take-off

I was planning to start off this blog with a nice, little preface about how this trip came about, from conception to takeoff but the journey has already begun (for me anyway) so the story will have to unfold as it happens.

Takeoff happened about as planned. Me standing around in full motorcycle gear in the sun, Mark saying,"wait a minute, let me go get my camera" and walking to his car at a pace,well,you know and stopping to talk to someone along the way. And Brian of course calling out from his office to hold on, he'll be right there. Like I said, exactly as planned.

The idea was to leave by noon so I could make it to the post office in Orwell before it closed and then to get bike inspected before that place c;osed. That meant stopping at the VT border rest area for a lunch of candy bars, (hopefully not indicative of the diet ahead. Otherwise I should've gotten lessons from Falusi on how to function after the blood sugar drop) stopping at Okemo for gas, (sub 3 minutes total stop) getting 3 weeks of mail minutes before they closed, shoving it in already full panniers and ripping to the nspection station. Made it with 10 minutes to spare here. Finally, now I can relax a bit.

Got home to what I consider 5 star accommodations. The barn. Solar power, no running water, no neighbors for a mile. Mmmmmm.

Weather was unbelievable yesterday for the 246 miles of riding. Not so lucky today. Started raining in the middle of the night and most of the morning but I think it's supposed to clear up a bit. I'll be packing up here soon and taking off for Canada via the Champlain islands and very northern NY. Feels like it's getting cold out but that's ok. I think 70% of what I'm carrying is cold weather gear. The other 30% being electronic gadgets. It might even be the other way around. More on that later.

Paul