Days 6 & 7: Shitty End to an Awesome Trip

Miles today: 200+

Miles so far: 980? (Gah! We won't hit 1,000 now.)

So when we were on the Niagara river, our phones touched Canadian airspace and we both got messages about international rates. When we were getting ready to head out, Jaron noticed that navigation was now in metric and he could not figure out how to change it back to custom. The usual options were not presenting themselves. So we were having an interesting time working with that. At the next stop he was able to change it back to custom, but decided to leave it at metric because, after all, his motorcycle is very popular in Europe. 

We officially don't GAF about check-out times anymore. When anyone asks, we keep saying we're amost outta there. Noon seems like a far more reasonable check-out time. 

We did not have any hotel arranged for Thu night since we hadn't decided what exactly we were doing on the trip back. Julie has been wanting to "freeball it" and just figure out where we're staying after dinner, but that has not worked out since things fill up in popular areas. Since we were just going back thru the middle of PA this seemed like a reasonable plan...to not have a plan. So we debated Hershey, which seemed mostly family-oriented, and besides we did the Ghirardelli thing already in San Francisco. Then Jaron suggested that we go thru Philly and visit our Mecca, the RevZilla store. RevZilla is where we buy all of our motorcycle gear. They are not open on the weekends and are a mostly online business. A very high-and-mighty Mecca. Having decided that, it looked like Allentown, PA was a reasonable target for dinner. 

Julie requested No More Interstates, so we took the "avoid highways" route and it was BEAUTIFUL. Pretty, lots of hills and turns, and cute towns. There was an 18% grade (down) for 2 miles which was very heavily marked as a "Reduced Gear Zone" with a different, lower, speed limit for trucks. I was in 3rd off the throttle and had to downshift. On another downhill, I was in 2nd at 7500 rpms. I really like my bike. 

Lunch was at a Chinese buffet. Their peanut chicken was the best I've ever had. I've started identifying which restaurants we can wear our armor suits in to, and at which ones we need to lock them to our biks outside. In a nicer restaurant we are less likely to get a 4-top and will not have room for our gear. Also, it's super awkward getting in to and out of our armor suits in a nicer restaurant where there is less space between the tables. Sometimes we'll do it in the lobby and check our suits. So anyway, this was a "bring the gear in" kind of restaurant where we got a 4-person booth and no one cared what we were doing.  

We stopped at a bajillion gas stations. We couldn't seem to find one that met all requirements: a bathroom, gas, and Red Bull. Small town gas stations often don't have bathrooms, because they are cheap and there is no competition. So Jaron said screw 'em, I'm not buying gas from them, and Julie got a Red Bull substitute but did not replenish her supply. Then the next one had a restroom and Red Bull, but no gas. Their pumps were all under construction. Based on his extensive fuels operational knowledge, Jaron thinks they were replacing the underground storage tanks. The next one had gas and a rest room, but no Red Bull. So we ended up getting it all covered eventually. 

All day we kept asking each other if the other had booked lodging. I thought you were going to do it. No, I thought YOU were going to do it. 

Julie found a good restaurant in Allentown, PA. As we turned on to their street, Jaron observed that there was a shot detection system mounted on the traffic light pole. Huh. (This was not the worst neighborhood Julie has taken us to for good food.) Jaron found about half a car-length in between two cars right in front of the restaurant and we both parked diagonally. Rock star parking. 

We have a great dinner. (It was a "bring the gear in" kind of place.) Jaron wanted to try the white bean hummus, which they served with veggies to dip in to. He said they tricked him in to eating vegetables. Julie got a fried green tomato BLT. 

When I came out of the restroom after dinner, I saw Jaron soaking wet and thought "damnit, he left the table with my things unsecured". He said that our trip was over and motioned to a big window that looked on to the street. It was raining HARD outside. He had seen brake lights from the guy parked in front of us and thought "naw, he didn't" and went out front to find out motocycles dominoed and laying on another car. So....

....3+ hours later we're in a hotel, the bikes were towed and in storage, police report filed, and the restaurant closed. (Hey! Good thing we didn't have lodging booked somewhere else already.) One of the tow guys gave us a ride to the hotel. We took all of the luggage off of the bikes (in the rain) and Julie did a frenzied bag count before we parted ways. This luggage continues to amaze me, it was raining and it got tossed on to sidewalks, thrown in the back of a truck, tossed out in to the parking lot, etc. We actually created quite a scene in front of the reception desk. I was on the phone and handing luggage to the guys from the truck, it took us all several trips to get 8 bags, 2 armor suits, and 2 helmets, and my phone was on a battery charger. Somehow we did not lose anything, including my sunglasses that were on my head the entire time. After the frenzy I stepped up to the desk and said "Hi!" brightly and checked us in. 

The good news is that the restaurant had security cameras and the cop was able to get the asshole's license plate. The asshole was a customer at the restaurant and was a middle-aged white male. I started feeling immensely better after Jaron told me that they got the license plate. 

Jaron wanted to rent a car and drive home that night. Julie wanted to ride back with the bikes in the tow truck the next day. Jaron convinced me that nothing would be resolved by Friday and that we should try to salvage our vacation. The insurance does not cover our lodging but we were going to be staying the night out anyway, and they don't cover the rental car but we had to get home anyway. (If Progressive is able to recover damages from the asshole's insurance, then it all gets reimbursed.) So Jaron got us a rental car and Julie made a lot of phone calls today and we hope to get the bikes transported to their respective shops on Tuesday when Jaron's opens. 

Oh, and we made check-out on time today. 

Also: after we get home and unload our stuff, that will be the 8th time we have moved all of our shit since last night. 

To salvage our vacation, we made the pilgrimage as planned to RevZilla. Julie got to try on lots of boots instead of ordering one, trying them on, and sending them back....twice. So yay! Julie will have proper MC boots now. 

We shot the shit in the motorcycle parking area with some other people and then headed to dinner before hitting the road. Check out this apple that was on a cheese plate at dinner. 

We got 960 miles on our last trip over the same # of days. If we had been able to finish our trip we would have gotten ~1200. Booooooo. 

It really was an awesome trip otherwise. And at least it happened at the end of our trip as opposed to the beginning. 

Also, we spend more on Julie's Red Bull habit than we spend on gas.