Wheaton: Cfr- Cfr To Eom - Eom

This is more of a journal than a ride report...I also don't have a back seat photographer to take the fantastic action shots...so the best shots are the shots unseen by the digital lens...but vividly recalled as a movie in my mind.

I don't have the stamina to put all this 11 day trip down in 1 sitting...so I will post this in three parts.

Part 1 (CFR)

Friday, 9/7 Loaded up with camping gear, mcy gear and clothes, I left Wheaton at 6:00am CDT just ahead of some rain coming through in the western suburbs. I thought I was going to be riding with a rain storm all the way to CFR, but as it turned out I lucked out and was ahead of it most of the day and just rode in overcast skies with the occasional crosswind gustiness. Crossed over into Canada in the early Friday afternoon at thePort Byron/Sarnia crossing…waited on the bridge way the heck up there-for 30 minutes while wicked gusts hit from the south…then I got to wait in line for another 30 minutes to speak to the fine friendly Canadian.

Entering into Canada was like going into Kansas…flat rural farm fields along the highway with a speed limit of 100…………..kph. I also ended up having the privilege of entering the Toronto area during Friday evening rush hour. ; ) Ended up getting some gas and a fine reuben sandwich at the fine Husky truckstop. Hey…gas is only 96 cents



………………..a liter. Got into Huntsville about 8:00pm EDT. Found the Motel 6 about 8:30pm.??? I got a little confused at the end of a long day. 680 slab miles. Got to the hotel and NO ONE was there…hmmmm. Well, took a shower and got ready for bed when I take one last peak around and sure enough the Canadians just got back from the restaurant. BugR promptly offered me a cold beverage and all was well.



Saturday, 9/8 Went into Huntsville for a really decent breakfast in town.



Weather was great with lots of sun.

After that, BugR(Chris) led clsonfjr(Chris), FastJoyRide(Dave), Dave's brother Jim(on the ST1100) and myself on a fantastic 290 mile ride through cottage country. The rough route was as follows…east of Huntsville on 60 to 35 to 118 east then up north through Wilberforce and Baptiste and east to Bancroft. Then south on 62 to 620 to 28 south to 36 to 507 North . 503 west to 3 (I think) to 118 west to 35 west/north and back to the barn. A great route and a great pace…nothing too squiddly…just a lot of fun. BugR reminded me after the ride that this IS Canada after all so we made great time without the benefit of a radar detector. I was amazed at the beauty of this place. It was also a good place to tear up the roads. The 2 laner highway speed limit was 80 kph. However, thanks to BugR, we had a great time on the highway anyways with a great pace. We also occasionally stopped and recharged our batteries at some beautiful spots-like a great overlook looking down on Haliburton, Ontario and a wooded park near Dorset(?).

Overlook above Haliburton



Riding buddies(L-R) clsonfjr, FastJoyRide, BugR, FastJoyRide's brother



Scenes from the roadside park near Dorset(?)





Of course there were the ubiquitous Tim Hortons for a quick coffee or sandwich if you wanted.



The roads were great as you went around the lakes or hills in this beautiful part of Canada. The CFR crew had a great dinner that night at a local restaurant and had a good time...with help from the man from Ottawa.

Sunday, 9/9 Most everybody else left CFR after some breakfast. As I had just gotten to Huntsville on Friday night and had only one day's ride under my belt, I was not close to being done riding here. Huron52(Tom) agreed to stay on extra at CFR and gave clsonfjr(Chris) and me a second day's tour.

First, Tom gave us a private tour of his lake and golf course at Windermere.



He also gave us a tour of his private race course-he calls it hwy 13- through some interesting wilderness area.



After we got bored running up and down through his track, he led us to his "Big Chute". I was a little nervous when mentioned that he was going to show us "Big Chute", but soon settled down and relaxed when we parked the bikes and walked over to the exhibit.



This is Tom's private hoist that lifts his boat from one lake to another when he is too lazy to get his boat on the trailer and haul it around like the rest of us would do.



He does get the locals angry because they have to wait while Tom's "Big Chute" does its work hauling Tom's boat across the the local highway.



Thanks Tom for the tour of all your stuff. We had fun riding as well, doing 240 miles on a route that lead us west from Huntsville on 3 to 632 to 7 to 118 to 169 to 13 east and back west/north to 169 over to 400 south to Big Chute. Then retracing north on 400 to 169 east to 118 to 7 north to 632 to 3 east back to the barn.

After having dinner at a fine place in Huntsville, we called CFR done.



Next up Part 2 (on the road south to EOM)

Waay cool, Thank you for the post(s). Good to see my bud Dave and BooogerR in pix again. When I retire, I'm just going to ride from one FJR event to the other... :yahoo:

Mmmmmm, Tim Horton's!

Mark, you are definitely getting around...Dem are some nice shots and good lookin roads. Can't wait for the next installment.

--G

wheatonFJR said:

Entering into Canada was like going into Kansas…flat rural farm fields along the highway with a speed limit of 100…………..kph.

Click to expand...

What are you talking about. You apparently have never seen our hill. And we don't have no stinking kph's.

Great report Mark, look forward to the more. I think that next year, or maybe this winter to avoid the mosquitos :blink: , I need to ride up to Canada and go fishing and see the countyside.

Chester

Nice write up Mark. Must be nice to be able to hit BOTH CFR and EOM. Some people have all the luck.

Very nice write up and pictures. Looks as though you guys had a good time.

Jill

Any report that uses the word "ubiquitous" is bound to be a good one. Can't wait for the next installment! :specool:

Part 2 (on the road south from CFR to EOM)

Monday, 9/10 (Ontario to Adirondacks)



Left CFR Central about 8:30am EDT…heading east on some of the very good roads we traveled on Saturday. Stopped to take another picture at one of the numerous lakes along 35 east.



clsonfjr(Chris) & I are loaded with duffle bags for camping this week between CFR & EOM.



Actually Chris has been camping pretty much the whole time since he left Alberta. Who can afford three weeks of motel bills? However, this tent camping could be very iffy if September rains follow us around…

We wandered east on 118 to 28 to 41 to Griffith, Ontario. I stopped to phone someone that we weren’t gonna be able to stop by (due to time constraints) on the way down to Adirondack State Park in New York. It seems it is a Canadian tradition to insist strongly that people stop by when you’re passing through. Unfortunately, time did not allow…I hope my Canadian friends will understand.

We did head into Calaboogie territory and then headed down RT 511…some pretty fun roads there! BugR was right…find a Canadian 500 series road and you’re in for a good time. It certainly bore out on this trip. We stopped in Perth and got Chris an oil change…the road from Perth to the Border at Ogdensburg, NY was pretty non-descript. Chris wasn’t all that excited at my questionable habit of passing/filtering ahead through a multiple car train. It wouldn’t be the last time on this trip that someone on this trip disapproved of my passing judgements/techniques. I guess I should review them as others have problems with them.

As it turns out, getting back into the States at Ogdensburg, NY only took 5 minutes; only one car ahead of us. Thanks Colin for the good advice! The ride into Adirondacks was great with some mild sweepers and beautiful Lake Placid peaks thrown…just a touch of color change as well. We did run into a massive NY State Police “Safety Check”; lots of personnel, cars, and a helicopter to boot. They only took passing interest in Chris or me…I think they were looking out for a face…maybe an escaped face. Well we got to Lake Eaton campground near Tupper Lake/Long Lake, NY right at sunset…





We had a camp supper cooked over Chris’s propane stove. We had to take “Bear” precautions regarding stashing food away. It was a good day, but a long day – 400 miles of two laners.

Tuesday, 9/11 (Adirondacks to Catskills)



We left on a cold, foggy morning heading east on state and county highways towards Ticonderoga, NY and the Hudson River before heading south and west into the Catskills…

Fort Ticonderoga…the French built it in Colonial years to control the Hudson River valley, the English captured it, the Revolutionaries took it and used the guns in Boston, the British retook it and withdrew when America was born. The pictures don’t show it, but this is a very formidable position controlling the river. An inland assault is up a hill…once you get up to the fort…whoever gets there would be totally overwhelmed by the obstacles they faced which are unseen from the assaulting position farther on down the hill.









Chris in front of his flag



Me in front of the Stars & Stripes



We had a great time that day along the Hudson, donning rain gear for a bit as we headed west on Rt 8. Things were relatively dry as we took 10 south for most of the rest of the day.

We took 28 south and east and ended up at Geezer’s place. Geezer and Mrs Geezer were very kind and allowed us to sleep inside as it had stormed pretty hard earlier in the day. This was very generous offer as we had originally only asked to camp out at his place. Actually I had only asked for local camping recommendations, when Geezer offered his place.

Mrs Geezer fixed us a great meal and Mr Geezer offered us some liquid refreshment.



Thanks Geezers! You meet the nicest people riding an FJR!

Wednesday, 9/12 (Catskills to Central Pennsylvania)



We left Geezers early…after a nice breakfast offered by the Geezers. We headed west in good weather on NY 28 to NY 30 west around a reservoir…took a few pictures here to document the Catskills topography. It was cold and crisp at the reservoir…Canadian Chris was probably thinking it was summertime heat…







We took NY 17 and crossed into PA at Hancock….took a wrong turn but got back on track after not too long. Shortly after Hancock, we headed west on PA 370…which was a nice rural road.



-Took that till it dead ended. I “free-lanced” west on some little county roads ‘till we got back on our planned route. Had to ask a stopped truck driver for directions, and he let us know we were close to where we wanted to be. After we got west of I-81, we took PA 706 west…nice road…did start to notice the ridiculously slow 45mph speed limit on this rural highway. Thought that was just going to be for a section in town…found out on this trip that this is common throughout the state. : ( How screwed up is that? Anyways, there were some nice sections of road…but it definitely was something to think about if you couldn’t afford a ticket. I guess that was the purpose of the limit from the authorities perspective. However, I won’t be touring much in PA unless I am willing to travel at a pedantic pace.

PA 706 dumps you into US 6…we took some pictures at an overlook above the Susquehanna River.







We didn’t want to stay on the US highway with it’s four lanes and leveled out grades, so we headed west and south on PA 414. It was good pavement...but we ran into the road construction for many miles. I tried to keep a smile inside…but it was hard. Once we got past PA 14 the road construction went away and road got interesting with lots of ups and downs/lefts and rights through farm properties…







We stopped at a nice little family diner in Liberty, PA for soup and sandwich and a look at the maps. The Rand McNally showed that 414 was dashed west of Blackwell to Cedar Run, PA. We decided to ride it and turn back if the gravel was too bad…cuz I’m a little wuss on gravel. As it turns out, that part of PA 414 was a fun part of the trip that day. It was like riding on someone’s driveway or alley through the countryside. From Cedar Run south on PA 414 was great. It turned into a little 1 ½ lane road with some interesting terrain as this picture shows…



We headed north on PA 44 which was rather blah and straight. The road surface was rough and gray so you couldn’t tell the loose stuff on the road from the solid stuff. Not fun in what curves there were. We took PA 44 north and west to PA144 to our campsite at Ole Bull State Park.

We got our tents set up,



Chris went running, and I scurried north on PA 144 to Galeton, then east on US 6 to the “Grand Canyon” of Pennsylvania for a look see. It was a nice view…but many views as nice or nicer coming up in West Virginia. I’m jes sayin…



I didn’t stay long at the overlook as I heard that the deer are thick on PA 144.

-continued-

-CFR to EOM continued...

Thursday, 9/13 (Central PA to Canaan Valley, WV)



We got up about 6am and broke camp about an hour later. It was a brisk upper 30s/lower 40s foggy morning. Chris had his breakfast over his stove…I waited to get to a restaurant for a breakfast. The fog and threat of deer early kept the pace down. The first town we came to, Renovo, didn’t have any diner on 144 so we pressed south on 144. As we moved south the road started to climb and get some really nice twisty parts. We eventually climbed above the fog into the sunshine. Here is a photograph of the fog in the valleys we had just come through...



After the overlook, as we were heading south, I spotted a deer crossing the road and quickly slowed the pace down further. As I looked to the right, I spotted the hind ends of eight deer in a line all bounding away in the tall grass and brush. I slowed down to a pedestrian speed after that for awhile…

The next part of the Sproul State Forest that we traveled was amazing in that early light with the shadows contrasting with the cheery morning sunlight. That section of forest along 144 had been thinned of trees so there were tall grasses between the trees…it looked like a combination of a pleasant city park and the Garden of Eden to me with the visual effect of the morning sun dancing among the shadows. Maybe it wouldn’t have been much to others, but it was very pleasant nirvana feeling after being trapped in the fog earlier that morning. It was a pleasant curvy road through this park/gardenlike area…I just drunk in this pleasing sight as were traveled through the forest on our bikes. Sorry no pictures…not all things are captured by the camera. As was explained earlier, the best sights are movies in my mind. This was one of them.

We later stopped at a truck stop for my long awaited breakfast just as we were crossing I-80 on PA 53 south.

On a trip of this length, you look at a map and choose roads based on curviness and a set of waypoint beginning and ending stops. PA 53 was not the road to go on…too many towns with little rural area in between. I felt like I was traveling at suburban speeds for most of the morning with little benefit.

However, I was planning on traveling south and west to West Virginia and didn’t want to take a US route. I would take the US route over PA 53. We were traveling close to Johnstown, PA so I had mentioned how good the Johnstown Flood National Flood Memorial was to Chris, having found out how he was interested in history.

This flood killed many people and destroyed Johnstown.



This is a picture of the earthen dam as it exists today.



One place that was always on my itinerary for this trip is the Flight 93 Memorial near Shanksville, PA. Ever since I unwittingly rode within 10 miles of this memorial on a previous trip, I vowed that I would stop here and pay respects. The feelings in my heart and emotions that came to the surface as we got ever closer on the country roads to the memorial are hard to describe. I was already choked up even before I got my helmet off. Pictures were taken and don’t really capture what it is you are there for…



One flag for each person on that flight







Crash scene - hallowed ground as the passengers remains are still believed to be on site although extensive excavation was performed. No one allowed here except FBI & family members of those lost...



I felt the burden of that flight for many of the next miles that I rode.

We met up with US 219 not to far south of that memorial. Of course, the first thing I do is get off US 219 as it becomes a divided four-lane highway…thinking that there has to be an “old” US 219 that parallels this new freeway. Yes, a wrong turn once again. Well, I get us lost and on some little residential road out in the middle of somewhere (I didn’t even know what state I was in –Maryland? or Pennsylvania?). Well, some kind guy in a truck drives by sees we are looking confused and gets me on the right track. We head south on this US 219 that is all filled with truck and car traffic – not like the nice US 219 twisty 2-laner farther south in WV. Well, we finally get just inside WV and we see the giant windmills of a windmill farm…



We stayed in Canaan Valley Resort State Park. This was where the STN National was based last year. We had supper in the Lodge restaurant and watched the deer wandering about the property as we ate…wondering whether we would meet up with one the next day.

Friday, 9/14 (Canaan Valley to Lewisburg, WV)



Got up early and had breakfast at the restaurant, then headed out on our last traveling day before EOM. We headed south on WV32 to US 33 east to Seneca Rocks…must take picture…



We then headed north in the light fog on WV28/55 to Smokehole Road. The pavement was better than I remember from last year. Fun Road.

Picture taken of Chris at Eagle Rock on Smokehole Road.



We then wound our way south on US 220 to US 33 west (which would have been REALLY nice without the fog) toWV28 south to Cnty rd 7 south to US 220 south. As we were approaching US 220, we saw three or four FJRs screaming north on US 220…possibly on their way to Smokehole. That was our first reminder of EOM which we getting closer to. We took US 220 south to US 250 west (again foggy) otherwise it would have been great. We stopped for a sandwich and gas stop as we got to US 219 where we are going to head south.

It started to rain as we left going south on 219 so we donned the rain gear. We needed it as it rained steadily harder as the afternoon wore on. All thoughts of taking the highland scenic tour on WV 15 was off as we were running late and just decided to get to EOM Central. We finally pulled in to the Porte Cochere at the Brier Inn at about 3:30 pm as it was evident that rain was going to be the order for the rest of the day.

I enjoyed my travels down to EOM with clsonfjr/Chris. I think we traveled well together and it was good having company on the journey down. Thanks Chris. Hope you made it home safe to Calgary, Alberta.

Next up Part 3 -EOM

nice report great pics Wheaton. wish i could have joined you for some of that.

Nice report and cool pictures. Looking forward to seeing you and Chris again.

You guys thinking about going out the the NAFO next summer?

Geezer said:

Nice report and cool pictures. Looking forward to seeing you and Chris again.
You guys thinking about going out the the NAFO next summer?

Click to expand...

Giving it SERIOUS consideration...along with some additional riding up into the Canadian Rockies.

However, a close second would be to return east and head north into Nova Scotia if the CFR is held there...

The first option is getting more consideration, the second is still in the mix though.

EPIC ride report!

As for the following passage, great writing .... pure Hemingway! :thumbsup:

"The next part of the Sproul State Forest that we traveled was amazing in that early light with the shadows contrasting with the cheery morning sunlight. That section of forest along 144 had been thinned of trees so there were tall grasses between the trees…it looked like a combination of a pleasant city park and the Garden of Eden to me with the visual effect of the morning sun dancing among the shadows. Maybe it wouldn’t have been much to others, but it was very pleasant nirvana feeling after being trapped in the fog earlier that morning. It was a pleasant curvy road through this park/gardenlike area…I just drunk in this pleasing sight as were traveled through the forest on our bikes."

Nice report Mark.... glad that I could be a little helpful

Murph said:

EPIC ride report!
As for the following passage, great writing .... pure Hemingway! :thumbsup:

<snip>

Click to expand...

Thanks for the compliment...I'll have two of whatever you are drinking

cough...cough...<snicker> Boris Hemingway...you think?

No seriously, I appreciate the compliment...for my little chicken scratch.

Nice trip report, Wheaton, and great pics!

Great trip report Mark! :clapping:

Can't wait to hear all the good things you say about your riding buddies at EOM.

Wow Mark,

Great report. How did you keep it all straight? I only saw you taking notes a couple of times. I spent all evening going over my pictures last night, and could name fewer than half the places I'd captured. Luckily, I'm a "knowledge worker" so I don't need a good memory.

It was a pleasure riding with you.

Chris