The Totally Conspicuous Yankee Invasion of Ontario

[Fred W]

In case you have been in a cave for the past few weeks, there was a gathering of FJR owners executed in Huntsville Ontario this past weekend known as CFR. A bunch of us NERDS kind'a like hangin' with dem crazy Canucks, so we made plans to attend the rally.

Since I volunteered to make and lead some ride routes up to the event (and back) I got to choose the routes (no highways), the format (would be for two days each way) and the meeting place (Poor Boys Diner, just down the road from us, for breakfast.)

The group would be me and Josie, the ionbeams (Alan and Helen), and the bbdigs (Jack and Jane) as 2-ups, and Polarize (Ray) and Charlie Hoss (Charlie) met us there after riding down from their places in Maine.

After the proper gustatory satisfaction was achieved at Poor Boy's, we geared up for the first day's ride through New Hampshire, Vermont and the Adirondacks of New York state. The plan was to cross the border at Ogdensburg, and make it as far as Brockville Ontario where we would hole up for the night.

The ionbeams (left) and bbdigs get ready to roll,

Notice the high viz gear they are sporting? Yeah, all three of the two ups were sporting various versions of safety green (aka HiViz Yellow) jackets for this trip, hence the thread title. If we had really been trying to invade Canada they would have seen us once we cleared height of land in the Adirondacks!

And roll on, we did, through the lush New Hampshire and Vermont country side.

At around noon time we rolled into the Mickey D's in Whitehall, NY, which was the designated meeting spot to hook up with BigOgre (Mike). As we dismounted a 2013 FJR rolled into the lot. It turned out to be a local guy who doesn't really do the forum thing (yet) and of course we couldn't resist talki9ng about how things were going with his brandy new bike

After a quick fast food bite, we got back on the road, headed north along the big lake (Champlain) for a little while to get to some well known, very crooked roads. Eastern Upstate scenery does not suck in the least bit

Eventually we reached an Adirondacks landmark. Perhaps you've heard of this one?

We were lucky enough to go end to end without coming up behind any cars or (ugh!) trucks using County Road 6 over to the interstate.

Wheeee!!!

All good things come to an end, and unfortunately Tracy Road is very sweet (and therefore very short). So we rode along a few miles and got onto Blue Ridge Road, another fine example of Adirondack motorcycling. Where Tracy is technical and tight, Blue Ridge is more beautiful high speed sweepers

We continued north and west, through the town and past the actual Tupper Lake

The further to the north, and closer to the Canadian border we got, the more things flattened out the rich and fertile farm land dominated the scenery

Finally we got to the Ogdensburg-Prescott Bridge and the Canadian-US border

It's a pretty tall bridge spanning the St Lawrence Seaway, and the deck is made of expanded steel (with no filler) so your tires do like to wander a bit. Loose grip on the handlebars and do not look down!

Going through the Canadian customs was a breeze here. One car in line in front of us. Questions were very brief and courteous. "Thank you, have a good time!"

And in a few more minutes we reached our destination for the first night

Most of us stayed at the Days Inn in Brockville, which is just off the 401. Charlie and Ray had made reservations to stay at the Comfort Inn just down the road. But they came down to our hotel and we ate in the Japanese Restaurant on premises. It was a "prix fixe" all-you-can-eat Sushi menu. Some of us had not previously indulged in such fare (I love the stuff) but everyone was good enough sport to give it a go, and in the end everyone got their money's worth of Sushi, Makimono, Tempura and other Japanese delicacies. If you are passing through Brockville, give it a go. It was quite good.

In the greatest of NERDS traditions, there is no food porn available of the Sushi.

Stay tuned for Day 2...

 

[yamafitter]

In the greatest of NERDS traditions, there is no food porn available of the Sushi.

That's OK, BikerGeek will have you covered on that score.

 

[Fred W]

Great point, Billy! I almost forgot to mention that we had planned to meet the Bikergeeks (Andy and Sooze) in Brockville. They were pivotal in our enjoyment of the Japanese quizeene that night, and joined us for the ride to Huntsville on Thursday. Being that they are full time Geeks and only only part time NERDS, they will probably have an Ohio butt-load of FP to share.

Day 2 - Brockville to Huntsville

Ever notice how many 'villes there are in Ontario? I'm pretty sure we were in Nowhere's-ville several times during the week.

Heading out of Brockville in the morning traffic we spied one of our many satellite tractor trailer locations. I didn't even remember that we had one, but there it was.

We would be following (mostly) a route sent to me by some Canadian guy (who must be a motorcycle pipe fitter by his forum name). I figured that he probably didn't know too much about the area so I changed it up a little here and there.

Rolling through the Ontario country side, reminded us of rural Maine

One thing we realized quickly, and this should have been obvious from a quick look at any map, is that there is a whole ****-load of water in Ontario. Most of it in liquid form in the summer. Every two minutes you are going past another body of water, either a lake, pond, stream or river.

But there are also a lot of woods. Land without people. Nice!!

And of course, since I was leading, we did find a few kliks of "off piste"

It had been a good while since breakfasts and, as everyone knows, an Army (even a conspicuous one) travels on its stomach, so it was time to round up some grub out in Nowhere's-ville. The best I could come up with in advance was this Country Store in the town of Maple Leaf (how clever), which as it turned out also had a little lunch wagon along side of it.

Hot Dog and some quite good, greasy Fries for $3? Who could resist? We didn't. Sorry, no FP from me.

Even the bikes were sporting HiViz

Some of the local critters had the peculiar ability for standing very still whenever you were looking at them...

Bellies filled, we're back on the road for some more crappy scenery...

Somewhere In the last few miles before rolling into Huntsville we came up behind a solo FJR rider just turning back onto the road out of a gas station. Hmmm... HiViz jacket and Red helmet. I called it from a half a mile back: That's Geezer! So we rolled on up at my current 20 kph over and passed him with a wave, and and he jumped right into the pack for the last kilometers to the hotel.

Thankfully, we arrived at CFR central in plenty of time for happy hour(s)

The resort was pretty much splendid. Knowing that we'd be there for three nights, we had opted for a Lakeview room. The view off the back balcony was very nice and the accommodations were luxurious. Great job in selecting a venue to the CFR organizers!!

Thursday night most of us decided to just eat in the restaurant at the resort. The food was quite good, if a bit pricey. But when you are payting with that funny colored money it never seems quite real anyway. And of course... no FP.

Stay tuned for Day 3 - Ride and Find eh?

 

[gixxerjasen]

there was a gathering of FJR owners executed in Huntsville Ontario this past weekend

They were executed?

That settles it, I'm NEVER going to Canada!

 

[Fred W]

Dude... the gathering was executed, not the FJR owners! The owners were allowed to leave alive.

Day 3 - Muskoka Ride and Find

After leading the parade for the prior two days, Josie and I made the decision we would take a break from group riding on Friday. We were thinking of just hanging out in the resort or maybe take a ride into Huntsville to see what was there. After we slept in a bit, we rose to find an unsigned note had been shoved under our door saying: "We are having breakfast at Tim Horton's in town." Of course not knowing who "We" was (turned out to be Geezer), or how much earlier the note had been left, we opted to just meander down to have the buffet breakfast in the hotel.

Afterwards, with me not really anxious to go into town and do what? Shopping? Yeah, no... I talked Josie into doing the Ride and Find that had been set up by huron52 who, even though he seldom gets to go anywhere seemed to know about a bunch of cool places to ride to in the Muskoka Region. So, setting out at about 9:30 we found that everyone else had already departed on various rides, which was fine with us. For the day it'd just be the two of us, riding and finding. Finding and riding.

The Ride and Find was set up like a mini rally with 8 sequential destinations, each of which required either a picture for evidence or to answer some little trivia question, to prove that you'd found the location. Tom handed out some ride sheets with turn by turn directions the night prior, so having a pillion on the back with headset communications between us was a big asset in the Finding department.

The first target was a brown and yellow sign saying "Tim River - Magnetewan Lake" on a dirt road somewhere in one of the many Nowhere's-villes of Ontario. The required proof of The Find was to name the Park to which it referred. We followed the turn by turn directions and found the sign easy enough:

And just up the road in the direction of the arrow was another sign saying "Algonquin Park", so that was the answer to #1.

#2 was called the "Screaming Heads". We continued along following Tom's directions, which unfortunately just before the objective took us into an active construction project with a long, dusty, recently graded gravel section. After managing to get through the constuction area without really seeing the ground due to all the dust, we turned up Midloathian road, which was where we were to find these screamers.

As we approached the area we saw through the trees that there were a great number of gigantic concrete statues of heads scattered around in the fields. This was going to be good. As we continued up the road looking for a place to pull over to get pictures of these heads we saw some peacocks sitting on a wall. Stopping to get a picture I could hear other peacocks calling in the distance. Oh yeah, this place is going to be cool!!

Continuing up the road we found an entrance marked with "Enter at your own risk" signs, so we knew this had to be the way in. As we came up the driveway and around the corner, there were a half dozen or more FJRs parked there already.

Aha!! The game is afoot. But what is this? One of this group was actually Major Tom hisself!! Oh boy, that bunch working together along with the guidance of the organizer was going to be tough to beat.

As we were just dismounting to get our Find and take a quick look around, the other Ride and Find group was already departing. "See ya down the road!"

The "Find" here was a picture of you and one of the screaming heads. Here's mine, and yes I am screaming along with a TWN salute for good measure.

(Many more pictures and details of this ultra cool location later on)

Our intention was to follow "route plan B" which Tom had laid out following a lot of unpaved roads, right up my alley. But as we departed the Head Farm we figured out that "Plan B" would require going back the way we had just come in, through that ****** construction zone. So we took the Plan B to "Plan B", which of course was Plan A. You still with me here?

Anyway, the next location to Find was "A picture of you and the Bobby Orr Hall of Fame in Parry Sound.

We decided to get pics of both the big sign in front and the building itself, just to be safe

Next location to Find was the Windmere House, which is a resort manor on Rosseau Lake. Pic was to be of the bike in front of the manor:

Got Josie in there for good measure.

Then it was off to find Satan's Santa's village. "Picture of you and the toy soldiers in front..."

Next we headed to Gravenhurst to find out the names of the two steamships berthed there. When we arrived we were dismayed to find that only one was tied up, the other apparently out for a cruise. But nosing around we saw the cruise schedule that named both of them: "Segwun" and "Wenonah"

Then while we had an ice cream snack the second steamer came around the corner and confirmed it for us

Number 7 Find was to find the Lake of Bays Brewing Company and get a picture of us in front of that sign.

And the last and final Find was the most mischievous of all. We were to find the Robinson General Store on Main Street in Dorset and find out since what year had it been owned and operated?

Well, following the directions we found the store alright, and I scoured the outside of it (with many little local bulletin boards) but was not able to find anything with a year or indication of how long it had been in business. Going inside the store I also looked around for a while, and like many General Stores there was a whole **** ton of stuff everywhere on the walls and hanging from the ceiling. And the place was big too, but still no indication of the answer.

Eventually, in the back section of the hardware section of the store I found two young people that were apparently employees, so when the boy asked if he could help me, I told them I needed to know how long the store had been owned and operated. He called the girl, his sister over and she said she that though that their family had owned it since 1921. She asked if we were on some kind of scavenger hunt or something, to which I said yes. So she said, "Well hang on a second. Let me call my Grandfather to be sure," and she did just that while I waited.

Yes, Grandpa had opened the store back in 1921. The store has been run by the same family for 92 years. How cool is that? So after nabbing our final clue we rolled on back to the CFR Central and got back to the parking lot by 4:30, in plenty of time for happy hour(s) again! Thank goodness.

Stay tuned for more CFR fun stuff

 

[Mihalis fjr]

Great report and pictures Fred!!

Thanks!!

 

[gixxerjasen]

Ahhhhh....

Thanks for clearing that up.

Enjoying the story and pics very much!

 

[wheatonFJR]

there was a gathering of FJR owners executed in Huntsville Ontario this past weekend

They were executed?

That settles it, I'm NEVER going to Canada!

Yeah, the speed enforcement is brutal...the kphs slow you down a bit.

 

[Top_Speed1]

Excellent and thorough RR Fred.

Yuz gotz sum time on yur hands

...and "don't look down" when crossing that high bridge?... what fun is that?

 

[yamafitter]

Yeah, the speed enforcement is brutal...the kphs slow you down a bit.

I can't say that the kphs slowed KJ, Steamer, Wine Guy & I on Friday. You do have to know which roads tend to be patrolled and where the play areas are though. I do try not to get a Major Misconduct and game penalty by running +50 kph over the limit. Fun can still be had below that.

We did not see one LEO all day Friday but they were all out on the major roads keeping the cottagers in check coming up from Toronto.

 

[Fred W]

Thanks for the kind words, kids, but we are only half way done! I just had to take a little break to put a couple of new PR3 hoops on Captain Jack's (aka bbdig) '04 FJR hoopty, so he is now all ready to take on their Trip of a Lifetime Cross Continental FJR Adventure <tm> with his trusty pillion Jane, just a short week from now.

And yes, I do have time to spare today, as I took an extra vacation day, to make it an even week off. Plus, I don't know about anyone else, but I find that I often need another vacation day of downtime to fully recover from my FJR Owners Meeting vacations. This one was no exception.

As for looking down while on the Ogdensburg-Prescott bridge, not everyone has stones the size of yours, KJ. Thank Dog this is true. I wouldn't want to try and find pants off the rack to fit those cantaloupes into. Maybe you should have opted for a full castration instead of a vasectomy? I hear that is all the rage in Europe

Anyway, back to the story...

Friday night was kind'a fun. We got kicked out of the front parking lot by one effeminate hotel staff member (I think he had an eye on KJ), but he was all smiles about it and he came with an alternate plan: We could just go around to the lake side of the hotel and they would even build us a fire to hang out at. Cool. I hate complainers that don't offer a better idea.

One of the (less effeminate) staff members built in the big fire pit by their beach.

Nice fire...

There were beers and other adult bevs being drunk, inaccurately thrown frisbees were flying about, even a few horse shoes were being tossed. Eventually all the CFR goes gravitated to the big fire pit. Arrangements were made to have a bunch of pizzas delivered, some of which were quite... unique. After a couple of rounds of ordering and reordering everyone had had their fill and there were still a few pies left. And beers were being drunken, did I mention that?

Just as it was getting dark (it gets dark late way up d'ere in Canada in Joon, eh?) when the terrible Huntsville Canard Gang members, Daffy and Daisy, made their big appearance...

I only wish I had been quick enough with the camera to capture these bad ass duck gangsters scaring the crap out of good ole' Stanley Steamer. See, Steamer had been chillin' out in one of the Adirondack chairs by the fire, drinkin a beer (did I mention that) when the ducks took off over his head (probably after Jeff C did something or other to provoke them). Well, you would have thought someone had just cut into his nut-sack by mistake (instead of his buddy KJ's) by the way he jumped up running away and screaming like a little school girl. But it's OK Stanley, we still love ya', Bro. We'll just find someone else to get those nasty spiders off the ceiling from now on.

It was also about this time that he who is known in these parts as Yamafitter went out on the big lake in search of the elusive Moby Orr. You can read all about that in Bikergeek's excellent documentary, so I won't report any further on it here, except to say it was a sorry sight to see the great manatee hunter strapped up in a walking cast the next day.

Oh, and did I mention that there may have been some quantity of beer being drunk?

Next installment, on to Saturday. Day 4 - Revisiting the cool spots that we wished we had stopped at longer the day before

 

[huron52]

So far looks like you had a great weekend..... Just wished I was there..... I don't know why people keep photchoping me into pictures

 

[Fred W]

A plan for Saturday was made the prior night in a slight haze. Some of us were to meet at 8 AM in the parking lot and we'd go down to Timmies for breakfast and then take a ride about together. I, for one, has a ****** sleep that night. Woke up at about 2 AM and the chest cold that had been pestering me all the way up to Huntsville had an even stronger hold on my bronchia. When papa coughs all night, mama don't get a lot of shuteye neither.

In any case we rose and shone the best that we could, and even though it was a bit misty outside, we looked at the weather forcast and radar maps and it looked to be clearing out very soon, so we got ourselves all geared up to proceed according to the plan, and were out in the bike lot at the designated time. But, none of the others had shown up. WTF? Eventually ionbeam came out and let us know that everyone else was still hanging around in the lobby wondering whether to gear up or not. The decision was made to eat at the hotel (again for us) and re-assess things afterwards.

After breakfast, the skies had already begun to clear somewhat, as promised, and a new plan was made where Josie and I would take the others to share some of the cooler spots that we had been led to on the Ride and Find the prior day.

First stop was the Screaming Heads at Sunrise Farm just west of Burk's Falls. This place was a total trip. Good thing we were not partaking of the ganja that day or we may never have been able to tear ourselves away from it.

These photos tell a good part of the story with no further commentary needed. Besides, we really don't know why any of this stuff was made or is here. It just is.

There were acres and acres of these crazy statues, along with geodesic domes and other large statues and sculptures. And a bunch of pretty, but also noisy peacocks roaming all over the place, even roosting up in the trees! Yes, as I said, this place was a trip.

After we had all donated way too much to the local mosquito population's blood bank, we geared back up and headed off to see the two old timey Steamships in the quaint village of Gravenhurst. I plugged the waypoint onto my GPS, set the avoidances to "no highways or dirt roads," and for the most part Garmina paid good attention to that. It did route us down one little dirt road along the way, but kept us off the 11 and gave us a decent ride route down to the boats.

Somehow we (Josie and I) didn't get any more steamboat pictures, but I'm sure that some of the others that were along for the ride will chime is to share theirs. We ate a nice lunch at the Sunset Grille right there on the dockside and within view of the old steamers coming and going.

After lunch Ray (Polarize) led us back to the CFR HQ via some nice curvy sweepers heading up through Port Sydney, and luckily getting us back to the hotel in plenty of time for happy hour(s).

(Are you sensing a theme here?)

After a shower and a few drinkie poos, it was down to the lakefront for the obligatory group photo (posted in another thread) which was expertly orchestrated and choreographed by Billy and Jeffy. I saw Jeff hand his drink to someone as he jumped on one of the other attendees bikes to ride it down the hill to the lakefront on the damp soft grass. I was straining to hear if he would also say the classic Youtube line of: "Watch this." But, somewhat surprisingly, no FJRs were harmed in any way in the making of the group photo.

Then it was climb back up to the hotel for the grand and magnificent CFR Banquet extravaganza:

I think KJ was up for thirds or fourths here...

There was the usual tomfoolery after dinner, and I actually received a prize of two Timmy's coffee mugs for being the only one to complete the prior day's Ride and Find. As I mentioned then, it was a great prize since all day I had been wanting to stop for a coffee break, but that Josie was always urging me: "Don't stop, keep going!! We have to finish this Raid and Fade thing. Now Giddy up!" That Josie...

And of course there was the traditional CFR door prize drawing. Tickets were given away to everyone present, and a whole bunch of the extra ones were sold off for a buck a chance, with all of the proceeds going to a local non-profit charity. Lot's of good swag was distributed in the drawing, but mostly just to BikerGeek! I think he probably bought about a hundred dollars worth of those charity tickets, so it was all good to me.

After the big dinner a few of us drifted into the bar and watched some of game 5. Yes of course I'm talking aboot hockey, you hoser! This was in Canada, eh? You didn't think they were watching the Blue Jays play that silly baseball game did ya? While I was watching I had a chance to try a pint of the Lake of the Bays beer (one of the Ride and Find locations). It wasn't half bad.

We were pretty wiped out after the full day of riding, a few pops before and after dinner and the lack of sleep the night prior, so Josie and I retreated back to our room between periods and watched the Bruins drop that game in clandestine and discrete privacy.

Besides, we needed to get up and out early to start heading back home the next morning. ...which will be in the next installment.

 

[Fred W]

So far looks like you had a great weekend..... Just wished I was there..... I don't know why people keep photchoping me into pictures

I'd check with your life insurance agent about any new policies taken out on you, if I were you, Tom.

Pam seems to have located an excellent body double for you, is all I can say.

 

[LKLD]

Good ride report, appears fun by all! Thanks for taking the time to share.

 

[Bounce]

Nice fire...

As an elderly Native American once observed, "What is it with white people and their big fires?"

 

[Fred W]

The anti climax... The ride home.

Up early on Sunday morning, we wanted to get a jump on the day and somewhere stop down the road for breakfast. As we were getting ready Ian (Shakin') told us that he knew of a good breakfast spot about an hour away, and offered to lead us on down there. After saying our fare-thee-wells to some others, I gladly fell into the middle of the pack and followed Ian's lead to a nice breakfast.

After breakfast Ian continued to lead us along on a secret stash of routes that I could tell you about, but then I'd have to kill you. Actually I was semi-comatose, just relishing the chance to follow along for a while and enjoy the ride and the scenery. I wasn't paying any attention to where we were or which direction we were going and would need to consult my GPS tracks to tell you where we did actually go then.

Eventually it was time for Ian to split off towards home-base, so he pointed me to take a left at the stop sign ahead and we should be able to get back to our planned route. The only problem was he pointed me southward and my intended route was actually north of where we were right then. So, after a little loop around one of the zillion lakes in the region, we eventually got back on course and hooked up with the intended day's route, which was most definitely not a straight line.

More crummy Ontario scenery...

After a lot of riding, the heat was climbing quickly and it was time to think about scaring up some lunch. I noticed a restaurant along the side of the road called "North of 7" so banged a quick right turn into the parking lot. The food was quite good and the waitress was a peach. Some of the others noticed that she seems to like to hum and was humming to herself the whole time she was serving us. You just have to appreciate a woman that hums, eh?

Oh yeah, still no FP. Whudya expect by now?

As we were getting ready to continue on, I noticed a most peculiar thing across the parking lot. It was some sort of a booth that one can enter into, put money into a box and make phone calls from !! And as you can see in the linked picture, someone was actually in the thing using it!! What will those crazy Canucks think of next?

More riding in the building heat of the afternoon

A shortcut on some gravel (Hey, I was leading again now, right?)

Back from the Cottage Country of the north west into the farm country nearer the border

And finally we reached the 1000 Islands Bridges

These bridges also appear to have been open expanded metal at one time but have since been filled with concrete filler for some reason. In any case there were some good views of the St Lawrence from up on the bridge.

But then we arrived at the US Border and Customs only to find that there was an evil troll that was guarding these bridges.

The checkpoint was far busier at 4PM on a Sunday evening than the Canadian entry had been 3 days earlier. It was hot as hell and we were sitting out in the sun, in queue for a long time as cars ahead were processed slowly.

The ionbeams were the first of our group in the line (they had made it through the bridge toll booth earlier quicker and taken the lead at that point) and when they went through there seemed to be a lot of interaction going on with the troll. I'll let him give his story first hand sometime later. Let's just say that it's a good one.

When we finally were able to proceed we rolled up to the troll booth with both of our modular helmets flipped right up and sunglasses off so it could see our faces. I killed the engine on the bike, put the side stand down, and turned off the ignition key. Josie handed it the two passport cards we already had in hand, and we extended it a fairly cheery "Hello" in my opinion, especially considering that we were both streaming sweat from every body pore, and it was beginning to pool up in our Russell seat bottoms. The troll's response was something approaching a grunt, the meaning of which I couldn't ascertain since it didn't want to face us when speaking and kept looking at something in front of it (a monitor of some sort I suppose) whenever it attempted communication.

"Whassah lassa plah numma?" it grunted.

I leaned my helmeted head closer and said, "What?"

It turned it's ugly head towards me, (incidentally, causing me to throw up in my mouth a little bit at the very sight) and repeated its demand, "What's your license plate number?"

Truthfully, I responded, "I don't know."

"You don't know your own license plate number?" it gushed irritatedly.

"Nope."

It then raised its horrendous body off of whatever stool like support it had been previously hunched on and waddled out through the half open door of the troll booth and craned its neck around the back side of my bike to get my plate number.

I'm thinking to myself, how many freaking people memorize their license plate numbers, and why would anyone waste those gray matter cells on such a stupid trial factoid. I have three motorcycles and three cars and I'm supposed to know all their plate numbers?

The interrogation continued in the same way it had begun.

"Wha grunt grunt grunt?" facing the monitor.

More leaning in, "What?"

It turns its head, "Where are you coming from?"

"Oh, Huntsville"

It, back looking at the monitor, "Wha grunt grunt grunt?"

Me, leaning "What?"

It turns again, "What were you doing there?"

"Oh, we had a gathering of a bunch of folks with these same kind of motorcycles."

And it continued like this through a series of seemingly inane questions, the points of which are complete mysteries to me. At one point she asked where our home was even though she still had our passport cards in hand. Did she think that if we were terrorists trying to sneak into US soil that we wouldn't be able to remember where our "fictitious" home was for more then a minute?

Near the end, after the umpteenth time of me leaning closer and saying "What" it turned on me and almost shouted at me in a condescending way, "Don't you think that next time you should take your helmet off?"

I said, "Actually, I also have earplugs in."

"Well! That doesn't do much good."

I was thinking to myself, "It sure the hell does if you are trying to save what's left of your hearing while riding a motorcycle. Maybe you should quit being such a rude **** and turn your ugly head when you speak to taxpaying citizens of the country that pays your excessive salary, you lazy piece of ****."

But instead I just pulled away (relatively) calmly.

After the guys in the back of the pack finally cleared we found out that the troll was replaced by a nice Amazon of a woman that actually took the bikes through two at a time and was pleasant and brief with the questions. Now maybe the troll was hot and irritable at the end of her long and boring shift in her air conditioned troll booth. But how the hell did she think we felt sitting out in the long lines in the sun with full protective gear on? Some people just do not deserve to exist.

It was right then that Geezer said goodby to the group, pointed his front tire towards home, and made a mad dash for the barn. His reports later were that he made pretty good time and got in relatively early (by 9 PM maybe?) You are a better man than me, Gunga Geez! I was ready for some AC and cold refreshments, not 4 more hours of hot slabbing.

We were so hot and tired by then that we buzzed down the few miles of I-81 to the Microtel Inn in Calcium that we had reservations at. It was pretty much a slum of a motel, but it cheap, air conditioned, and the desk clerk let us eat delivery pizza and drink beer out in the lobby. Nobody was complaining about the slumming.

Next (and final) installment; the home stretch.

 

[Fred W]

Nice fire...

As an elderly Native American once observed, "What is it with white people and their big fires?"

You're from down south. You wouldn't get it.

And for what it's worth, I don't think any of the northern Indian tribes were worried about "saving the trees" in their fires either.

 

[wheatonFJR]

This ride report does not suck.
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.good job.