Update on Part 2 Alaska Trip Blog

This entry is being made on 18 July and is a brief update on Part 2 of this year's adventure to Alaska.

The trip went well and we are back but I have been busy after getting back and am committed through this week. I have nearly one thousand photos to sort through and organize. So the full blog update will not be posted until the end of next week (on or before 31 July). Sorry. The photos will be worth the wait!

Here are a couple of shots to wet your whistle and a video of the Mendenhall Glacier.

Biker Bruce

Part 2 Blog Plan for Alaska Trip

To my blog followers and viewers:

As previously stated, I will be doing Part 2 of my spring/summer adventure with my wife, Elise, and others in Alaska as a land tour on a motorcycle followed by a 7-day "Voyage of the Glaciers Cruise" from 27 June through 13 July 2011. I will NOT be taking my computer with me on this trip so I will NOT be making daily blog entries during this period.

What I plan to do is to blog a trip summary when I return home and to post some trip photos. So if you are interested in hearing about the trip and/or perusing the posted photos, please mark your calendars and check for an update to this blog on or before 20 July, after I return.
Thanks for following.


Biker Bruce

Back Home in Auburn Again

This entry is for Saturday, 28 May 2011:

I stayed the night last night at my friends' beach house in York, ME. In the morning today I helped out with the summer furniture retrieval from storage, installing window A/C units and things of that nature. Marine fog and mist had settled in overnight and it was in the low 50s and cloudy up until early afternoon. Definitely not a beach day.

After helping out, Elise and I went to Ogunquit,ME to an art gallery called Panache to pick up some wall art that we ordered in April. Elise took her car and I took my bike to the gallery. We were pleased with the pieces that we purchased so I loaded them into Elise's car. I try to limit the time at this gallery because most every time we visit we buy or order something. Elise was checking out some new pieces in the gallery when I suggested that we go to the restaurant next door, Bintliff's, for lunch around 1 PM. Just in time before the next order got placed. We both had the lobster in a croissant and I had the shrimp & crab bisque to go along with it...all very good.

After lunch, Elise took the usual highway roads back to Auburn. Me on the other hand decided to take a different route to get back to Auburn. I know this is a surprise to those who have followed this blog thoughout - not!

I took the shore road between Ogunquit and York along the water to Short Sands at York. I stopped for a couple of photos of Cape Neddick at low tide and the rocky coastline, just north of York. Then I took Rt. 1 south to I-95 south to Rt. 101 at Hampton, NH (the exit just before having to pay a toll). I followed Rt. 101 to Milford, NH and then took Rt. 13 south to Townsend, MA and to Leominster. Then I took Rt. 2 east to I-190 south to Worcester, MA and I-290 all the way to Auburn.

Elise took the requisite photo of me at the end of the ride around 6:00 PM which I have posted. Today's ride was a short 140 miles to get back home to Auburn from York, ME on the route I took.

During this trip the cumulative miles traveled was 6,070 in 16 days of total riding. That is an average of 380 miles per day...not bad of a retired guy.

I completely lucked out with the weather on this trip. I only experience rain for about 30 minutes on two occasions and had the rain gear on for a total of about one hour for the trip. This is amazing considering all the time I was traveling in KY, TN, OH and PA there were severe T-storms and potential tornado warnings issued almost every night. As other have said: Sometimes you are the windshield and sometimes you are the bug. I was definitely the windshield on this trip relative to the weather.

Since I am now back in Auburn, and safely at that, this will be my last entry for Part 1 of my spring/summer adventure for 2011.

Thanks to all who followed the blog and for the occasional comments. I will continue to endeavor to keep the shiny side up and rubber on the road.

To the "Right" Coast

This entry is for Friday, 27 May 2011:

There was a short segment of severe thunderstorms last evening after I checked into a hotel for the night in Wellsboro, PA. Because of this, my ride today started off moist and cloudy with some moisture still on the pavement.

My wife, Elise, told me she was going to Maine on Friday and Saturday to help our friends, Deb and Wayne, open their beach house at York, ME for the summer. Considering that I had already ridden across the country approaching 6,000 miles, I decided that I would make a run for York, ME today for a surprise and early return from my trip.

The route I chose to get to York was a combination of roads that I had not ridden on before and those I chose to avoid the usual holiday traffic choke points, specifically Danbury, CT on I-84 and where I-84 meets the I-90 (Mass Pike) in Sturbridge, MA.

I continued on Rt. 6 from Wellsboro to Scranton, PA. Town DPW employees were cleaning up leaves, branches and trees downed during the T-storm last night in several towns along this route I went by another 30-unit wind farm on a ridge along Rt. 6 around Troy, PA in the vicinity of Mt. Pisgah. There were a tremendous number of trucks on this route this morning and it took me over 3 hours to go the first 105 miles to Scranton. By the time I got to Scranton the clouds had burned off and the temperature was in the upper 80s. From Scranton, I took I-84 to Newburgh, NY and then Rt. 9W that goes up the west side of the Hudson River to East Kingston, NY. I stopped once along Rt. 9W to visit a park on the Hudson River and got a good shot of a lighthouse on the river. Took the Kingston - Rhinebeck Bridge from Rt. 9W east across the Hudson River and then followed Rt. 199 to the east to Rt. 44 east into Connecticut. When I was going through the town of Lakeville, CT in town traffic, a lady in front of me backed into my bike slightly trying to make room for the vehicle in front of her to parallel park. This is where my AIR HORNS came in handy so she stopped backing up with just a gentle bump. No damage - great.

From Rt. 44 in Canaan, CT, took Rt. 7 north into Massachusetts passing through Sheffield, Barrington and through Stockbridge. Went by the well know Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge and stopped for a photo of some ducks at a wildlife preserve along Rt. 7. I decided to zigzag going east and north to position myself to get to York, ME. So I took the Mass Pike (I-90) east in Lee and then I-91 north in Springfield. Followed I-91 to Greenfield and then took Rt. 2 east to I-495 in Littleton, MA. After stopping for rest and gas in Littleton, I took I-495 north to I-95 north into New Hampshire and Maine. Stopped at the New Hampshire state liquor store to purchase some pre-made margaritas so would be able to celebrate my "right" coast arrival with my wife and friends. I arrived in York, ME around 7:15 PM and took the local tour of Long Sands Beach, Nubble Lighthouse and Short Sands Beach just as the sun was setting.

Had Maine scallops at Harry's at Short Sands before heading over to the beach house for my surprise arrival around 8 PM. As luck would have it Elise and Deb were out shopping when I arrived so I had to wait a while to serve up the margaritas that I toted on my bike from New Hampshire. Total ride today was the most of my trip to date, 525 miles. It was a long day and a long ride but worth it to celebrate with my wife and friends in York, ME.

Heading Back to Massachusetts

This entry is for Thursday, 26 May 2011:

Thunderstorms occurred overnight in the Athens area and thus roads were wet at the beginning of the ride today...just enough to cover my bike with road grime! We expected to encounter some rain based on the various weather report and weather patterns predicted. Gerry decided to ride some of the morning route with me before splitting up to travel back home.

We took northeasterly secondary farm roads from Athens to Zainsville, OH, over roughly 75 miles. Along the way we had a deer cross in front of us and saw Amish men in a horse-drawn buggy along one of the farm roads. I was not fast enough with my camera to get a picture of this.

Once we got to Zainsville, we took the requisite "end of ride" photo (posted) and said out good byes. Gerry headed west on Rt. 22 to Cincinnati to a Harley dealer who will service his bike and be the pick-up point for shipping his bike back to CA. He will be flying out of Cinci on Friday morning. I headed east on Rt. 22 from Zainsville and stayed on 22 all the way to Steubenville, OH. This was through more OH farm country. The I took Rt. 7 north to Youngstown, OH. The southern portion of Rt. 7 parallels the Ohio River which was swollen and running swiftly after recent rains. At Youngstown I took I-80 east into Pennsylvania. Then I took Rt. 8 north to Rt. 52 north to get me to Rt. 6. Rt. 6 runs east - west across much of PA. This road has a lot of scenic dots on the AAA maps so was must ride route for me. Rt. 6 follows along the northern boundary of the Allegheny National Forest and the Susquehannock National Forest and goes by several water bodies and parallels a river.

Overall, today's ride was 490 miles of delightful riding. I did not hit any rain along this route while riding. Today was the 14th day of riding on this trip and, with two minor exceptions totaling less than one hour, I have not encountered any serious rain...knock on wood. This is amazing since every night the news warns of severe T-storms and potential tornadoes. I have been fortunate to not get caught up in either so far. I have posted a few shots along the ride today.

Tomorrow I am continuing my trek back to the east following the scenic dots where it makes sense to do so in the general direction I am going.

I should also mention that all throughout this trip wherever we went people would ask us where we were from. Gerry would say that he was from southern CA and I would say that I was from MA. Then people would be dumbfounded as to how and why left and right coast riders would be riding together. We probably went through this 3 to 4 times per day when stopping for gas, eating in restaurants, and checking into/out of hotels. It made great conversation with people every day.

Mountain Riding and Definition of a Regular Customer

This entry is for Wednesday, 25 May 2011:

Today's ride was 370 miles from Middlesboro, KY to Athens, OH. We left our hotel in the morning after overnight thunderstorms in a thick fog, expecting to encounter some rain during the day. What we ended up experiencing was wet roads in the early morning, followed by fog burn off and dry roads from late morning on. The route taken was a northerly route through the Boone National Forest. Lots of mountain road riding with hills and sharp turns. The specific routes were 25E, 119, 421, 66, 11, 77, 460 into the town of West Liberty, KY, then 7 to Grayson, KY. In the morning we travel through some coal mining towns and also encountered two interesting road features. One was rock overhung roadways and the other was a single lane, unlined, rock tunnel with no traffic signals at either portal. Must be interesting if two vehicle meet in the tunnel! Fortunately, this did not happen to us.

While in West Liberty, we stopped for some home cooking at Pattie's Place. Gerry and I both had the lunch special which was pork loin, spare ribs, potatoes and green beans. After we ordered our food, a hunched over elderly gentleman in his late 70s to early 80s arrived at the restaurant. On his way in he exchanged pleasantries with us. Pattie yells into the kitchen that "Merle" is here seeing this fellow enter her restaurant and sit down at "his" table. Pattie the proceeds to tell us that Merle has eaten the same lunch at her restaurant for the last 23 years every day,except the two days per year she is not open. What did he have you wonder? He has had 2 pieces of fried chicken, 2 eggs, mashed potatoes and gravy, and a coffee every day for the last 23 years! To me, Merle is the definition of a regular customer.

While at Pattie's Place, we also tried the butterscotch pie. It was good and a first for me. Just what I need is another thing that I really like that has a ton of calories in it!

The whole meal experience was negatively impacted by patrons in the restaurant who were smoking. Smoking in restaurants was prevalent in TN and KY, for all the local restaurants.

Saw lots more single wide homes throughout our route. I took another photo of a single wide that had a dozen abandoned vehicles in the yard around and have posted this along with some other shots along the route.

We arrived at Grayson earlier than we expected and decided to extend our ride to Parkersburg, WV as a destination, adding on about another 100 miles. From Grayson we took I-64 east for about 50 miles and then went north along Rt. 7 which parallels the Ohio River over some of this stretch of road. When we got to Parkersburg we tried to make a hotel reservation only to be told repeatedly - no vacancy. It appears that there was a softball tournament going on and all the hotels were booked up. So we got a hotel in Athens, OH, about 25 miles west of Parkersburg for the evening. And there you have the why we ended up in Athens. By the way...Athens is the home of Ohio University...not be be confused with The Ohio State University which is located in Columbus.

Tomorrow, Gerry and I will be heading in different directions to return to our respective homes on opposite coasts. Gerry will be heading back to California flying out of Cincinnati and shipping his bike back to CA from Cinci. I, of course, will be heading back towards Massachusetts tomorrow.

Deals Gap and Cumberland Gap

This entry is for Tuesday, 24 May 2011:

Today's ride was quite short in total distance, a mere 275 miles. However, we road in three different states today: TN, NC and KY. The route taken was Rt. 64/74 east out of Cleveland, then Rt. 129 north to the Deals Gap Motorcycle Resort and over the Dragon's Tail, to Rt. 411 east and north to Rt. 25E north. As we finished the ride a thunderstorm was brewing as we approached and exited the Cumberland Gap tunnel. This ride brings the cumulative trip miles to in excess of 4,500 miles to date. We started in Cleveland, TN in the morning and ended in Middlesboro, KY. Middlesboro is located in the southeast corner of KY on the north side of the Cumberland Gap.

With the exception of the Dragon's Tail section of Rt. 129, this was a leisurely ride with nice scenery that included mountains, lakes, rivers, streams, farms and small towns. I have posted a few representative photos along the route.

The Dragon's Tail is a section of Rt. 129 that has 318 curves in 11 miles of challenging roadway. This road typically takes the life of one excessively speeding biker per week on average. Gerry and I had our photo taken at Deal Gap Motorcycle Resort which I have posted. I also posted the "tree of shame" that includes parts of crashed motorcycles strung up on the tree. Fortunately, we did not make a contribution to the "tree of shame" today.

Tomorrow's ride will be northerly mountain riding over secondary roads in Kentucky.