Motorcycle Diaries: Chapter 2

On Monday, Ben and my dad went on another bike trip, this time hitting up Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts and Vermont. They stopped at Mt. Greylock State Reservation, the highest point in Massachusetts (3491 feet), and took pictures of the Massachusetts Veterans War Memorial Tower and surrounding landscapes.

Motorcycle Diaries

On Saturday, we went on a motorcycle tour in and around Connecticut. Instead of GPS, we had FNR to guide us. (That's short for Frank Nash Richardson.) My dad knows just about every back road through every state in New England. He and my mom guided us down winding roads, through forests and across farm land, around lakes and over rivers. We cruised through parts of Connecticut, New York and Massachusetts. We're thankful that my dad keeps extra motorcycles on hand and that we were able to make use of one for the day. I knew there was no better way for Ben to get a view of the area than by following my dad on a motorcycle.









Here are some pics of Connecticut farmland.

Lake Waramaug




This is Bull's Bridge, on the border of Kent, CT and somewhere in New York. We took a quick stop here to take a couple pictures and check out the waterfall. Then we headed on into New York to conquer some hairpin turns along Bash Bish Falls before cruising across some more farm land towards Great Barrington, MA and onto Stockbridge, MA before heading back to Bristol, CT.

The highlight of our trip was The Guthrie Center in Great Barrington, MA.
Some of you may know the song Alice's Restaurant, by Arlo Guthrie. It is a musical monologue based on a true story that began on Thanksgiving Day 1965. As the song tells, a couple of hippies by the names of Ray and Alice lived in this old church back in the day. We got the opportunity to go inside and check it out. After we scoping out the church, we followed my parents to Stockbridge to the site of the old Alice's Restaurant. We didn't actually see the restaurant open for business but I did get a picture of the sign. If you're interested in the story of Alice's Restaurant, you can check out the song or the lyrics. Lucky for me, my dad knows all the cool hippie places in New England and New York (but please don't accuse him of being a hippie)! I wonder what other cool places he knows of but has yet to show me!?

Birge Pond

I took Ben on a tour of Bristol yesterday. We stopped by Birge Pond, which is on the edge of the first neighborhood I lived in up to the age of 9.

We Have Arrived

We actually arrived on Thursday at 3pm (EST) just in time for dinner at my parents' house. 3096 miles total. About 49 hours total driving. What a long, strange trip it's been! We took turns driving, switching off every time we stopped for gas. Thin Mint made the entire trip without a hitch. We hit every city (think: traffic) while I happened to be driving. We encountered all the bad (mostly fog/rain) while Ben was driving. He also encountered a dead deer in the middle of the highway in Ohio and had to swerve to miss it...all the while, I slept soundly in the passenger seat. Here are some pics of the last leg of the route. Nebraska wasn't a very photogenic state. We drove through Illinois and Indiana at night. So we only have pics of Iowa and Pennsylvania. We didn't get any pics of New York or Connecticut, but Pennsylvania, New York and Connecticut all look pretty similar, so feel free to use your imagination! In a few hours, we'll be heading out with my parents on a motorcycle ride, so I'm sure we'll have plenty of pics of Connecticut when we return.

Wind Power in Iowa

Iowa Farmland

Fog in Ohio

Pennsylvania Highway through a Bug-Smeared Windshield

Pennsylvania Sky

First Leg

We conquered 1221 miles in the last 20 hrs. We rain into some rain and fog beyond Laramie, WY and decided to spend the night in Cheyenne, WY. We are currently holed up in a hotel room, looking forward to a good night's sleep. The people we encountered at the hotel pool and hot tub are by far the palest shade of white I've ever seen. (Remember that movie Powder from the 90's?) Here are some pics from our trip thus far:

Utah Landscapes

The Power of Wind in Utah

Wyoming Landscapes

Fog between Laramie and Cheyenne, WY

T minus 90 minutes

We are due to leave in about 90 minutes and it's very evident in the way Lola is acting out. She acts like she's hopped up on sugar and her big ears have trouble listening every time we get set to travel. Kids will be kids...

I'm hoping to update my blog along the way... although I'm not making any promises.

We'll see some of you when we arrive.