Day 4

Another day after breakfast and we are on our way! Even though this is a shorter day mileage wise we will prove to require every bit of extra mileage time that is absolutely possible today!!

Heading through the Pennsylvania countryside is beautiful and we are traveling up I 78 heading towards Lehigh County and Allentown. Travel is uneventful up until I start seeing electronic roadsigns warning of the interstate being closed due to an accident. I begin searching my map on the GPS for an alternate route and wanting to get the bikes off the highway before we get stuck in any heavy traffic. Fortunately I chose the last exit before getting stuck in all that traffic! We exited and I found a place where we could pull off safely and I could confer with Glenn and Trent as to the route we would be taking to circumvent the accident on I 78.

As we headed up the road to take the back roads we noticed that they were pretty well jammed up as well, I called Johnny to find out the location of the big rigs, he and Tom were jammed in the traffic we were fortunate to get off where we did!! We would have been sitting in the heat of the day roasting with not enough water in our saddlebags or food.

We would later learned that there was an accident with a postal truck getting hit by another semi and mail was scattered on the highway and in the woods of where the truck had landed. This was now a federal scene and the postmaster general and postal workers had to pick up each piece of mail and in sure that they got everything before they could remove the truck and cleared the scene! The additional traffic was from a secondary route that experienced a sinkhole and had to close rerouting traffic in the same direction where we were trying to reroute!

Sitting in the heat and the slow moving traffic was bad enough for our bikes but was especially bad for the Bourget!

The coil ended up burning out and we had to swap bikes and take Gary Junior's bike out of the back of the trailer and load the board yet before we could continue on. 

Time was becoming crucial now as we were expected at the hotel in Danbury Connecticut at 5:30 for a reception from the hotel as well as some veterans groups including my own CVMA of Connecticut. I found a gas station and we rerouted to have lunch at a subway when we pulled into the gas station some of the guys were asking locals where a good place to eat lunch was, these were sit down locations with good food but we did not have the time! When I announced that we would be going to the subway up the road for a quick lunch then moving on some people got a little ruffled and asked why we couldn't eat at the steakhouse down the road or whatever it was. At this point I blew up a little bit and was pissed off! I said we were grabbing a quick lunch and had to get back on the road we did not have time to linger my job was to get you from point A to point B safely and on time. Some words were exchanged and I had said something to the effect of if you want to go off on your own knock yourself out those who want to follow me and get to where we supposed to be follow me.

Needless to say it was a quick lunch and we were back on the road, I also reminded them that we still had to go through New Jersey and New York which was not going to be a picnic going over the Tappan Zee bridge! 

We got to the hotel that evening and it was after 630 closer to 7 o'clock it was a long day and traffic was hell Eishas going through New York and of course going through the back roads of Connecticut though beautiful and winding, The roads I love to ride, it was slow going!

Due to the accident on the highway the rigs were a good 150 miles behind us and we had to wait for them to arrive before we could load up. We also had to block the traffic to get the rigs on the winding road going down to the hotel parking lot! Once again I was out blocking traffic on my motorcycle as stupid people tried to cut around me while big rigs were trying to cross four lanes to get in a driveway. My experience on this trip has shown me that the further north we get the more insolent and self absorbed drivers become and do not give a shit about anyone else on the road. Even though this is a general blanket statement and there are many courteous drivers for the most part we were taking our lives in our hands of people cutting through between motorcycles and affording no courtesy or patience for a large truck trying to negotiate a turn!!

We had a wonderful reception from the manager of the hotel and other people like the mayor and several others. Unfortunately we were not able to enjoy the food that was laid out for us at that time as we had to get the trucks in and loaded for the night! The Crowne Plaza in Danberry was wonderful!! They gave us the concierge floor with the concierge suite. They more than made up for our inability to partake in the reception food and treated us to a wonderful dinner and cocktails in the restaurant! Our attitude and excitement was beginning to show as we were nearing our final leg to Laconia New Hampshire!

As I was planning out the next day I took it upon myself to call and leave a message for Lieutenant Matt Schapiro of the New Hampshire State police special ops to ask for an escort from the New Hampshire border to Manchester Harley where we would meet up with Marilyn DeMartini (PR) and Cynthia Makris (NASWA) for a press interview for the Smith brothers then on to Laconia with a police escort.