Massachusetts to New Jersey

Massachusetts to New Jersey - July 16th, 2009

Well I guess I was really tired from yesterday since I slept through my alarm and woke up just in time to get my stuff out of the house before Ivan had to leave for his first day of work. Once out of the house I was able to take my time getting ready and plan for the rest of the day's travels. As I was loading up the bike I was inexplicably missing a bungee cord. It wasn't caught up in any of my gear and was no where to be found. I had a spare one but it was a little shorter and not ideal for the job but it might be able to get me through the trip. As I was putting everything else on the bike I happened to walk by the window to the garage and noticed the missing bungee cord sitting inside. Crap! Oh well, I've got my spare so Max can have that one.

Doing one more gear check I patted myself down. Wallet, check. Keys, check. Cell phone, Shit! Where's my cell phone?!?!? I unpacked my gear and checked all my pockets and it wasn't there. I must have left it inside the house. Now I started to freak out a little bit. I started thinking of solutions including having Ivan mail me the phone in New York but with no GPS and all of my NYC friends' contact info IN the phone I needed it.

Now this is the part I'm not proud of. The apparent best option was to try and get a hold of Ivan to somehow get back in the house to get my phone. I hated the thought of interrupting him on his first day and worse yet I didn't even know where that first day was. All I knew was it was at a coffee importer in town. I drove down the main drag and didn't see anything that fit the bill so I stopped in at a dry cleaner's to see if they might know the place.

The workers there didn't know what coffee place I was talking about but they started looking online for possible matches. In the mean time one of the employees started me in on a conversation that was really random and I don't even remember half of it. It filled the time though so that's good. One of the ladies working came back with a list of a couple possible matches and I started calling. The first one I called gave me to a recording that talked about cafes in different areas and restaurants and I thought strike one. Finally an option came up for the operator and I took it. Someone came on the line and before I got two words out of my mouth asked if I could call back after 9am when the office was open, an hour later. Trying to be as polite as possible I kindly declined her request and asked if someone had just started working there that day and she said "Yes, Ivan"! Holy lucky stars, I got the right place on the first try! I talked to Ivan and I think I freaked him out a bit with the sleuthing and random call. Sorry Ivan. After talking to him I was able to get into the house, where I found my phone hidden under the edge of the air mattress. Finally, I had all my belongings and could get on the road.

I took I-90 west into New York to make up some lost time from the morning's activities. I really liked the Massachusetts toll system a lot. Here they give you a ticket as you get on the toll way and you don't see another toll until you get off. On a motorcycle this limits the number of times that I have to fumble around for the correct change and the number of times I have to hold up traffic doing so. While I liked this the best out of the tolls I've come across I still don't like tolls...

Only a couple of miles into New York and I was at the start of the Taconic State Parkway. This 105 scenic parkway is closed to all but passenger vehicles and there was no traffic on the road for the majority of it. This stretch of road had a low speed limit but lots of scenery, granted it looked the same most of the way ;) The rolling hills were covered in lush forests and the entire horizon was covered in trees. I can think of worse places to be driving.

Making it through the Taconic Parkway I joined the New York traffic on my way into New Jersey and the Palisades Parkway. On the way to the Palisades I got stuck in a bit of construction traffic and detoured several miles back the way I came but it turned out for the better as it dropped me up near Bear Mountain and some fabulously twisty roads. Finally getting to the Palisades Parkway I was greeted with more stunning views of the New York side of the Hudson River.

Getting into the populated parts of New York I started to long for my GPS. The towns started coming fast and furious and the signage for the roads I needed to take didn't keep up. As I was cruising through a series of small towns I missed my turnoff and, not knowing it, kept driving for five miles in stop and go traffic. I finally pulled over in the parking lot of a small factory to break out the laptop and figure out where I was. I had no luck finding it on my own but an employee on his break was kind enough to help me out and got me going in the right direction.

On the road again I got into New Jersey alright and into River Vale. Here, again, the lack of a GPS reared its ugly head. The directions that I wrote down didn't help me a lot and I got lost trying to find a main street. Knowing I was at least in the correct small town I resorted to the age old technique of driving up and down each road until I found the right cross street. Having found that street I made a couple passes of the street to find the next cross street before finally finding the correct house. How nice that was.

Not to get too caught up in relaxation I was meeting a friend shortly to go to the NY/NJ Redbulls soccer game. They were playing the visiting LA Galaxy and this would be the last US game for David Beckham. While this was his last MLS game this was my first. I was really excited! The game was being held at Giants stadium and the mass of people outside was really cool. I made my way up to the ticket office to buy my ticket and immediately was approached by scalpers trying to hawk spare tickets. Even when I was the next person in line for the ticket booth they were coming up to me, all this while NYPD officers were standing 15 feet away... Welcome to NY/NJ!

The game was fun to watch but not if you were a Redbulls fan. The Galaxy put on a good show and finished the game with a convincing 3 to 1 margin. Beckham had his usual four or five touches on the ball but Landin Donovan, the Galaxy captain, really impressed me with his play. I've see Donovan play on TV but seeing it in person made him seem even better. What was more entertaining or at least distracting, was the group of spirited fans next to us. A group of about eight guys showed up at their seats and promptly took their shirts off and marked their chests with letters. As soon as the game started the people behind the spirited group tried to get the group to sit down to no avail and that's where the entertainment started. Bickering followed and spread to include more people yelling at the spirits. Security made an appearance just before the end of the first half and warned them to settle down or face getting kicked out. Most people would calm down at that point and some of them did, even to the point of moving away from the group, but a select few took the warning as a sign to yell more... At the beginning of the second half one of the spirited ones started yelling at a concession worker and others in the crowd. Shortly thereafter another of the spirited group caused a ruckus with the people in front of them and a fight nearly broke out. Security came en mass now and kicked out the entire spirited group. The surrounding crowd cheered the security guys on their way out.

I'm trying a new photo hosting service and I'm getting the photos loaded into that. I'll post the ones for this portion of the trip as soon as they're loaded.

And here they are:

Pictures

Let me know what you think of the new photo website...