Ridin'Ard (The h is silent)

Miles today: 176.1 (3,787.7 so far) Hours in the saddle: 4:17 (86:38 so far) Theme music: New Taylor Swift album We made it home on Thursday after a brief diversion at a KTM suspension shop to follow up on the contact from the rally who had a lowering option that might work for Julie. We put down a refundable deposit on a bike for Julie which is reasonable considering that they are going to do the work at risk so that she can try it. So that’ll be in November.  Jaron also made a decision about the KTM 1290 SAS that he test rode on the way up and it’ll be ready to pick up in the next week or so. Then we got to join Baltimore rush hour!  This is Jaron’s new bike.  JUST kidding. It’s this one.  This was definitely our ridingest trip thus far. We went more total miles in less time. This time, we had a destination as opposed to our noodling around last year. The weather was certainly more conducive to life sustainment this time and the scenery and roads were awesome. The...

Miles today: 325.3 (3,611.6 so far) Hours in the saddle: 6:22 (82:21 so far) Wednesday we went to the Star Trek Set Tour for the original series.  https://www.startrektour.com/  It was awesome. This place in Ticonderoga, NY is fully licensed by CBS and will start work on building the set for TNG. So, we’ll be back in 5 years to see that!  Bird’s eye view of TOS set.  Beam me up, Scotty!  The transporter control panel.  Julie not touching the transporter console.  Jaron not touching an engineering console.  A bridge console.  The warp core!  Jaron pondering what’s in the Jeffries’ tube.  Sick bay.  Apparently, the original data pads were just that wax paper toy you would write on.  McCoy’s reminder of how barbaric medicine used to be. His nickname, Bones, was apparently short for Sawbones, the civil war era term for a doctor! 😲 McCoy’s lab with a tribble there on the right! And those spray bottles on the left had just been...

Miles today: 320.9 (3,286.3 so far) Hours in the saddle: 6:55 (75:59 so far) Theme music: Cello rock, Dubstep We woke up early this morning at 6:30. Julie was having an existential crisis about it until Jaron reminded me that we had changed time zones. Phew! 😅 Jaron poured me half of his purple red bull in a wine glass.  We noodled around Maine and crossed the border to New Hampshire. We saw a sign that said “Live Free or Die. Choose one.” I was under the impression that that was an inclusive OR, but apparently it’s an XOR. Huh.  Our highlight today was the Kancamagus Scenic Byway, which is route 112 through White Mountain National Forest. I’d read about it and the couple returning home from Nova Scotia came south to do it, so we figured it was worth checking out. We actually passed by the Mount Washington Auto Road (which we did on our way north) to get to it. We got to see Mount Washington looming in the distance, which was really cool. The weather was perfect today, high ...

Miles today: 317.7 (2,965.3 so far) Hours in the saddle: 5:39 (69:03 so far) Theme music: Eminem & Julie’s “shake it” playlist Cold long-haul day today.  Shook out all of the maps except for PA and did route planning last night. I’m trying to have things to look forward to on the way home other than interstates and cheap motels. 🤮 Starting to feel a little bit of post-party depression ( https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.urbandictionary.com/define.php%3Fterm%3DPost-Party%2520Depression%26amp%3Dtrue )  now that our trip is winding down. I’ve spent like 9 months looking forward to it and am already trying to think of the next one. Jaron said we should finish this one first?  So I found a couple of scenic stretches and we have a couple of stops and we’ll get home by Friday. We have our camping gear, but it takes time to set up and pack up and we have just had a lot of long days so we haven’t camped on this trip. I didn’t ever find a good resource for campgrounds in Canad...

Kilometers today: 389.6 (4,262.6 so far) Hours in the saddle: 5:18 (63:24 so far) Theme music: Johnny Cash This morning we set out to Prince Edwards Island. It’s connected to the mainland by an 8 mile bridge. This is longer than our beloved Bay Bridge, but shorter than the bridge + tunnel from the DelMarVa peninsula to Virginia Beach. Julie loves bridges, and Jaron has come a long way towards being ok with them for motorcycle purposes. I think he’s even gone over the Bay Bridge voluntarily on a bike on his own by now. 😉 He did note, however, that there was o ne last fuck-with-you rise on the bridge before the island.  I’d read some of the recommended scenic drives and they had a very helpful visitor’s center with a very good map that had several scenic routes highlighted. We picked a reasonable one for a day trip and got a recommendation on where to eat. PEI has a  150k population, 50 of which is in the 2 major cities. Outside of the cities there are potato, rapeseed (used t...

Kilometers today: 506.7 (3,873.0 so far)  Hours in the saddle: 5:53 (58:01 so far)  Theme music: Fast & Furious What a long day. Where to start?  We woke up at the hostel to discover a lot of people already gone at 7:30. We were definitely the oldest guests. I had no idea younger people got up so early. It started raining while we were loading bikes up.  Our whale watching tour was indeed cancelled due to weather, so that was a bummer. So we got some breakfast and got going. We went to the larger visitor’s center on our way out because I’d read that they had a display on the history with the highlanders and the geology of Cape Breton but there wasn’t. We wanted to check at an RCMP station about an incident report for Julie’s gear warranty repair but they were closed on the weekends. We also wanted to hit a post office to send some post cards, but they were also closed. Having failed in all of these endeavors, we headed to the mainland.  The Cabot Trail went...

Kilometers today: 148.6 (3,366.3 so far)  Hours in the saddle: 2:56 (52:08 so far)  Theme music: Dirty Dancing & the voices in my head    Much better day today.  I slept in this morning until about 7:30 and Jaron was already up. I can’t really sleep later than that anymore. Sometimes I really push it and sleep until 8:00.  We shared a brownie for breakfast but got a real breakfast first thing after we left. Apparently, chocolate makes a complete dinner, but the same is not true for breakfast. We went to a recommended place which did not take credit. A helpful sign said that a foreign exchange was 6 km away. Julie had some Canadian cash so that was fine, but they clearly were not particularly interested in international tourist traffic!  We’ve seen fish cakes on breakfast menus in this area but neither of us had tried them yet. Julie was feeling brave this morning and got the baked beans and fish cakes breakfast plate. The fish was mixed in mashed ...