A three-hour tour

Several weeks ago, we made plans to ride down to Pennsylvania with a group organized by BMW Toronto.  This would be a Saturday to Monday trip.  We were looking forward to closing out our riding season with some nice twisty roads and colourful scenery.  We were going to ride down with a friend, Darlene, who we were also going to share our accommodations with.  I made some chocolate pistachio biscotti and packed sandwiches for our lunch for the ride down.  We were even going to surprise another friend of ours who would be travelling with the main group when we would all eventually arrive at the hotel.

We met up with Darlene on Saturday morning at a gas station near our condo.  We filled up and headed to the border.  It was a balmy 8C and the air was "wet".  As we rode towards Buffalo, the wind picked up and it started to drizzle.  Just after Grimsby, we stopped to put more layers on.  We were freezing.  As we layered up, we pondered continuing on or turning back.  Although Darlene said she'd be fine with turning back, we decided to push on towards the border. 

So we continued on.  And it started to rain in earnest.  The riding conditions just became miserable.  Matt and I were ok with riding in wet weather, or cold weather, but not both.  We stopped again when we were no more than 10 km from the border.  We donned the rest of our rain gear and then we all decided that we were going to abort the trip.  We knew the forecast for the rest of the day in Williamsport called for 90-100% probability of precipitation and would only reach a high of 11C.  In other words, it would be miserable for the entire ride.  Seeing as we do touring on our motorcycles to have fun, and this was definitely not fun, there didn't seem to be any point in continuing onwards.  And Darlene agreed.

We turned around and headed to the nearest Tim Hortons to warm up.  The Tim Hortons we arrived at happened to be just outside of Niagara Falls.  It took us all a few minutes to take off layer after layer after layer once we got inside.  I'm sure it was quite the amusing sight.  Once we unlayered, we got ourselves some hot beverages.  Matt informed the ride organizer by email that we had decided to turn around, and Darlene called the hotel to cancel our reservation.  We were all prepared to pay a penalty for such a late cancellation.  We were pleasantly surprised to learn that there would be no penalty at all.  We joked that we should take the money we saved and go to the casino to try and make more ;) We didn't; instead, we stayed at the Tim Hortons long enough to warm up and then headed home to Toronto.

On our way home, Darlene parted ways with us as we neared Toronto.  Since Matt and I live downtown, and she does not, there was no point in her following us all the way downtown.  By this time our fuel reserve lights had been on for a while.  Matt and I debated stopping for gas or pushing on towards home.  Well, didn't I run out of gas on the highway.  Matt had to leave me to fend for myself on the shoulder of the highway and continued onwards.  He'd come back with some gas for me as soon as he could.

Lucky for me, I ran out of gas on a section of the highway that had a fairly wide shoulder.  I parked my bike as far away from the moving traffic as I could.  To kill some time, I snapped a few shots with my camera.  Then I stood on the shoulder and ... ate a sandwich.  Why not?  I was hungry. ;)  After finishing my sandwich, I stood near my bike and just watched the traffic go by.  Not a single person stopped to check on me.  But the weather had vastly improved since we returned from our trip to the border.  The sun was shining and the wind had died down a bit.

Eventually, a car did stop.  But not to check on me.  The driver got out and walked around his car, looking at it intently.  He eventually walked over to me and asked if I had a cell phone he could borrow.  He needed to call his office to let them know that he would either be late or not in at all; he needed a tow.  Oh really?  It turns out that he was drinking his coffee and somehow started choking on it.  While this was all happening, he managed to swerve into the guardrail before regaining control of his car.  I didn't go to inspect the damage to his car, but he certainly had fresh wet stains on the front of his t-shirt.  I dialed his work for him and let him yell into my cell phone while I watched.  It amused me greatly that he walked up to me, like I was standing on the side of a normal road at a bus stop, and asked to use my cell phone.  After his call, he thanked me and went back to sit inside his car.  By this time, Matt had arrived with some gas for me.  He emptied the container into my tank and then we left.

What an adventure!