Weds Sep 10 - Marion PA to Vernon VT

A big storm is headed east so we decided to get to Vermont before it overtook us in a day or so. The Iowa folks had no options but to ride west until it started raining and then stop and hole up. Weird thing with these retired folks, is they don't really mind. This trip seeing all these relaxed, laid back retired folks has been a bad influence on me. So far everyone thinks I am the older brother, which tells me the stress of work is aging me fast, or the laid back retired life is making my brother younger.
  So a couple more "nowhere to nowhere" roads that were empty and smooth until we clip the lower end of Cayuga Lake. Some vineyards, and a bit better heeled folks. We stopped in Cortland at the Little Guy trailer dealer. These are the trailers we saw being built by the Amish a couple days ago. They are small enough to pull behind a high mileage car (think Prius or diesel Jetta), but are really high quality, sleep 2, stove, sink, TV radio, air conditioning if you want. Nice birch wood interior. Real class rig. They had a ton there so it was a good place to check out all the models. Would be perfect for Dave and Irene's next big adventure.
Then north until we hit Rt 20 which goes east. We quickly realized that this is the Rt 20 that was build in the early 1900's and it goes from Boston to Oregon. It is a federal highway and pokes along beside Rt 90. SSo there is not much traffic on it because the interstate is next to it. And no trucks to mix it up with. And the added bonus of lots of old store fronts, refurbished diners, old gas stations, etc. This would be a real interesting way to go coast to coast. My beemer is ready!!

Speaking of my beemer, it proudly rolled over 80,000 miles (woo hoo!). Still runs like new, my old friend of 17 years. So how do I get to 100,000? Hmmmm. I think I have some ideas.
So we rolled into Dave's garage at 8pm after another lovely day. I did 2694 miles from my house to my house on this trip. Can't wait for the next one.

Tues Sep 9 - Winchester VA to Mansfield PA

This is what happens when you wait a couple days to write this stuff. Bad enough I have to ask Dave where we stayed last night, say nothing of 2 nights ago.
Today was a long haul up route 522. This goes due north through that part of the east where glaciers scored long valleys and ridges. The roads just gotta go up the valley until they can't stand it anymore and then they hop over the top of one of the ridges. So we start in Virginia and then into West "by God" Virginia (for at least the 4th time!) and then across Maryland. Maryland is so skinny here, you could hold your breath at the southern border and not have to breath again until you hit the norther border. Seriously, it's about 3 miles. And like I said, West Virginia must be star shaped because it just keep sucking us back in.
So the Pennsylvania where the Amish hide out. They seem to pick areas big enough and flat enough and fertile enough to create stand alone communities. This after all is one of the goals, to create a community. I can't image a lone Amish family living without like-minded neighbors. You know you are not in touristy areas when the Amish scramble in the buggy to wave at motorcycles.
Something I think we have to be careful of is trusting the state map, or any map for that matter, when they call a route "scenic". Sometimes it is, but many times these get loaded with other tourists taking the scenic route and hence the route filling with shops to sell stuff to the tourists, then billboards, then.. So your best bet is take the route that doesn't connect anything with anything, or set Daves GPS to "no highways", "shortest route", and "no gravel roads with grass growing in the middle". If only that last one existed.
End of the day, Dave punches up a hotel and it leads us to Mansfield PA. Damned if this isn't the same town with the same hotel we stayed in last spring, and Dave and his wife Irene stayed in last year on their cross country trip. Must be magnetic. Bad enough we have traveled every road in Vermont umty ump times, but now PA and WV (Ohio is next) are giving us repeats. Gotta get further west..
The Comfort Inn was full of gas drillers (because they have a lounge, we are sure) so we found another place across the valley. Chatted up 4 folks from Iowa (on 3 Harleys) who were heading home (west). They had gone to Delaware and Rhode Island to complete the lower 48 states. Those Iowa folks sure are friendly. They looked like normal retired folks in the restaurant the night before, but were downright bad-ass the next morning in their leathers and dew-rags. If only BMW made dew-rags. Here is my brother with and without a dew-rag. OK ladies, which one would you ride into the sunset with?

Monday Sep 8 - Marietta OH to Winchester VA

Over cast most of the day. The Super 8 motel was as super as Super 8 motels get. Bad JuJu day for Dave as he blew his low beam bulb, had starter issues and his rain gear zipper quit zipping. But once again we out-McGuiver'd McGuiver (ask your parents), and managed to prevail. I actually just replaced my headlight a couple weeks ago and just like cars, they do blow out. Motorcycles, like most cars these days run with the headlight on day and night. So every 12K miles or so you replace them. I noticed it gone this morning so we stopped in Clarksburg (we think) and got a coffee at he local McD's (actually great coffee and free wifi). Ex Boy Scout Dave carries a spare (Be Prepared!). We were the center of attention with the local guys who had bikes (and apparently no jobs) and once again the Vermont tags got their attention. One of them (I'll call him Buddy since we never got his name) was our instant best friend and regaled us with stories about his Honda motorcycle, home brew repairs, etc. He and the other 3 or 4 guys all knew each other and peppered us with questions. We finished our coffee and Buddy followed us out to check out the bikes and help replace the headlight. Well somehow a 3 minute job turned into and hour+ job. Buddy was getting tools from his truck and was actually very helpful. Long and short, the BMW headlight mount had a broken retaining thingie which meant we could not get it back together. Working down inside the handlebars is like doing a tonsillectomy with mittens on (I would imagine). This is when you ask the neighbors 7 year old to reach in and hold something because he has skinny little arms. So we gave up and Dave rode with the high beam on the rest of the day. We decided to cross West (god damn) Virginia on Rt 50 which goes directly east. Last spring we crossed it 50 miles south on Rt 33. Rt 50 was busy for an hour or so, but then was fairly empty the rest of the way. If you look at a topo map, this area looks like a dragon scraped trenches north to south so we spent the day climbing into and out of those trenches. We hit 3100 ft at one point and then plunged down into the next trench with truck brake check stations, 15 mph hairpin turns and then up the other side to the top of the next ridge. Lots of windmills (yea!), but like most everyplace we go in WV, a lot of tough luck looking hollows and towns. Quite a bit of logging here, but not much else. We did see gas drilling, but our new friends told us they do not hire West Virginians, but are all out of state. So the scare we had was that Dave's bike was not starting sometimes. We think it may be the kick stand switch but it could be he starter switch. A friend of ours had to replace the starter switch so stay tuned. We may start parking on hills just in case. We do not have a Starksboro straight hitch (piece of rope) so will have to watch it.
We looked up the headlight issue and it is a known problem with these. But we worked on it tonight and it is all good and Dave should have a nice new headlight tomorrow.
Nice fast smooth day with just an hour or so of very light rain. North tomorrow..

Sunday Sep 7 - Carollton Ky to Marietta OH

I was not wanting to head into the "woods" again and instead wanted more flat open country, even if it meant looking at more corn and soy. We rode along the Ohio River, which is a very very big river right here. Yesterday and this morning we saw large barges going up and down the river. People tend to build their houses a ways away so it must flood from time to time. These rivers were and still are shipping lanes for all kinds of stuff. Coal, sand, containers, etc. And while there are bridges, they are pretty intentional since it is pretty wide and those boats have to go under them. Last night we dropped a lot of elevation when we came down into the river valley off the plain and it seems that on the south side of the river (Kentucky), it is now hilly, not flat. This was the case this morning as we wiggled all over on small roads trying to get back up to Ohio. It was fun, but we were getting close to Cincinnati (congestion) so we jumped the highway and went north right up to and then around the city. The Cincinnati skyline is nice and it really is a small city. Kinda cute actually. Not sure why, but there was a lot of traffic for a Sunday so north until we go to a road that Dave found described as "scenic". Now we were back on the plains above the river with good old soy and corn fields. The towns got smaller and smaller (and emptier and emptier) as we went east. We had lunch in a small place in ?? town and the waitress picked on us because we did not know what "cooney sauce" was. She brought out some and it is chili-dog sauce and we guessed she meant "coney dog" sauce (which I still have not heard of). She then asked if I knew what a BLT was which I admitted I did. Someone has to get out more..
I talked up a local farmer about how this corn and soy was harvested and he said they chop some of the corn for feed, but most is left to get as dry on the stalk as possible, the "shelled" and stored in he big steel silo's we see everywhere. Soy is harvested and the "beans" are shelled from their pods and also stored. They blow air in the bottom of the silos so further dry it and ship it over the winter depending on where the prices were. One woman told us the farmers are all hurting this season because the prices are down (corn is $3 instead of $5).

Dave found this amazing set of roads through an area called Hocking Hills, where people fed up with the flat plains can come see what trees and hills look like and motorcycle riders can make their tires round again. There were very few people on the roads todays and a lot of them were motorcycles anyway.. Amazing twists and turns, roller coaster stuff, and smooth pavement. We kept saying that it was like they stole a piece of twisty West Virginia and put it in the middle of Ohio.
We saw a few places growing tobacco. It looks like giant spinach with big broad leaves. I am guessing it has little commercial value since we did not see much growing, but we did see some plots and some bunches cut and drying. There are still some old tobacco barns here and there. Twisted all afternoon and ended up in Marietta OH, where we realized we had been to and stayed at on a previous years trip. Probably same motel. Another perfect day.

Sat-Sep 6 - Lima OH to Carollton, KY via Indiana

We "done good" yesterday by driving into the storm. It poured late last night and this morning it was grey, but no rain. We decided to keep pushing west and then start a swing south.
Route 81 from Lima is a small 2 laner that got us to Indiana in an hour or so. Corn and soy, or soy and corn, take your pick. They seem to always alternate the corn and soy fields side by side so we are assuming it has to do with crop rotation and also reducing cross pollination of different seed type (but I am a computer guy and Dave is a power guy so what do we know?).
I love the open fields from horizon to horizon, probably because I have spent 50+ years staring at trees. The roads go either east-west or north south. So it is nearly impossible to get lost (despite my best efforts..).
I should have been a history or geography major so I could understand the changes with time of this area. I can guess (remember, engineer) that there used to be small farms that hacked a living from the wilderness followed by small towns with division of labor, followed by bigger agriculture feeding the cities via rail followed by megafarms consolidating all the smaller farms followed by what ever comes next.
We saw a lot of abandoned houses, churches and barns which would bear out the idea of little farms getting gobbled up. Also the small towns in eastern Indiana have a lot of empty, dusty store fronts. I must say that if you stop anywhere to look at a map, anyone walking by will ask if you need help. That friendly mid-westerner myth seems to be real because everyone is very helpful.
We turned south and followed Rt 1 until we hit one of two detours (which take you half way to California and back by the way). Since everything is square, a detour can only mean you are going a long way out of your way. I bet these little starving towns hate detours around their towns!
It sort of spit rain drops all day so we wore the rain stuff pretty much all day. It was cool so it was ok. Not like yesterday when it was 90 degrees and wearing rain gear was like donning a sweat suit.
We crossed the Ohio River and into Kentucky, and like every time we cross into Kentucky, things change, and not for the better as far as economic well being. (Still way better than West Virginia).

We found the "Hotel Chernobyl" which was an abandoned Comfort Inn, but a newer one was built right behind it (and we had no rubles to pay anyway "Comrade"..). Great Mexican restaurant (unlike the other night) and back to bed. This vacation stuff is exhausting.
I think we may go back up on the fertile plains of Ohio tomorrow since we have been through the Appalachian hills many times. We really need to get "way out west" somehow, but not this trip.

Friday Sep 5 - Millersburg OH to Lima OH

Today was the Little Guy factory tour and I love visiting manufacturing plants where they build stuff. Today was cool for a couple reasons. First, the Amish are building these small travel trailers and being one to instantly generalize, the idea of Amish doing anything but driving teams of mules across bucolic meadows on sunny summer afternoons with cute bonneted (word?) children skipping along beside intrigues me. But Amish with nail guns? The second reason is that for 30 years I have designed products and seen them go into manufacturing and so understand how it works. The third, and completely unfair reason is that I was curious if they were doing "lean manufacturing" like Toyota (cue heavens parting and choruses of lean sensei's singing hallelujah), who are the gods of lean. My brother and I toured the Toyota plant in Kentucky this spring and saw how the big boys do it (and it is inspiring).
So for me today was Toyota in one corner of the ring (visualize smiling sumo wrestler guy), and Amos Oder (gotta feed the 'orse, yah) in the other corner to duke it out for the Shingo Prize (annual prize for most lean company).

What we found were not very lean folks, but a very family or maybe community oriented company making really high quality products. Amish men (bearded and not) and women (long modest dresses and caps, no beards) were working at the making and assembling of these small trailers. The trailers were NOT pulled through the factory with Donkeys as my brother expected. The guy giving the tour was an older man, very open and patient with our small group of 7 people. He was indeed the classic Amish guy. They make everything but the metal parts (steel frames and aluminum sub-assemblies) and they can make about 10 per day. Like Toyota (and this may be the only thing) they have a tight, small 3 dimensional plant where people upstairs make sub-assemblies and feed them downstairs to the main lines (they have 2 lines). Amos (I did not actually catch his name but he looks like and Amos) showed us their new building across the valley that was many times bigger than where they are now (they hope to move by New Years). They have grown so fast, they are packed like sardines in their current space, and I smiled, remembering NRG Systems just before moving into the "big house", when we were also packed tight in a little metal, poorly insulated box. But some of my best memories were those "tight times" working with "our family". So great tour and wonderful folks (and no donkeys).
So we next decided to go find the genealogy center that a guy named Franklin Miller started in Mt Vernon. Rumor has it he spent 70 years doing Miller genealogy and wrote a few books. So off to Mt Vernon, but we went way south to enjoy more Amish farms in the valleys, and then west on Rt 39, which the map says was "scenic" which was just sort of ok. At Mt Vernon we found the genealogy center but it was only open 2 days a week, and today was not one of those days. So heck with that and headed west to push as far west under the incoming storm (hoping it would go over us tonight). But I then thought that we should go back and check the Mt Vernon library we visited last spring to see if maybe they had Franklin's book. The good news was, they indeed had a copy, the bad news was that all those Millers were German and not related in any way shape or form to us.

So, back on the road west to the storm. We stopped for lunch at a really strange diner (that served breakfast all day by the way), where the "dining room" had not a single window in it, the large table next to us had 6 or 7 guys playing poker (for money), and you pay the bill in cash, no receipt and no meals tax. You figure it out??
And hour or 2 later we saw the storm, got "spit on" by the clouds, put our rain gear on, sun back out, rain gear off, then more rain, rain gear back on, then a lot of rain, then decided to quit for the day in Lima OH. Hotel is ok, but there is some kind of Elks gathering, and it's Friday night, and they sell beer here, so it may be a noisy night. Showers to knock the sweat off and cool off, then dinner and bed.
In the morning we see where we stand with the rain. Bikes are running perfectly and can't wait for more road tomorrow. Indiana here we come (I think).

Thursday Sep 4 - Titusville PA to Millersburg OH

Genius is hard to suppress as we discovered a new way to make those tasty breakfast sandwiches. Invention is a Miller curse passed down from our dad. This one is for you dad.
We had a little dew on the bikes which is perfect for soaking bugs on the windshields. Weather guy says beautiful day and he did not disappoint. The great thing with post Labor Day is there is no traffic. We pretty much have the roads to ourselves. And 90% of the roads down here are smooth. My old bike LOVES moving at 55mph on 2 lane roads. You can barely hear it running or feel any vibration at that speed. We drove through the oil valley where all the oil was discovered by Edwin Drake in the mid 1800's. This area is trying to cash in on it and has some nice parks and rec areas. But it looks like all that oil wealth left with Drake. There are small oil pumpers here and there, but not too much going on. We decided to put some miles in and skip Canton. So interstate 80 to mix it up with the big rigs (who are much better drivers than the cars), past Youngstown and then south on the first exit after the busy Rt80 & Rt76 intersection. This is the secret to both getting places and enjoying the locals. Take the interstate when you get to congested areas and then get at least 30 miles away from the interstate after that. It is magical to just leave the highway and drive just a little way away. All the towns get small, people slow down, and folks stop to chat. So we turned off the GPS and I used just the new compass I attached to my right mirror and headed south and west, alternately. Every little side road is paved and we had a fun morning doing "roller coaster" rides over little knolls and valleys. The further we got into Ohio, the more square it got and the more farms there were. We noted that many places here are just like Vermont as far as terrain and vegetation.
We stopped for lunch at a place called the Frontier in Hartville where everybody appeared to be retired (even the waitresses) and everybody watched us come in (something new going on in town?). Breakfast all day joint which is always a good sign. After that we got completely lost (and the map is by no means correct because we bobbed and weaved so much).

So we stopped to check the map in Dover and accross the road was a sign saying "Gas Pump Heaven Museum". We stopped in and got the 1/2 hour tour of lots of restored gas pumps by the owner. He retired from a job at the local credit union and had previously restored a couple gas pumps at home. Being married ourselves, we can imagine the sequence of events that got him booted from his home hobby to this place. Pretty neat and if you are into 40s to 60s memorabilia, this place is for you. It's all about passion, and I love running into guys like this who light up when they show us all the restored stuff he has collected. Now this is a guy who runs to the mailbox to intercept the credit card statements before his wife sees them..

And he has a full size Bob's Big Boy character. Must of sent the missus to her sisters for a couple days when that bad boy was delivered.
So we made it to Sugar Creek where the trailer place was but decided to finish the day at Millersburg OH and made an appointment to get the factory tour in the morning.
Chatted up a guy who works in a door factory that invited us for a tour as well. He was a Miller and we had a relative move here in 1814 so..
So before ending the day we turned onto a small sort of 2 lane side road and cruised through a remote Amish valley. These Amish rode real bicycles with inflatable tires so maybe the rules have changed. (Dave read tonight that there are a dozen or so variations of Amish and Mennonites and they each have different guidelines and rules). Oh yea, that glaze on the road from the horses is slippery, and must be really slippery when it rains so motorcycle riders beware.
Checked in to the motel and then a not so great Mexican place for dinner. Laundry tonight and bed. Hot tomorrow and maybe a few afternoon sprinkles. Trailer factory tour tomorrow!!

Weds Sep 3 Oswego NY to Titusville PA

Up fairly eary and on the bikes by 7. Many thanks to Sandy for putting us up. Herb, you are one lucky guy!!
We plugged Ginnie's address in Dave's GPS and it took us on all the back roads in the early clearing fog along the Lake. Perfect day all day, not too hot, not too cold and lots of sun. This is the fruit belt along the lake and we saw every color, shape and size of apple you could image. Lots of peaches as well. They are also famous for cherries through here, but we did not see them (or more likely did not know what we were looking for). We are used to apples and our cousins in Dummerston grow peaches (most years), but the only cherries we grow in Vermont are picked at Hannafords or Shaws. We found Ginnie's (I had not been there for xx years), and she had a nice breakfast spread for us. We noted later that we need to develop more connections like these and just go from one to the next in a big circle (eat, sleep, repeat). Always great to see Ginnie. I am realizing I need to stop hanging out with all these just retired people. They are all so happy ( too damn happy if you ask me) being retired and yet so busy. I guess I need to cultivate some overworked, miserable friends to balance it out.
We said our goodbyes (Thanks Ginnie!!) and decided to see if we could score a free cup of coffee at Dave's sister-in-law's in Geneva NY. But alas, it was not to be as they were not around so we got McDonald's coffee (excuse me, half price "senior" coffee (these retired folks get all the perks..)).
We headed south from Geneva through beautiful vineyards and from Watkins Glenn (the race car town) and just sorta wiggled along the south east corner of NY state. This part of NY has lots of rolling green hills with working farms, corn, soy (I think), and the occasional Amish families clop clop clopping by (with cans of gasoline in the back of their buggies??). Gotta work on this Amish rule system again. We crossed into Pennsylvania (home of the PennDOT indians) and rode through and around the Allegheny National Forest. The roads are smooth and empty and we poked along from 2 laner to 2 laner all afternoon. Pennsylvania seems to me so much more forested that NY just above it. More like scruffy Maine woods that rolling farmland. We decided to end the day at Titusville were Drake struck oil in 1859. Walked into town to a nice brew-pub, back to the hotel and here I am typing this out on painfully slow wifi. So tomorrow we go ???

Tues-Sep 2, 2014 Starksboro VT to Oswego NY

My brother Dave drove up yesterday and stayed overnight. Another completely unplanned trip. The only goal is to get a factory tour of the Little Guy Trailer company somewhere in Ohio. These are small, aerodynamic travel trailers Dave is looking at for his next cross country trip (not on a motorcycle which makes no sense to me?). So it's not like we have no goals at all!! Anyway, I wanted to stop and see Deb's dad and step mom Herb and Sandy in Oswego NY so we decided to go a route I don't think either of us have been. We stopped for breakfast in Richmond VT and then took the highway to the islands to catch the ferry to Plattsburg, NY. Very warm day, but overcast so perfect riding day. The weather guys predicted sprinkles but we rode all except the last 30 minutes or so without any rain, and then just enough to put the Frogg Toggs on.

Watched a beautiful sunset over Lake Ontario (stole this picture from Chris Richmonds Facebbok post, thanks Chris (oh crap he is a lawyer)..) and caught up with Deb's folks. My brother behaved better than expected so we had a great visit. Deb's Aunt Ginny invited us down for breakfast the next morning so we got caught up with Sandy and Herb then turned the fans on (hot night, but perfect with fans), then off to bed. Read about 2 sentences of a new book (ok maybe one) and crashed.

Nice to be on the road again..