Day 4: Home

Yes, we made it home last night just fine.  More details to come.

Update on Wednesday, September 22, 2010 at 12:23AM by Cess

First of all, a quick update from Day 3.  Matt and I sat ever so patiently in the hotel's dining room until 7pm. At that point, we asked the front desk staff if we could have a room.  We were getting tired and wanted to lie down.  We set ourselves a 7:30pm alarm.  If the rest of the group did not arrive by then, we would go out and get dinner for ourselves.  Lesson learned: restaurants in small towns tend to close fairly early.

Zzz ... bzzt!  7:30pm!  We poked our heads outside of our room.  Lo and behold: no other bikes.  =(  But 5 minutes later, we heard the rumble of bikes and yes, the rest of the group finally arrived.  Thank goodness.  Everyone quickly unloaded their bikes and we all set off to a local steakhouse for dinner. 

Now, back to Day 4.  Once again, the group split up into smaller sub-groups.  4 people left before we did.  We left about 10 minutes after them.  It was going to be a looong ride home.  We rode through New Hampshire and into New York state.  Somehow, the majority of us managed to meet up at lunchtime.  Matt and I stopped when we saw 2 bikes from our group stopped at a little diner in Speculator, NY.  We pulled into the parking spot beside them.  When we walked into the little diner, they were no where to be seen.  Regardless, we were pretty hungry, so we put in our order and stepped back outside to sit at a patio table.  While we were waiting, the rest of the group that had set out from the hotel after us appeared.  When our food arrived, we ate quickly.  Just as we finished lunch, the 2 people who were seemingly missing made their reappearance.  As it turns out, they had lunch at the little café right behind the diner.  I perked up when they told us that they had seen baked goods offered at the counter.  I walked over to the café and purchased a few cookies as snacks for the rest of the ride home.

Once more, we headed out on the road.  This time, we left together with Darlene and Kevin.  We reached the border and crossed back into Canada without incident.  Once back in Canada, we quickly decided to stop in Kingston for dinner.  And then it started raining.  Figures.  "Welcome back to Canada.  Please have some rain."  Ha. =) 

After dinner, we got back on the 401 for the final portion of our ride home.  As much as we hate the boring, straight-as-an-arrow 401, it was going to take us all the way home.  We would tolerate it so that we could sleep in our own bed that night.  The 4 of us said our good-byes at our final gas stop in Oshawa.  We continued on together, but parted ways when we passed through Scarborough. 

Good weather, good roads, good food, and good company.  What more could we have asked for? =) Thanks, everyone!

Day 3: Rawr! More seafood, please!

We decided to split off from the group this morning. We left about 20 minutes before they were to be setting out. We stopped in Naples, ME for lunch. We both had a cup of New England clam chowder and a lobster roll. Very tasty.

We had a bit of a laugh as we rode along after lunch. The eastern US states seem to enjoy naming their towns after far-off places. We rode through South China, Poland, and Naples to name a few. It was almost like we had a whirl-wind world tour in the span of a few hours!

So far we have found the majority of US drivers to be extremely courteous. Not only will they move over for you if you are merging onto any of the interstate highways, they also move over (one single lane highways) almost onto the shoulder to let you pass if they think they're holding you up. Wow. Many thanks and kudos to all of you. =)

The highlight of the day was riding on Route 112. It was obviously a favoured local riding road as we saw many, many motorcycles on it, travelling in both directions. This was the only time that we got rained on. And it was only a very light rain.

We arrived at the hotel about an hour ago. To our surprise, we're the first ones here. Unfortunately, we are not able to check-in until Rory arrives. So in the mean time, we've worked on yesterday's and today's postings. We hope you've enjoyed them. =)

Day 3 route:

View from our lunch spot:

Bikes, resting:

Lunch spot:

Cess about to dig into her lobster roll:

Day 2: Chasing Hurricane Earl

Day 2's ride would take us from Barre, Vermont all the way to just outside Bar Harbor, Maine - our main destination.  By Saturday morning, our group had grown to 16 people.  Given the size of the group, this meant that throughout Saturday's ride we would most likely break into several smaller independent groups.  Can you imagine a group of 16 bikes pulling into a gas station to fill up...?  It would take forever!

As we were preparing for this trip, we fully expected Saturday to be the "bad day", weather wise.  We would be chasing Hurricane Earl and likely be riding through rain, gusty winds, etc.  Instead, we were greeted to beautiful sunny and warm weather for the entire day's ride, which wound eastward into Maine.  After arriving at the hotel at about 6pm, Cess and I relaxed for a bit, before venturing into Bar Harbor (a 30km ride) for dinner to meet the rest of the group.

We had dinner on Bar Harbor's main stretch, and as can be expected, the local specialties were various types of seafood.  Dinner was pleasant, if not awesome.

Day 2's route:

Hurricane Earl at full strength:

Cess saying hello:

Day 1: Rain? What rain??

We made it from Toronto to Gananoque yesterday through ZERO rain. We made it from Gananoque to Montpelier, VT through ZERO rain. We're very happy campers. ;)

Our adventure started by crossing the Canada - U.S. border at the 1000 Islands bridge. While we were waiting our turn, a friend of ours pulls up behind us and joins our line! Darlene had spent the night in a local B&B. After crossing the border, we stopped in Watertown. We would meet up with the rest of the group at the first gas station off the interstate. Or so we thought. As it turns out, they got off one exit before us and were waiting at a different gas station! We eventually met up for lunch after Darlene received a text message from the other group telling us their location. Once we met up, we rode together until we arrived at the hotel at 8pm. Once there, we had to leave quickly for dinner. Montpelier is a fairly small town. The restaurant we had dinner at closed at 9pm. Unfortunately for us, we arrived late enough on a Friday night that they actually ran out of several menu items. The majority of us ordered their clam chowder and spinach ravioli entree. A few of us also sampled some of their local beer.

Tomorrow's forecast for Bar Harbor, ME: 10% POP. Hahaha. =)

Good night!

T - minus 30 minutes. Destination: Bar Harbor, ME

Ride or drive? Ride or drive?? AAAUGH!! Hurricane Earl has been the bane of our existance for the week or so. Every night, we would come home and anxiously peer at the weather forecast websites that were predicting Earl's path of destruction.

We're riding ;)