from Cook’s; the ride back is always at night, and almost every time we’ve been here it has been foggy. I call and learn we will not need reservations but I am concerned about whether the parking lot is paved or graveled. The clerk tells us it is hard-packed gravel; but both she and the owner have motorcycles and understand the problems with gravel and a big bike, and she assures me we will have no problems.

We approach the famous Harpswell cribstone bridge, the only one of its kind in the world, a building-block like arrangement of large granite blocks that allow the tide to rise and fall and still perform its function as a bridge. It’s under repair! There’s no roadway on the top and some of the blocks are missing. There’s no place to pull off for a picture, and by the time we cross onto Bailey Island on the temporary bridge, the fog has closed in tight and we can’t even see the bridge. If you are reading this on my blog, you can check out some pictures in the Nova Scotia blog on a page named “Cook’s!”

Doreen meets us outside, talks about motorcycles and rides for a few minutes before checking us in. “Do you offer a AAA discount?” I ask her as we are checking in.

“Sorry, no,” she replies.

I lean over and depress the “Help” bell on the counter.

“I’m the only one here!” she says.

“Well, I was hoping I could find someone with a better offer.”

She laughs as she explains she can’t give us a price break, but ends up putting us in an upgraded room. She says there is a water hose right where I parked the bike and I am welcome to use it, so after unloading I clean it again while Kitty showers. I cover the bike but not the trailer.

We walk to Cook’s Lobster House from the motel. We both order the Cook’s version of New England shore dinners with mussels, featuring lobster as the main attraction. The only difference is that I want more than a 1¼ pound lobster. I ask about the price and it turns out they are running a special on 4-pound lobsters that makes a 4-pounder cheaper than a 2½ pounder. Thus do I order a 4-pound lobster at Cook’s. The thing comes out and it’s a monster, with a shell much too thick to crack at the table, so the waitress takes it back to the kitchen to have it taken apart.

Now lobster is my very favorite food. I enjoy many types of foods, but lobster holds a special place for me. I have to say that this is the very first time I’ve ever eaten as much lobster as I could eat. This monster’s claws are much bigger than my own hands, and the tail itself contains probably half a pound of succulent lobster tail meat. I have to give some to Kitty and she’s not complaining.

Another Cook’s adventure draws to a close until the next time we’re in New England. It’s always a highlight. The fog drapes over the brooding landscape, sometimes intense, sometimes mysteriously receding. The locals are telling us it’s been this way for over a month without a break. Our waitress, Lindsey, had joked “Winter will be here in three weeks. Summer had better hurry up.” I, on the other hand, have made friends with this fog and rather enjoy it as long as it doesn’t affect my driving visibility.

We’ve ridden 231 miles today for a total of 2,159 miles. Our route during the next couple days will likely take us through New England’s mountains on our way home, pending any weather developments that might change our plans.

I feel like rather like Ikon with this excerpt from Beyond Gray Skies:
Far away
Another place
Beyond the stars
Beyond the sun
In my dreams
I have seen the colours
In my dreams
A forgotten world

I actually don’t know our exact route yet or whether it will involve sun. You’ll know when I know. See you then.

GPS Track Log