New Jersey, here I come, again...

Friday July 24th, 2009
Hershey, PA to Chatham, NJ

Today I was leaving my family in Hershey to return to my friends' home in New Jersey for dinner and to get my new custom ear plugs, yay!

Having started the day out well with a good breakfast I loaded up the bike and hit the road with everyone waving as I drove off. Having more travel time today I took a more scenic route through the Pennsylvania countryside north of I-78. This took me through tons of small towns, a military area, and gorgeous countryside.

As I first crossed I-78 I rode through Swatara State Park which had some nice hills and sweeping turns.



Unfortunately this terrain didn't last all day but coming out of this area I stumbled upon a military base and caught a helicopter playing at a landing pad. I stopped to watch it lift off then bank one direction, then back the other way. It went up and down side to side and it was all very impressive to happen upon. Something nice for the day for sure.



After going through a couple of small towns I rode through some farmland and orchards before finally getting back on the main highway to get into New Jersey.



Cruising down the highway I spied a sign for the Crayola Museum and had to make the detour as it was only a couple miles off the highway. I got to the museum alright but with the limited parking and heat I just wanted to keep riding. I stopped to snap a couple pictures then went on my way. The backside of the museum did have this cool little "art piece"...



I got into Chatham and waited for everyone to show up so we could go to dinner. From Enid's place all six of us crammed into Alan's Camry wagon and set off for the brewery for dinner and drinks. Enid and Katie were stuck sitting in the rear facing third row and were really at the mercy of Alan and his driving. Alan had found this restaraunt on a motorcycle exloration trip several years ago and the roads leading to it were great riding roads. They probably weren't the best "cram everyone in a car" roads, especially with wallowing suspension. Swoosie nearly got sick on the way out there and Enid and Katie were back-back-seat driving. The food and drinks were very good but we had to wait for a long time to get everything brought out as ordered. Oh well, it was a Ninja 250 gathering sans bikes and with lots of good food and that's all that mattered. I could do this more often :)

Here's the rest of the photos:

Pictures

Hershey

I stayed in Hershey until Friday morning so that left tons of time to hang out with the family so that's what we did.

Wednesday and Thursday we went to Hershey Park and I got to ride the newest ride, Farenheight. This roller coaster boasts a 98* initial drop. That's right, more than vertical! When we were all walking past it my cousin Grace urged me to go on it, saying the line wasn't very long. I trusted her, thinking the line would be about a 30 minute wait from what I could see, so I jumped in line. The line was only about a quarter of capacity so things were looking good. Half an hour came and went and I was still no where near the front of the line. I contemplated leaving then but thoguht better of it. Finally, after an hour or so of waiting I got to the front of the line; about stinkin' time. Sitting in the front seat, the view was pretty cool and left nothing to hide the impending drops, loops and rolls. Awesome! One roller coaster down, many, many more to go.

Over the course of the two days we rode everything from the carnival slides to looping roller coasters. Even my youngest cousin Alex got into the mix. He JUST met the height requirement to get on the "big" coasters and we took full advantage of that. After the first ride on the Super Dooper Looper next to me, Alex sat next to Grace and they both were screaming for joy together. It was pretty cool to see them having so much fun on the rides.

On the second day that we were at the park weather played a factor. We got there a couple minutes after the park opened to get in line for the big rides but with some thunder storms in the area everything was on hold. Fortunately the rides opened not too long after getting in line and I again got on to the first car of Farenheight, after a lengthy wait. By the time I got off the ride my aunt, Madeline, had to go and pick up Alex from camp. That left Grace and I to fend for ourselves. Next up, was the Lightning Racer, a dueling wooden roller coaster. On our walk over it started to rain lightly so we hurried up to make the ride before they closed it. We were able to jump on the first seat of the car when we got there and srapped in for the ride. Right about then we looked out of the start house only to see that the rain had increased in intensity, considerably so. At least we were being nice to everyone behind us by blocking some rain. The subsequent water ride was actually pretty fun except the stinging rain to the eyes everytime we tried to look where we were going. Getting off the ride we were SOAKED! The front of our clothes were drenched but our backs were completely dry. Now the goal was to find any ride that wasn't out in the open. About this time we talked to my aunt and decided to bail on the park and go have lunch somewhere dry. After lunch we came back to the park for more fun and even got Madeline to go on a roller coaster! It was on that roller coaster that I broke my camera. there is now a crack in the LCD screen and a big black spot in the middle of the screen.

On the Friday that I left we went out for a nice breakfast and I noticed something "new" on the menu: scrapple. Madeline had never had it but thought it was gross anyways. So I ordered it, along with some pancakes and sausage.

When the meal came I was in awe of the pancakes, they were HUGE! The sausage was generous and the scrapple was loafish. It all looked good. For those of you that haven't tried scrapple let me save you the hassle, it's gross. It was meaty cornmeal or something horrible on that line of thought. Fortunately the rest of the meal was really good and quite filling.

Pictures

Welcome to Chocolate World

Monday July 20, 2009 - New Jersey to Hershey, PA


I was exhausted from running around the city this weekend and aborted my planned eight hour ride out to my Aunt and Uncle's place, opting for the three hour, straight highway route. I was a bit disappointed but once on the road it was clear that this was the better choice. It really is a shame though as I had planned a lovely route up through northern Pennsylvania via highway 6 and 84. I was also planning to pass through the Promised Land, the state park by that name at least.

Overall the ride was uneventful but it did start raining shortly into PA. The rain lasted a while but it wasn't too bad. What was worse than the rain was the heat. Rain gear is meant for cold weather and ultimate waterproofness, at the expense of breathability. So, when the clouds open up and I'm forced to put on rain gear but the ambient temperature is still in the upper 70's things get toasty inside my gear...

Getting into Hershey is was pretty cool to already know my way around town, to some extent, from all of the previous times being driven in the area. It almost felt like I belonged here.

I drove past Hershey Park, the Hershey factory and my cousin's school and finally pulled right into my aunt and uncle's house.

Pictures

Singing my way up river

Sunday July 19th, 2009

While in New Jersey I was staying at a friend's boyfriend's house who happened to be out of town. We've hung out a few times in California and I was really looking forward to seeing him again today. My friend Danica had to fly out to California for work so that left Kenny all to me. We took a nice drive through some of the small towns along the Hudson river and came to a state park where we hiked the hill where the Knickerbocker Ice Company used to be. There were some old building foundations left over from the early 1900's and it was all filled with history. Hiking to the top was a nice workout and the view made up for any sweating. From the top you could see straight across the river to Sing Sing prison (or whatever it's called now) and down to the Rockefeller estate. I had driven roads near here on my way into town on Thursday but I missed this view. The hill that we were on top of had a sheer rock wall leading down to the river's edge probably 1000 feet below. It was pretty amazing standing over that edge. To cool off from the hike we continued down the river and stopped off at a nice little bar on the river and had a cold beer and buffalo wings. We called it a day and went back to the house.

After cleaning up I headed back into the city to have dinner with Sarah (Swoosie). Unfortunately, the traffic that I hit on this journey was not due to an accident. This was everyone returning to the city from their adventures elsewhere. It took me an hour and a half to get into the city, twice as long as last time and I went 10 miles less. Once I finally made it into the city we walked up to a Japanese ramen house and had delicious cold ramen. After dinner we walked through a little bit of Central Park then wandered back. I really love walking around New York City, it truly is unique. Except for the mosquitos Central Park was really cool to see too.


Pictures

Please note that the pictures are slow to upload with this new photo site so depending on when you check the link for the photo album you may not be seeing all of the pictures. There should be roughly 30 photos uploaded from this day when all is said and done. As I get a stable internet connection these will be uploaded faster.

New Jersey, more than Newark and Jersey City...

Saturday July 18th, 2009

Today I met up with AlanS's mother, Enid. I had talked to her online a bit when Alan was on his cross country trip then later when I posted about having hearing issues after my cross country trip. I told her then that, whenever I made it out east I would come by to see her. Boy, am I ever glad that I did!

I showed up to her place and we got to talking non-stop. Being in the Garden State and enjoying the outdoors, it was a must to go explore. So off we went to The Great Swamp. The area was gorgeous and teeming with plant and wildlife, at least we think there was wildlife. There are tons of animals living in the swamp from frogs and small turtles to to large snapping turtles and snakes. The entire time we were walking around we saw one baby green frog and one spotted turtle, and millions of mosquitos! I really could have done without THAT wildlife. The mosquitos followed us around the boardwalk all the way through the trees trying to eat us constantly. Even with the pesky mosquitos it was a fun walk. The swamp was gorgeous with forested and grassy areas. I'm not sure if there would ever be a time when there weren't mosquitos there but it would be nice to explore the area more.

After the workout running from the mosquitos we were famished so the next destination was food. We went to this wonderful Brazillian grill in Newark called Brasilia. There was a salad/appetizer bar with fried plantains and all sorts of scrumptous food but the main course was even better. Waiters were constantly walking around with skewers of meat and slicing off bits of it for you. There was top sirloin marinated in an amazing sauce that was so tender you barely needed a knife. There was steak wrapped in bacon, garlic beef, chicken, etc. The food never stopped and the quality never diminished. We both walked out of there completely stuffed. To burn off some of the dinner we walked around the portugese neighborhood. It felt strange walking around the area, as if I were in Brazil right then and there. A very cool feeling.

This night finished off with Enid making a mold for custom earplugs and me deciding that I'd come back through Chatham in a week's time to pick them up.

Pictures

Please note that the pictures are slow to upload with this new photo site so depending on when you check the link for the photo album you may not be seeing all of the pictures. There should be roughly 70 photos uploaded from this day when all is said and done.

Brooklyn!!

Friday July 17th, 2009

When I got to my friend's house yesterday there was a package waiting for me. What could this be? None other than my long lost GPS!!! I just might be able to find out where I'm going from now on.

I spent the afternoon setting it up and, to my complete dismay, started having the same problems as with the old unit. I called Garmin and emailed them and the only time it worked was with the small, 64MB microSD card that came with it. This card had enough space to fit one state's worth of maps on it which wouldn't really help me on a multi-state trip like the one I'm currently on...

I ventured into the city later that night to meet Glenn (Urban Guerrilla), working GPS or not. Traffic getting into the city was miserable as was the humidity so I spent a good portion of time cursing the city under my breath. The traffic that I hit was fortunately not the normal status quo (at least for that time of day) and was the result of a fender bender or some other minor situation that backed things up for miles. Once moving I became much happier even with the ever present humidity. Getting from New Jersey to Manhattan had the potential to be very confusing when I crossed the George Washington bridge as lanes were funneling in from every direction and there was the choice for the upper or lower bridge and finding the correct toll booth and finally surviving the traffic jam there. quite the experience. Past the bridge the directions became very simple by just going straight on the FDR expressway which took me straight to the Brooklyn bridge. I've seen this bridge in person before, seen it in movies and pictures but driving over it was really a cool thing to do. The cross beams coursing overhead and the view of the city and the plethora of cabs was very neat. THIS is New York.

I safely made it to Glenn's and we set off for to walk around the bridge that I just came across. Standing at the base of the bridge gave a whole new view of it and greater appreciation. Down at the base we were amid loads of people there for the same reason and there were restaurants and the like there too. We wandered up through Brooklyn Heights before venturing off towards DUMBO and a good mexican food place called Pedro's. We had great timing as the rain really picked up just as we got inside. Apparently they used to have an outdoor seating area that was pretty nice, at least until a neighbor called the police on them... Oh well, it's not like we were going to sit outside anyways. We had some really good food and some even better conversation, so much so that we were there until they closed. Not too bad for a Friday night. Getting back to Glenn's place was a bit trickier then getting here due to a series of one way streets and dead ends but we made it back alright.

Getting out of the city I took the Holland tunnel to avoid taking the same roads back and I had a lot of fun. I know that it's simple but driving in a tunnel that long I was enjoying the reverberations of my exhaust the entire way. Once out of the tunnel and into New Jersey the pleasantness of the road changed. Driving at night with a headlight designed in the 80's doesn't make for great visibility and that meant that I couldn't see the gigantic bumps in the pavement before being on top of them. Some of these bumps were large enough to bonce me clear off the seat and I got air several times. All a bit freaky when you don't know it's coming.

I got back to the house about 1am and found my friend Danica already there. When I got upstairs she greeted me with "Hi, I'm drunk" (or something to that effect) as she was laying down eating ice cream from the container. Oh, the things I've missed with her moving across the country! lol

Pictures!

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...