Day 1: Boring Highway

Miles so far: 200.7

Miles today: 200.7

We left at 9:38 this morning and arrived in Williamsport, PA at 5:00 (just in time for supper). We have extra time and it's daylight. So weird. 

The rain gave us a break, but we since we had a long way to go today, we spent the first half of our ride on interstates and didn't try to be too creative with our route. 

Oh, one other trip preparation item I forgot to mention: tire pressure. The Motorcycle Safety Foundation says that your tires are the most important part on your entire bike, because they are the only part that touches the road. BMW has a pretty cool design such that the valve stem is shorter and faces out, so his tires are waaayyy easier to check than mine. But Jaron wouldn't let me check his tires before our North Carolina trip in April. Then we went camping in June which was not a long trip, so I'm not sure I checked my tires either for that one. I insisted this time and found his front tire to be 10 psi low and his rear tire was 7 psi low. <shakes head> 

Julie has learned that if she doesn't want to eat at McD's, she has to project when and where lunch will be and set a specific destination for Jaron's navigation. Otherwise, we get desperate and are not going to stop to look for a good place on the map.

We had Thai for lunch in Harrisburg. It was really good. I have never had so many fresh vegetables in my drunken noodles. There was also about an entire Anaheim pepper in each of our dishes. I advised Jaron that that was NOT green bell pepper before it was too late. The restaurant had some interesting bathroom signs. 

South of Harrisburg, there were two amusing billboards. The first was advertising for Cracker Barrel: "(something) Pancakes, Cute Syrup". According to Google, Cracker Barrel now serves syrup in cute bottles which are widely recognized on Pinterest. Then there was a parenting PSA that made Julie literally laugh out loud. "A Baby needs Balance: a Donut in each Hand" http://local.ydr.com/york-pa/food-and-beverage/bakeries/maple-donuts/2017-01-27-4857132-to-help-a-baby-balance-they-need-a-donut-in-each-hand-maxton-burnside-serving-breakfast-all-day-your-neighborhood-donut-shops-free-1700-i-free-2-donuts-bakers-dozen-donut-holes-with-purchase-13-buy-1-dozen-donut-of-3-donuts-12-i-holes-ge

Close to our destination there was a sign for "High DUI Incident Area". As we pondered what that meant ("there are a lot of bars here", "our residents are drunk-driving assholes"), we saw a sign for "Aggressive Driver Enforcement Area". We think that means "everyone likes to speed through here". 

As we were unloading our stuff at the hotel, two or three groups of people just felt free to cross the parking lot thru our spot in between the bikes. Like walking through people's yards and campsites I guess. 

Julie has been very excited about our new tool roll for this trip. Last time we just shoved tools anywhere they would go. The tool roll works with our luggage straps and I fit it in between my two stacks of luggage because it was kind of dumb to have all of that weight up high. After I installed my new (super cute) license plate holders, I was like, I am NOT unstrapping all of my stuff to put this one tiny wrench in the tool roll, so it went in a saddlebag. Then earlier today I pulled my wire cutters from a saddlebag for Jaron to use to open something and realized that it was kind of convenient that they weren't in the tool roll. And this afternoon as I was unstrapping my stuff to bring in to the hotel, I was like, I am NOT carrying that heavy-ass pack of tools in. It's in a waterproof cover. So I wrapped 3 sets of straps around it since I didn't really want to uninstall and reinstall those either, and if anyone can figure out how to undo all of that, then I guess they deserve to have our tools. 

Jaron is TUCKERED OUT right now. I found a gastropub within walking distance for dinner tonight. 

Tomorrow we will hike the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania! It's 3 mi in and 3 mi back up. 

This is a pretty affordable parking violation.