The Big Apple

Nov 13 2009.

We Left Portland Maine this morning at 09:30 in the freezing cold heading straight for the storm front known as the "Atlantic Assault".

It still hasn't sunk in yet that Julie and I are on vacation. We get up at roughly 6:00 Am for some reason, and talk in bed until its light. Then we run through a methodical pack up procedure.

It begins with me heading out to the bike for a pre-trip inspection, ...oil leaks, spoke tightness, brake fluid level, oil level, chain slackness, nuts and bolts...ETC. Julie packs up the gear that we unpacked in the room and by the time I'm done outside, Julie comes out with the bags that I load onto the bike.

As we left Maine the winds began gusting quite strongly. We were motoring along and I began noticing that we were becoming increasingly engulfed in traffic. The 4 lane highway became a 6 lane highway and the density of the population was such that, black lines began to form down the center of each lane (oil drops), the right lane (where the trucks drive) was the worst.

We crossed onto a new climate in Massachusetts. Leafs from oaks and maples were just now dropping from the tree's from the powerful wind gusts and were whirling around in the air at about helmet level and getting caught in the radiator as the rumble of traffic trundled along to their respective destinations.

Off to our right I thought I saw a couple of crows flying, however, Julie knowing how much I love helicopters tugged my right shoulder and pointed to 3 Black Hawk helicopters heading north adjacent to the highway, it was cool.

Suddenly we encountered grid lock. Yup, we were now close to NY City and about to cross over the George Washington Bridge. Off to the Left we saw the Empire State Building towering over the whole city. What an awesome building. KING KONG BIG.

Despite the economic turn down here in the US, people have not given up their pimped out rides. I'd say that 50% or better of the cars on the road are BMW, VOLVO, & LEXUS among the rest of the cars are new SUBARU's, FORD'S (EXCURSIONS) and LINCOLN's.

All the confusion lead me to miss a turn off and completely blow through a toll booth in the EZ-PASS lane. That ended up costing me in the end as the toll booth person charged me the full toll road amount when I finally exited the highway...DOH!

Nonetheless we ended up in Hightstown just into New Jersey.

Here we shacked up in a flea bag of a Hotel, at a luxury price. Smelled like curry and armpits.

We went to the Tavern on The Lake and I had my Quesidilla. The second of the trip! I'm sampling the Quesidilla's along the way down and determining whether or not the Mexican food gets better as we get further south. So far the its getting better. Joan was our server and made sure that her Quesidilla made 1st place.

We went back to the Flea bag to the sound of screaming, laughing and crying kids behind the paper walls. We didn't care though, we were tired and I figured that it was just something that I'd have to get used to sometime in the future if Julie ever gets her way.

We closed our eyes and went to sleep only wondering what was in store for tomorrow.