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Post date: Apr 03, 2017 12:15:24 AM
The lyrics to the Frank Sinatra song New York New York go “if I can make it there I’ll make it anywhere”. This sentiment apparently does not apply to me, because I made it to New York survived the rain and cold, but after checking online weather reports and conferring via email with some very nice Connecticut resident BMW riders I met in Texas, I made the call stop traveling any further north into New England. The rain that hit NYC over the weekend brought a fresh blast of artic sleet, snow, and frigid temperatures to the northern states. Instead with the rain clouds clearing on Saturday morning I took a cold victory lap around central park on the motorcycle and hit the Lincoln Tunnel heading westward. New York City will have to be the northeastern edge of my circumnavigation.
Turning this point brings mixed feelings. It is not the exact goalpost I had set out for, I was hoping to make it to Maine or at least Boston to catch a Red Socks preseason game. But one of the goals of the trip was to learn to push my limits while still taking care of myself. I have learned how to burn myself out my challenge on this trip is to find the balance between pushing and self care. To keep going on the bike, even at my current latitude is possible but not entirely comfortable, so to push farther for one goal would compromise another. In any case I am headed west, and towards home, which feels good. Now I just have to be sure to not make like a barn horse and gallop as fast as I can all the way home. On the ranch in Nipomo (see Feb 9), my uncle had a pony named Star. When the cousins took smaller children like us nephews out for a group trail ride they would let us ride Star the pony. Star was the slowest horse in the group when the ride began always lagging behind the group. But the moment the ride turned back towards home, Star would start a steeplechase to get back to the barn. It was there she got fed at the end of the ride, and it did not matter to Star if she returned with, or without, a rider as long as she could make it home to the food.
There is still much to experience on the return leg of this trip, so I am trying to be conscious of my internal desire to just get home and rest. To aid in this I moved off the interstates as soon as I left New Jersey and took smaller two-lane roads though northern Pennsylvania heading due West. I made it to a BMW dealer outside of Scranton in time to get my front tire replaced before the shop closed for the Sun-Mon weekend. The ethos of self-care applies to the bike as well as myself, as I recognize my tendency to push my equipment and myself beyond our manufactures tolerances. At the dealership I also got some road choice advice from a fellow ADV rider which sent me down picturesque roads that followed rivers though the northern part of the state.
Sunday was warm enough to enjoy the ride and the heated equipment. The weather report predicts a small warm up on Monday before the next rains set in, so en route today I decided to gamble and head a little farther North as I made my way West. In the peak warmth of the day the phrase “shuffle off to Buffalo” kept popping in my head so that’s what I did. The landscape in upstate New York and Pennsylvania is still very much in winter mode, with leafless brown trees dominating the landscape, but every creek, river and tributary is at its limits in terms of holding water. If the high pressure front remains in place tomorrow I might just be rewarded with a view of Niagara Falls and perhaps a jaunt though Canada (they have community colleges there as well I am told….)
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