September 15

We needed to make some time today.  We would be riding through the Adirondacks, then splitting up for a couple of days.  Eric was heading slightly north to visit some friends in Plattsburgh, New York, and I would end my day south in Chicopee, MA, where Lana and her parents were visiting family.  I would have the longer day of the two of us, needing to cover about 450 miles of twisty, rural roads.

The hotel breakfast started at 6:30, and we were ready to ride at 6:50.  The weather?  Why do you ask?  It wasn't raining, but it was overcast and foggy.  Our low was still with us.  We wouldn't see dry pavement till almost noon.

Watertown, New York, has some of the worst urban pavement I have ever seen.  There were potholes everywhere.  As we got to the east side of town, we came across construction crews rebuilding the roads.  They have a lot of work ahead of them!

At Westport we hit the western shore of Lake Champlain.  By this time, the sun was out, the pavement was drying up, and the temps were rising.  It was a beautiful day on a beautiful lake, but I didn't get any pictures...sorry.

Our stomachs were growling by the time we hit the quaint little town of Port Henry.  As we gassed up we asked the attendant about a local place, and she recommended George's Pizzeria.  Yes, we could eat pizza again...

George himself was sitting behind the counter, taking orders.  Eric struck up a conversation. 

"Hi, my name's Eric, I'm from Alaska, this is my buddy Chan, he's from Florida". 

George (unimpressed): "What the hell are you doing here?"

Me (joking): "We came to see you!"

George: "What a f*****g waste of a trip!"

What George lacked in personality, he made up for in food quality.  Eric ordered fish and chips.  George said he had caught a "belly buster" that morning, and he would do something a bit special for his new Alaskan friend.  This was the result:

Eric ate every scrap and said it was delicious.  I had pizza, and it was very good.

Hunger satisfied, we headed south once again and crossed the lake at Chimney Point.

Crossing the lake put us in Vermont on VT 17, a road that I had heard much about.  As you can see from the last picture, the sky still threatened rain, and it did shower on us a bit more.  The twistiest section of 17 runs through Camel's Hump State Forest, and is the access road for several ski areas.  It has curves like we hadn't seen since North Carolina.

As we climbed, we began to see signs warning of road construction, and a one lane road ahead.  Soon we came up on this:

My first thought was "That is one tough chick, riding down from Quebec with no back rest, a back pack on, and her knees higher than her waist!".  The light, as you can see, is a temporary rig for construction zones, and has a motion sensor on it to change to green when traffic comes up.  We sat for a minute or two, and the light didn't change.  I idled up beside the R-1 and asked the pilot "How long have you been here"?  "About 10 minutes" was the reply.  10 minutes!  "It must be broken", I said.  Of course, this was a blind curve, and we could not tell how long the construction zone was, or if there was any on-coming traffic.  "We are narrow enought to get around any other traffic coming down the hill if we meet any", I said, but the R-1 pilot still hesitated.  Finally I said "I'm going".  That pushed him over the edge, he snicked his bike into gear and took the lead.

The construction zone wasn't more than 100 yards long.  There was no traffic on the other end.  The light was broken.

After we got through the gravel, the R-1 set up a spirited pace.  More spirited that Lana would have put up with had she been riding pillion, I thought.  The guy was a good rider, picking nice lines, and his passenger seemed unfazed.  Being in a relaxed mood, I let him go.

At the top of the hill, we stopped to make some pictures.

As we tarried, I heard the howl of a high-performance inline four climbing the hill.  It was the Quebec R-1 coming back for another pass.  They stopped for a break and we chatted for a minute, they were down from Montreal.  I told the girl that I had a lot of respect for her, riding pillion on that bike, but she said it wasn't that bad.

At the bottom of the hill, 17 met VT 100, another legendary motorcycle road.  Eric headed north, and I pointed the FJR south.  It was 200 miles to my destination, so I didn't have a lot of time to stop, but I made some pictures from the cockpit as I rode.  This was a wonderful road.  Broad sweeping curves through picturesque farmland and forests, with very little traffic.

I saw two unusual things while I rode 100.  Lots of BMW motorcycles, and lots on antique European sports cars.  I don't know my sports cars very well, but I know that I saw Maserattis, Austin-Martins, tons of Triumphs, and a lot of stuff I couldn't identify.  I figured there must me some kind of rally in the area.

As I approached the Massachusetts line, I missed a turn and didn't realize it for a while.  When I finally figured out that I was on the wrong road, I told the GPS to route me to Chicopee from where I was, using "minor roads".  It took me seriously.

But I ended up seeing some very pretty backroads that I would not have seen otherwise.  Being lost isn't such a bad thing.

I finally ended up on I-91, and made a short run to Chicopee, where the GPS took me right to my sweetie.

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