6/20/2011 - Up early in NYC. After a quick trip to Dunkin Donuts with Anthony, we were back to his place and I was on the road by 8:30. I was contacted by several of my friends who were in NYC at the time but since I was on a time crunch I wasn't able to get to see them. Sorry Donny and Howie. Getting out of the city isn't too tough on a Monday morning because most of the traffic is going into the city. I was through the Holland Tunnel and into New Jersey in no time.
In New Jersey there wasn't a Welcome Center to stop at so I just kept going for about an hour and stopped when I needed fuel. I had totally forgotten that you aren't allowed to pump your own gas in New Jersey; however, the pump operator at the service center was sympathetic to me being on a motorcycle and let me pump it myself albeit supervised. While pumping gas, I struck up a
conversation with a gentleman who regaled me with his tale of coast to coast travel on his Triumph in the 1970's. I love getting to talk to people who have done similar journeys because it's always interesting to compare notes. The end of my brief stop in Ashland New Jersey had me walking into the restaurant, getting some coffee, and having my picture taken with Chris Christie. He's the governor of the Garden State.
I hopped back on my motorcycle and before I knew it, I was in the state of Delaware. I almost missed the exit for their welcome center. That would have been a shame too because it was the cleanest and most modern of all the welcome centers that I visited. I was even greeted at the door by an orange barrel Transformer. The breaks and state lines were coming fast and furious. I really felt like I wasn't getting anywhere because they were so frequent that morning.
The final new state line that I would cross would be to Maryland. It happened and I didn't even know it. I couldn't have been in Delaware for more than 20 miles total. I really just clipped the corner. With that in mind, I made my last stop for a Welcome Center photograph. Here it is in all of it's splendid glory.
My GPS did give me a little gift though. In a mere 150 miles, I'd be off of the Interstate for a while and onto US-40. I-70 takes a crazy jog north in Maryland and to keep my route going back home as shortly as possible, it diverted me to I-68 and then dumped me on US-40. It was great. As soon as I got away from I-95 I started seeing a lot more trees and hills. Maryland was a REALLY nice state to ride through. It was very scenic. I stopped at around 5:00PM and had my lunch/dinner at a gas station in the mountains. Here is the view from my picnic table in Hancock, MD.Although it doesn't show up in the photo very well, it was really quite remarkable. After I ate and got cleaned up, I settled into the saddle for what would be the longest single ride I'd ever taken without getting out of the saddle. I rode from Hancock, MD to Cambridge, OH without getting off the bike. 213.9 miles. I finally had to pull over at 10:00PM because my fuel was getting low and I just needed a break. There's only so much time that good music and a positive attitude can get you through and I was starting to feel worn down. The one thing that was very invigorating was seeing the Welcome to Ohio sign. At that point, I knew I was only about two hours away from home and I could do two hours
standing on my head at this point. So I went in to the Sheetz convenience mart grabbed a coffee and a banana, sat down for 20 minutes or so then it was off for home. I finally pulled into my garage at 12:05am Tuesday morning (thereby breaking my promise of being home on Monday). This is the photo Laela took of me in the morning when she woke up.
All in all, it was a great trip. I got to see some friends, visit another country and see a bunch of states that I'd never been in before. My Suzuki V-Strom DL650 handled perfectly and was a joy to be on. I never once doubted it's ability or reliability. It's a really solid bike. I can't wait to get some new tires on it to see what it can really do. My only disappointment with the trip was my time constraints which required me to be home by Tuesday 6/21/2011. That made me choose between quantity of states or quality of ride. I spent WAY more time on the super slab than I wanted to but if I hadn't, I'd have never gotten to all of the states I needed to. I'll see what I can do about scheduling more time for my next trip but that's going to be contingent upon what the doctor tells me on 7/12/2011. Let's hope it's good news.
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