Here is Steve at the base of Mt Washington programming the next leg of the trip in the GPS.

In early July, Amy and I visited Mt Washington, in the White Mountains in New Hampshire.  Our return trip took us across New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio entirely on “back roads.”  We never once had to get on the interstates.  

Our ride began following US 2 and US 3 until we reached Vermont.  Once in Vermont, we traveled VT 105.  VT 105 was a great ride, plenty of sweepers and in and out of the woods for the entire length.  We passed many a “Moose Crossing” sign, as we did in New Hampshire.  Amy was hoping that we would see some moose.  She has never seen one in the wild before.  I was hoping we would not see any in the road.  It had taken us a little longer to get to Mt Washington than we had planned, so we were a little later getting across Vermont than we had planned on.  

The scenery was like this for most of our trip across New Hampshire and Vermont.

Our trip continued on VT 5A to VT 58 to VT 100.  VT 100 was another great road full of high speed sweepers.  Both VT 100 and VT 105 took us past many mountains and beautiful streams.  Amy thought that these roads were some of the best of the trip.  We did not get many photos of this part of the trip, as we were traveling many miles before stopping.  

Our stop for the night was in Burlington, Vermont.  We found a room at small motel called the Ho Hum Motel.  This was a nice little place.  It was clean, which was a plus after our stay in north of Milford, PA.  After checking into the motel, we went across the street to eat.  After supper, we returned to our room and we were asleep in a few minutes.  we had just finished a long day of riding.  We had gone from Milford, PA to Mt Washington and then to Burlington, VT.  We had traveled a little more than 500 miles, mostly on back roads, and stopping for a long time at Mt Washington.  

Here is a photo of some sailboats. Amy took this while waiting for the ferry.

The next morning, we woke up and traveled down Lake Champlain.  It was only about one mile from where we stayed.  I had decided to take the ferry to Port Kent, NY.  I had been on ferry boats in Seattle, but not on a lake before.  Lake Champlain is no small lake.  I live near

Here is the BMW R1200RT on the ferry

(within 60 miles) of Lake Erie.  Lake Champlain is not as large as Lake Erie, but it is big as far as lakes go.   The whole area seemed like it was a really neat area.  Amy and I would like to return sometime to Lake Champlain and Burlington.  It would make a great destination.

After getting off of the ferry, we rode for hours in Adirondack Park, what a fantastic place!  It is unbelievable how great the roads are in Adirondack

Park.  There were many dirt and gravel roads that we did not travel, but I may go back with a dual sport bike one day.  It is amazing how large Adirondack Park is.  According to Wikipedia 

The Adirondack Park is a publicly-protected area located in northeast New York. It is the largest park in the contiguous United States, the largest National Historic Landmark, and the largest area protected by any U.S. state.
The park covers some 6.1 million acres (24,700 km²), a land area about the size of Vermont, or of the Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Glacier, and Great Smoky Mountains National Parks combined.
More than half the land within the Adirondack Park is privately owned, including several villages and hamlets.

Here is Amy on the "trail" that takes you to the Whiteface Mountain Castle.

After riding around for hours, we set the GPS to take us to Lake Placid.  We passed the entrance to Whiteface Mountain.  Whiteface Mountain and Lake Placid was the site of the Winter Olympics in 1932 and 1980.  We traveled up to the summit of Whiteface Mountain.  It was a beautiful day, and the clouds were high.  Upon reaching the summit, we parked right next to a BMW RT, from Ohio no less.  The guides at the summit asked if we were traveling with the other people from Ohio.  I guess it would be odd to have two couples on the same bikes, from only a few counties away arrive at a mountain summit several states away within minutes of each other.  The view from the summit of Whiteface Mountain was breathtaking.  The high clouds reflected off of the lakes making them very visible.  Amy and I walked back a tunnel that was carved into the mountain to an elevator.  The elevator had the Olympic rings painted on the door.  There was an elevator operator that was a great person to talk to to learn a little about the mountain.  I guess it is a good thing that he knows so much, as the elevator ride seemed to never stop.  We arrived at the actual summit and took a lot of photos, then took the trail down to the “castle.”  After we had seen enough, we returned to the bike.  As we were getting back on the bike, a large group of motorcycles arrived.  One guy started looking for damage to his bike.  As it turns out, he had dumped his bike in one of the gravel areas when he turned off of the road to enjoy the view.  There was no damage to his bike that we could see.

We left Whiteface Mountain, and went to the Olympic Village at Lake Placid, NY to see the town and eat lunch.  We drove around town and finally came to a restaurant that had no real sign.  It had “Street Side” in the name.  They had some great barbeque!  The owner was the only person working.  He told us of his fascination with barbeque.  we ate on the balcony outside, nest to 6 other motorcycle riders.  I asked the owner about his business, as I loved the food, and he told me that it was his first full day in business.  He was having a grand opening in a few days.  

After out meal, we headed west, continuing toward home.  It took forever to leave Adirondack Park!  Again, the scale of the park is enormous.  We ended up riding to Rochester, NY where we spent the night.  This was the nicest place we stayed the whole trip.  I decided we were going to stay in a nice place, so we found the Doubletree.  Again, after a long day of riding, it took no time for us to be asleep, and this was quite possibly the softest bed I have ever slept on.  

More of our return trip in the next post

During the last weekend in June, I had to go to the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, MD for some classes. I decided to ride the motorcycle there rather than ride the bus. The last time I rode the bus the movies were lousy, the bus was crowded, and the air conditioning did not seem adequate. Besides that, it is not riding my motorcycle. People that know me will tell you that if I am somewhere, my bike is usually there too, so why should this be any different. My mother-in-law was attending classes there too, and she asked if she could ride along. She has just recently began riding with my father-in-law when he purchased a BMW K1200LT. Before that, she never really rode with him. Now she loves riding and has been the instigator of many a trip.

We set off Friday after a breakfast at Tims Tavern in Canton, OH almost in the shadow of the Professional Football Hall of Fame. I did not set the GPS to take me to Emmitsburg yet as I wanted to ride US 30 out of Canton to Gettysburg, PA. I love riding US 30 through the mountains in Pennsylvania, so I wanted to go that far before actually heading to Emmitsburg, besides Gettysburg is only about 15 minutes from Emmitsburg. Just before we reached the mountains, we were being waved off of the road by Pennsylvania state trooper. Once we were waved off the road, we were told to just wait where we were. Everybody on the road was being waved off. This was right at the base of the mountains. After about 10 minutes of sitting on the side of the road, there were several police vehicles that went then several BMW motorcycles with their flashers on and they were screaming by. A few minutes later the reason for the delay, a bicycle race. We were delayed by over an hour, but it was worth it to see the race. We were right at the base of the mountain where the bikes were flying when they went by. I never realize how loud the tires could be singing on the pavement. This was a large race. We ended up seeing posters for it later, I believe it took place over six days and covered the entires state.

After the we cleared the bike race, we started seeing Harley Davidson motorcycles everywhere! There were roads and businesses that were packed with Harleys and custom choppers. We began seeing “Bikers Welcome” signs everywhere. It was starting to rain, so every overpass that we crossed under was packed with bikes. We stopped just long enough to don our rain suits. It turned out that were were passing through during “Thunder in the Valley.” We stopped to eat at a small local joint, I am sorry that I do not remember the name. I had a good roast beef sandwich, with mashed potatoes and gravy, of course. The rest of the ride to Emmitsburg was uneventful, but wet. I do not have any photos up until this point, as I left the camera at home.

Sunday afternoon, Amy showed up at the National Fire Academy after class. Her father brought her out on the K1200LT. We made the switch, Amy continued the trip with me and my mother-in-law went home with my father-in-law. It was about a six hour trip for them to get to Emmitsburg. Amy and I decided to set the GPS to take us to the Mt. Washington Auto Road and avoid freeways.

The first notable place the GPS routed us to was Gettysburg, PA. I would love to stop there some day again. I spent the better part of a day there last year, and still feel like I saw nothing. Those that have been to Gettysburg will agree, that you could spend a week there and still not see everything.

After Gettysburg, we passed through Hershey, PA.

You can see snow on the next peak over from Mt Washington. This was around July 1st.

  I have friends that go there quite frequently, but this was the first time I have been there. Amy loved the streetlights that look like Hershey Kisses. I loved the smell of chocolate in the air. Once again, if we wanted to avoid the freeways, we had to keep moving for now so we could make some time. We had planned a trip that we needed to cover quite a few miles each day to complete and me to be at work on time Thursday.

 We spent the night in Milford, PA. We stopped to eat at 9:45 PM at the Milford Diner. Let me tell you, this place is amazing! I ordered a meatball sub that would have fed three people! Amy ordered something else, I do not remember what it was, but a family could have shared it. Their menu had everything you could ask for on it. There are photos of the Clintons everywhere here. It turns out that President Bill Clinton ate here. There have been some complaints in some review I have read about the Milford Diner of the place being full of smoke, but we noticed none while we were there. It may be because we got there shortly before closing. I still cannot believe the menu the have for being a diner. After leaving the Milford Diner, we went up the road to a Scottish Inn to spend the night. I stayed there because a relative of mine always looks for Scottish Inns on trips as he says the are always reasonably priced and clean. This place was reasonably priced, but we got the only room in the back of the joint. I was worried about whether the motorcycle would be there or not the next day! The room was small, the bed small and uncomfortable. Within minutes of laying down I was asleep as I was tired after riding all day in the upper 90s.

Steve on Mt Washington enjoying the view.

We woke the next morning, and resumed our trip. We had to get on the highway long enough to cross the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge. Our first stop was at a McDonalds in Springfield, Massachusetts. Amy got to see and hear a mockingbird for the first time in her life. I had seen and heard them growing up as a kid, we had them in Kentucky and at my grandparents farm in Tennessee. We sat and ate our breakfast and talked to some great locals. They were older gentlemen who could not believe what motorcycle had become. They told us about when Indian Motorcycles was still in town. They told us to stop and see the Basketball Hall of Fame. These men loved the BMW R1200RT that we were on. One guy said he used to ride a Honda 305 Dream and he rode across America on it. It was one of the most pleasurable breakfasts I have had. All of these men were of the World War 2 generation. Sadly, we are losing too many veterans of this era everyday. I was glad to get to converse with these men. I learned a lot about their city.

We ended up getting on the highway just long enough to exit Massachusetts and Connecticut. While I would liked to have stayed off of the freeways, we were passing through every town on the map and there was no way to escape the constant stop and go of city traffic. Once we got into Vermont, we began running back roads again. We had to stop and put our rain suits on again, what would a ride be without that? We got rained on for the rest of the trip to Mt Washington.

Arriving at Mt Washington was great, we had just busted

Nobody told Amy it was windy at Mt Washington.

out from the clouds and rain. We paid our toll and climbed to the summit. I kept a distance from a tour van in front of us, as they were driving extremely slow. As I came around a switchback turn, on a steep hill, the van was stopped were I had to stop on uneven pavement. I was not sure I was going to keep the bike upright, but I did. The van never once turned into a turnoff to let people take photos, the driver just stopped in the middle of the road 6 more times during the ascent. After the second time, I resolved that I would pass the van if I came around another turn and found it stopped. I gave the van a few minutes to get ahead of me, and I never had to stop for it again, but it was close.

Amy was a little concerned when the road turned to gravel and dirt, but it is far better than the driveway at home, so I was not concerned. Arriving at the summit of Mt Washington, we could see forever. The weather lived up to its reputation. It was cool and windy.  The clouds were getting lower by the second.  We went to the summit building and got lunch.  When we climbed the stairs to the summit building, the Mt Washington Cog Railway was at the summit.  We took some photo and then went in to eat.  I had a chili dog that was basically a hot dog in a

Steve standing in front of Mt Washington Cog Railway locomotive.

bowl with a bowl of chili poured on it.  It was the best chili dog I have had.  I know that chili dogs do not usually become the topic of food reviews, but I was impressed by the amount of chili I got.  The dog costs the same as a bowl of chili, so it is like getting a free hot dog with the bowl of chili.  While we were inside, I heard the whistle blow on the locomotive, so i ran outside to watch it depart.  It was as foggy as it could be!  We had only been inside for about ten minutes.  They are right about how weather conditions can change in an instant at Mt Washington!  We killed a little time, looking through the gift shop and the museum.  I talked to the postmaster for a while and then a park ranger.  I learned much about the history of the park and the railroad.  I then heard the locomotive ascending the mountain.  I am a sucker for steam engines.  I have always been fascinated by them.  We took a few more photos and then left.  We had made it to Mt Washington!

Can you see me now? I would say my Olympia jacket is visible!

  I don’t quite know why, but that was our destination and we are glad it was.  We started the trip home, where we never once had to access a freeway!  

Look for more about our trip home in the next post.