We started the day assessing the damage from the storms the night before. It seemed we all encountered some minor leakage in our tents in one form or another, but basically everything seemed in order. We started packing our wet gear and trying to remember where everything went or what might make a better way to haul everything. As bad as the weather was the night before, it was gorgeous this morning. We did continue to get "rained" on because of the residual rain on the trees above, but it wasn't bad.
Our plan called for hitting the road no later than 9 am. Scott had to be home no later than 6 and we felt that this would leave us plenty of time. Of course we were a few minutes late getting out of the campground. We stopped for breakfast at McDonalds in town. We made one last check of our gear, then headed down the road at about 9:20 (a full 20 minutes behind schedule). On the first leg of the trip we made up 1/2 hour over the GPS prediction. This was easy to do because these were mountain roads where we could travel the turns etc well above what the GPS though we would.
The trip began smoothly enough. We found ourselves ahead of schedule when we hit the highway (I-88). We had about 120 miles to run due southwest to Binghamton where we would catch I-81 back to Harrisburg. What could be simpler?
We got on the highway with me leading the way. I fired up the i-Pod and was jammin to some tunes at about 75 mph, looking at the mountains and fighting against the strong headwinds. A few miles down the road I looked back and saw no other bikes behind me. I pulled over and waited a few minutes and then Scott pulled up. I asked what happened and he said that Jay had pulled over shortly after starting onto the highway. We was having trouble with his trunk which we affectionately refer to as the pet coffin. It seems he was leaning back and finding a comfortable position and something came loose. A few minutes later Jay and Scott pulled up. Jay made some repairs and we were ready to roll again. Well... there went the time we were ahead.
We rolled on down the road still fighting the headwinds all the way. At one point there was this huge bump coming onto a bridge. Normally you would expect a bit of a bump transitioning from the road to a bridge, but this thing was a full blown speed bump. I hit it first. It rattled my teeth a bit, but the bike and gear seemed to be fine. Jay was second and his trunk came loose again. We pulled over and fixed it again. Now the time we had made up was gone. Still, there was nothing to sweat. We were still predicted to make it home be 5:30 and there was lots of open road for us to make up time. You can make up about 10 minutes an hour out there because if you are going less than 75 you WILL get run over.
We stopped for lunch and gas in Binghamton NY. Everyone was very disappointed in their gas mileage due to the strong headwinds. I found it amusing listening to Scott lament that he only got 47 mpg when I was down to 26. (I usually can average about 35 on the highway) We allowed ourselves about 45 min. for this stop and we stayed on schedule. I took the time to eat and transfer every one's pics from their cameras to my laptop. I will post them as soon as I get them organized and get the time. I also took the opportunity to "Skype" with my daughter Brittany.
From there we were on the road again. The plan was for two more stops, one for bathroom/stretch break and one for gas. We ran to Wilkes-Barre PA and realized that it was only about 100 miles home from there. We decided to just combine the stops as one and top off the tanks for the home stretch. We were feeling very optimistic about our travel time and arrival.
We headed on down I-81 maintaining our preferred pace of 75 and then it all came to a screeching halt. Around Hazelton, mile marker 156 to be more precise traffic came to a dead standstill. The highway was down to 1 lane due to a construction zone and people drive like idiots. There were plenty of signs in advance but, everyone seemed to think they should wait til the end to get into the proper lane. Scott who needed to go to Lititz broke off from us at the Dorrance exit there to take 309 and get home that way. We decided to see if we couldn't get the GPS to find us an alternate. It did. We re-routed to come out about 4 miles below the bottle neck. unfortunately for us, the jam ran about 10 miles. We lost and hour total. This was not critical for us, as we had no deadline, but it was annoying and hot just the same. Once we broke free of the mess, it was smooth sailing the rest of the way home. I pulled into my driveway at about 6:20. I was happy to find that the A/C which was not working when I left for the trip was now repaired and working well.
While everything did not go completely as planned on this adventure, (which is funny because we don't actually plan much) it was a great trip none the less. We had a great time, saw some awesome country, met great people, and enjoyed some the best riding we could have found anywhere. Thoughts are already turning to possible destinations next year. We of course missed our brother Mark this year and hope that he will be able to go along next year.
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