Ridin'Ard (The h is silent)

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 st...

Miles today: 80ish Miles so far: 770ish Today was a chill day. We got massages and lunch and just relaxed. We decided to leave for dinner because the onsite restaurants were kind of disappointing. We'd exhausted the more casual restaurant, and the nicer one is straight out of a senior center.  Dinner was Austrian small plates (at a Heuriger) and they were delicious. We had a beautiful view of the sunset on Seneca Lake. Now we are waiting out some unexpected rain outside the closed restaurant -- we did not bring our rain gear.  Tomorrow we check out of Belhurst castle and start heading home. 😞 I'm not ready to go home. 

Miles today: 250.6 Miles so far: 690 Things I forgot to mention yesterday: We make a point of bringing all of our stuff in in one trip now that we have this super functional motorcycle luggage with all kinds of carry straps and backpack straps. Jaron ended up wearing his helmet in so that he had enough hands for his luggage.  Also, we saw a billboard and a turnoff for the Pompous Ass winery on the way here yesterday. Ya know, I've heard that New Yorkers are direct.  We spontaneously went to Niagara Falls instead of the hike we had planned on. That is, instead of seeing 12 waterfalls, we decided to go see the big one. We got tickets for the Maid of the Mist, the boat tour of Niagara Falls. They handed out these blue ponchos as we boarded and they were flapping all over the place so Julie didn't want to wear hers. So she got soaked, but everything I was wearing is quick-dry. It was really cool getting to be in the middle of horseshoe falls.  After that we went on the obser...

Miles today: 130ish Miles so far: 240?  We had a leisurely morning and rolled out at 12:06. We have really been lucking out on the weather. We keep missing the rain. We crossed the NY/PA state line on 14, which we took most of the way today.  Lunch at 3:00 was at the  FLX Wienery , recommended by one of Julie's coworkers. It was as ridiculous as one might expect from a gourmet hot dog stand. It didn't look like much from the outside. Inside, you picked your toppings and then one of your choice of 5 wieners. Wiener puns abounded. 'Twas delicious.  We took a break in York, PA where we saw this cool vending machine. Julie sat on the milk crate next to it. I love milk crates.  We rolled up to  Belhurst Castle  by 5:00 and are chilling in our room. We will stroll the grounds and find a cool place to read. We had a huge lunch late so will be getting something light for dinner at like 9:00 at one of the restaurants here. 

Miles today: 80-something plus 2 on foot Miles so far: 280-something The Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania is actually the Pine Creek River Gorge and the state parks that surround it. It's 50 mi long and 1300 ft deep. I saw it in a travel book and it was on the way to our destination, so we decided to check it out. No one we talked to had ever heard about it and there were not any services nearby, so I kept warning that it could be a total bust. After much ado figuring out the right trail, we went to the trailhead for a 1 mi hike down and back up instead of the 3 mi hike Julie had read about because this park had paved parking. I *hate* gravel. It was a pretty ride about an hour and some change away.  There were a lot of motorcycles there. Some guys came over to look at Julie's bike. I never put logos back on it after getting it painted, so it's common for people to ask which make and model it is. We talked with them for a little while. And we saw my purple motorcycle buddy. ...

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 ...

We're taking a week-long trip to the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania and then up to the finger lakes in upstate New York. We are staying at a castle in NY. I put this trip together while flipping thru a travel book a couple of months ago.  Preparations have been underway for 2 days now. Jaron figured out how to remove the padding from our helmets and washed them on delicate and put them back together. We have both been noticing the stinky stank for a while now. After we get back, we'll do it again and wash our armor suits, too.  Most importantly, Julie painted the skull license plate bolts and put them in to service. There is a "before" picture, a picture of them drying on a baking rack, and a picture of it mounted and gleaming purple in one eye. :P This is the most Julie has loaded on to this bike. This is about the same amount that Jaron took when we went camping for our anniversary.  We will head out in some pretty heavy rain tomorrow and are headed towards bluer skie...