Or: Humility I said, we need more Humility… not more Humidity!

As Forest Gump would say, “Muggy is as muggy does,” (or close, anyway).  For this phase of our journey, we have landed in the world of the hot and gooooopy.  Despite our best intentions to maintain perpetual Spring until Fall arrives, we have indeed wondered into some unavoidable Summer.  If you sit perfectly still, and there is a nice breeze, all is well.  But if you move around much, the juices flow.  And the women don’t just “pink” or “glow”, they sweat like horses pulling a heavy wagon.  There!  Now do you understand what I mean by muggy?  And along with the humidity, comes the thunderstorms.  While in New York we were out on the motorcycle, seeing Niagara Falls, and didn’t close up the coach.  We returned to a very soggy household; a big black thunderstorm came through and dumped on everyone.  The cats aren’t smart enough to close the windows… at least not yet; we’re working on them.

But that’s what makes the countryside so beautifully green and lush.  And we really like that.  We have found western New York state, with rolling hills and farmlands, to be quite exceptional.  We were here in 1994 and fell in love with this area and we’re glad to be back.  We’ve been in the Finger Lakes area and west from there, as well as up in the Adirondacks, but the whole state is lovely: green and rolling, agricultural lands mixed with forests.  The roads are generally in very good shape; if not, there’s often a sign saying to be careful, rough road ahead.  Seems to me that means both an acknowledgement of a problem and a promise to take care of it.  We definitely plan to spend a lot more time in New York state, and eventually we’ll even get to The City.

Since our last message, we’ve been in New York, Pennsylvania (again), Virginia (again), Maryland (again), West Virginia, Indiana, and Michigan.  We attended a couple of lot’s-of-fun motorhome rallies, for starters (one in NY, the other in PA).  It’s a gas, sitting around with fellow Trekkers, swapping stories of what went right (or wrong), and how wonderful our coaches are.  What a loyal group!  And what good folks.  We’ve made many new friends we hope to see frequently over the years.  One of our rallies was outside Hershey, PA …. And we didn’t even go there to taste the chocolate.  I cannot believe it!  Rick is losing his touch!  (Not really; we’ve both taken many, many opportunities to sample local yummies).  We just bought some maple syrup that is to die for (see reference below).  Instantly required French toast for breakfast the next morning!  While wandering, we discovered two very lovely college towns:  Hamilton, NY, home to Colgate University; and Annville, PA, where Lebanon Valley Community College is located.  We also enjoyed traveling through beautiful Amish areas in the Hershey area, and noted that the Wal-Mart in Ephrata, PA (Pennsylvania Dutch country) has stalls for horse and buggy customers.

We found ourselves in Jonestown, PA, near Hershey, for several days, while having repairs made to the coach.  After exhausting ourselves on the backroads, looking at all the charming scenery and buying local (read very tasty) food products, we headed down for a two-day motorcycle trip into Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia.  Touched all three states the same day.  We stopped by Manassas again, then headed for Harper’s Ferry and Antietam.  These are tiny, in-a-corner areas of these states, and we got delightfully and thoroughly lost several times.  We found ourselves cruising through Fairfax County, Virginia, through some of the prettiest (and probably highest-priced) real estate in that neck of the woods.  I know that’s where many famous people have their “country estates.”  We could see why.  Beautiful, lush, green, rolling hills with bundled hay drying in the fields; picture-perfect.  Harper’s Ferry was a neat experience.  They do a good job of telling the story of John Brown and what he was trying so fruitlessly (and goofily) to accomplish; evidently Mr. Brown had been a loser for a long time, and despite being an abolitionist, he had some pretty weird ideas.  And he wasn’t very smart.  No wonder they nabbed him and hung him…..  The small town is a historic site, and has been kept as it was in the 1850’s; it’s easy to see why it was an important location during the Civil War, being the confluence of two important rivers.  A very worthwhile stop.

Our visit to Antietam was not as good; we had waited too late in the day to get there (need I suggest we were lost again?), and we had to get back to Pennsylvania to check on our motorhome.  But we did stop, and spent a short while out in the battlefield.  A terrible, bloody battle, accomplishing little.  Again, a lovely spot, well maintained as it was during the War.  As we started back, we could see enormous black clouds forming ahead of us.  We kept moving, but so did they.  They won.  We spent the last 60 miles riding in a gargantuan thunderstorm, during rush hour traffic through Harrisburg, PA, with all the roads torn up.  Riding hell.  But Rick the trooper got us through in good shape, somewhat soggy and sweaty (‘twas not a cool rain, natch) and we’ve survived to tell the tale.

Highway sign in PA:  “Buckle up next Million Miles” – they’re serious about road safety!

Heading back into New York, with a fixed steed, we spent an eventful 9 days near Rochester, visiting Rick’s family and seeing the area.  (See above for Niagara Falls, etc.)  While at the Falls we did the Maid of the Mist thing, and it was TOTALLY COOL.  Not to omit that it was also a totally drenching experience.  But such fun!  Kathy was stoked; Rick enjoyed Kathy being stoked.  In Rochester, we saw not one but two games played by the Rochester Redwings AAA baseball team; they lost to the Columbus Clippers, but whomped the Pawtucket Red Sox.  Go Wings!  Rick’s family put on a great shindig for us; 60 or so extended cousins, etc. all chatting away.  We even knew a few of them; and later in the week we had a chance to chat more quietly with two groups of Rick’s favorites.  It was a delightful week.  And we ate “hots.”  You’ve got’chur red hots and your white hots.  Both very local.  Both yummy.  And you sure wouldn’t want to say to anyone “they taste just like regular hot dogs to me.”  Not on a bet – besides, they don’t really, especially the whites.

Leaving New York, we were heading for Indiana (why?  A good question; answer coming later; but rest assured, it was over Kathy’s dead body) (Exaggeration Alert, Ed.), so decided to go through Buffalo and the isthmus of southern Canada, crossing back into the States through Windsor-Detroit.  NOT!!!!! NEVER AGAIN.  First of all, going through Buffalo is ridiculous.  The street signs are lousy.  I was reminded that I did this same thing once before, in 1978, also on a Sunday morning, also getting lost in Buffalo trying to find the way over the bridge to Canada.  Directions aren’t any better, 24 years later.  Deja vu all over again.  Windsor wasn’t a lot better; at least they have good directional signs, but crossing into Detroit brings out all the nasty thoughts we have about ugly parts of the country.  It’s a tie with El Paso, Texas.  Interestingly, in preparing for the passage, we made sure our passports were handy, and we had the cats’ papers at the ready, being sure someone would want to make sure they had their rabies shots.  FAT CHANCE.  All the guy wanted to know was did I have a receipt for the oranges and grapefruit I had purchased in Pennsylvania a few weeks earlier!  I told him of course not, and he sent us on our way.  What a disappointment.

Leaving Detroit, we traveled over some of the worst roads in the universe; things came loose on the coach we didn’t even know we had!  We’ve decided that one day we’re going to compose a piece of music titled “Roads and Rattles: Travels with ‘Arvey, A Concerto for Percussion.”  The music people among you will understand.  But we kept moving away from Detroit, down through a corner of Ohio and to Fort Wayne, Indiana.  Why you might ask, did we go to Fort Wayne?  Well, now it’s time for Rick to take over here, and tell you what’s been going on!  Getting there, we stopped for a few delightful hours at the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Museum in Auburn, Indiana; home of the most beautiful Art Deco showrooms ever constructed, and full of the most beautiful automobiles ever built.  We’d loved this place in ’98 and couldn’t wait to get back.  If you’ve never seen this place, run do not walk, to get there.  It’s a treasure, and worth the search.  Auburn is only about 20 miles north of Fort Wayne.

OK, here’s Rick to fill in the blanks on why we subjected ourselves to the heat and humidity of Fort Wayne over July 4th.  In all fairness to the residents of that community, everyone was complaining about the heat and making clear that it was not to be considered normal.  Anyway, we went to Fort Wayne for Wing Ding, which is the somewhat ridiculous name of the annual national gathering (about 15,000 strong) of the Gold Wing Road Riders Association, of which we are members.  We had discussed going just for ducks, but had pretty much decided against it due to the suspected heat and the distance, but that was before The Change took place.  While in NY, we decided after a lot of soul searching that our beautiful silver Gold Wing, Willie, was no longer the perfect steed for us given our changed circumstances.  In 4 ½ years we put more than 80,000 miles on that bike going twice to the east coast, into Canada, and across the upper west as far as Minnesota on a series of vacations as well as all over California and countless trips to Phoenix and Reno.  We loved that bike and the Gold Wing is a phenomenal motorcycle.  But, times and conditions change, and now that we are traveling and the motorcycle is our only transportation other than ‘arvey two things began to convince us that Willie was no longer the best bike for us.  Probably the biggest issue was simply getting him in and out of the trailer.  It was certainly manageable, but not very convenient.  The second thing was that the big fairing and windshield that make those highway miles so comfortable also make the bike very hot to ride in hot weather.  We had experienced that before, of course, but now that we are in the eastern heat so much more, it was becoming a problem.  Something a little smaller and more open was called for, but we still enjoy long rides, so it couldn’t be too small.  We settled on another Honda – no surprise there, it would have been really hard to go elsewhere – and actually a very close relative of the Wing.  We decided an a Honda Valkyrie, which is basically an unfaired Wing although there are many more differences than that, and specifically the Tourer version that has hard saddle bags and a removable windshield.  Much to our delight, the local dealer where we were staying in NY had just the right thing and gave us a good deal in swapping for our GW.  We even got some cash back on the exchange.  We are very pleased with the change and already have nearly 1,000 miles on the Valkyrie.  So, the trip to FW was specifically to allow us to get some needed accessories for the new bike, and we were quite successful in finding the items that were on our shopping list.

After we left Fort Wayne, soggy and broke, we moved directly north.  The only thing on our minds was to get somewhere not so hot, not so muggy.  So we are now in northern Michigan.  We’ve spent a few days in the Traverse City area, in part because we made arrangements to have mail forwarded to us there.  Unfortunately, the day we went in to get it was the opening day of the week-long Cherry Festival.  The 76th annual festival, to be exact, with 500,000 people (plus the Blue Angels) expected in attendance.  We made it, just barely, and beat feet out of town.  We’ll go back some other time; it’s a pretty area, full of nice spots to visit.  But not the first part of July. 

One of the rewards of staying off the major highways is that every once in awhile you find some really good local food.  When on the interstates, about all you find are the national or regional franchises, but on secondary roads, who knows.  In the past few days we’ve had a very nice breakfast at the Chit Chat Diner in Glennie, MI. and then a truly sensational one at Sparks Eatery in Mesick.  We found Sparks while sitting at a red light preparing to turn onto another highway to head for a larger town to find lunch.  Rick glanced over to the sign saying “Breakfast served all day” and said why not, it’s hot and we’re hungry let’s check it out.  Sensational does not do the place justice.  After eating literally the finest breakfast either of us can remember, complete with a sampler tray of about seven different homemade jams and jellies, we bought bread, syrup, jam, and pie to go.  Wow, what a find.

Michigan highway sign in a construction zone:  “Injure/kill a worker:  $7500 + 15 years”; they mean business, too!  And tasteful (?) road signs showing seat belts and “Click it or ticket.” 

We’re now in Cheboygan, at a state park near there.  A nice, clean small town, right on Lake Huron and near Mackinac Island, which we will certainly visit.  We are enjoying ourselves, although the weather is still hot and a bit muggy.  (But not like Indiana!)  Northern Michigan is mostly pretty, and wooded, although you don’t have to get too far south (into central Michigan) to be disappointed in the kind of grubbiness of the areas.  And we’ve been surprised to see oil wells every now and then.  But mostly forests, often tree farms; and many of them have a forest floor of ferns.  That was a real surprise.  Haven’t seen ferns like that since we left Florida.

In rural northern Michigan, $2.79 gets ya 18 of Virg’s finest crawlers.    And a sign on a gas station pump saying “If you think this pump is working too slow, hang up, count to 20, and try again.”  And Then: Just think, since Michigan is really just a huge peninsula bordered by four of the five great lakes, if it sunk you’d have only two great lakes:  Lake Ontario and Lake Humungous.  Better not hope for too much global warming…..

After resting up for a week or so here, we’ll be up into Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and then on into Canada for real.  The rest of July will see us moving across to the east and around August 1 we hope to reach Nova Scotia and settle there for the whole month, moving south with the birds around Labor Day.  Rick’s somewhat feeble suggestions of another trip south to a motorcycle race in Ohio have been thoroughly squelched by our new mantra for the remainder of the summer: Up and Right; Up and Right.

Best wishes to you all.

See more photos from 2002-2003

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