Starting
our westbound journey out of New York, we had to drop south as going north
through Canada (our best option) was not possible as the border is still
shuttered due to covid.
New York
highway 9 took us south out of the Adirondacks through small towns, one right
after the other, and over rolling hills.
Down by Schenectady we picked up one of the many numerous big roads,
with conveyor belts of traffic all moving along on a high-speed tide of oil. I
almost missed a major turn in this mess of cars but was able to do some
motorbike maneuvers and get back in the flow of traffic, going where we needed
to be.
Tooling
along I 88 I noticed that a red road highway 7 was adjacent to the slab we were
on. At the first opportunity we pulled off and connected with rural highway 7.
If you are
not going Mach 8 on the interstate riding in upstate New York is very pleasant.
Its small towns, large farms, fairly good pavements, and more rolling hills.
We spent
the night in Binghamton, for no other reason than it was conveniently located
to our direction of travel.
In the
morning we headed up to one of the motor company’s trinket check points Taughannock Falls.
There were several bikes parked in the
falls steep parking lot, and when we met up with the riders they were all
suited up in rain gear. Ha I thought as I had packed my rain gear away and was
not planning on using it again on this trip or ever again for that matter.
The dark moisture laden clouds did not
care that I was not going to ride in rain anymore and very soon the few drops
turned into a major cloudburst.
We were mostly wet by the time we got
our rain gear on and headed out in a persistent downpour. It rained most of the
way to Olean, but the traffic was light even though the sky was not.
In Olean we stopped for a delightful
lunch at a place where the mob most certainly would stop to eat.
The Chicken Marsala was excellent, and
no one seemed to mind that we were damp. It actually stopped raining the entire
time we were in the restaurant, and for most of the time we walked down the
street looking for the town’s squirrels.
It was squirrely but we found several of
these painted critters planted on the sidewalk on the main street of town.
Before we could get out of town or back
to our bikes the rain came again in sheets, and we got even wetter as most of
our gear was back on the bikes. Suiting up again in the rain we headed for our
final destination of the day Bradford Pennsylvania.
Bradford was only a few miles away, but
the GPS wanted to take us all the way back to Bath New York, as it did not
think we were wet enough. It almost got its way, but we turned around on the
freeway, headed back to town and took the right road out of town towards
Bradford on our second try.
Our lodging in Bradford was at one of
the major brand hotels that we have been staying at as we have expectations at
to our lodging. We have not previously been disappointed in staying at this
brand, but Bradford was the exception.
We both really need a laundry, and this
place had none. A major exception for this brand. But by far the worst thing
that happened was that after we were settling in we got a call from the desk
telling us that in a persistent downpour that we could not park under the
hotels expansive covered entryway. Which is where we have parked at other
hotels for the entire trip. Well thank
you very much I said along with a few other choice words as I went back out
into the rain and parked Ohms alongside of the building with the cars…
Thanks for reading…..
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