Back again in four (8/22/23 Tue)

The view out our hotel window was magestic. Two untouched motorcycles and five other hotels. If our room faced the intersection our vista might include even more hotels.

Leaving through the unmanned foyer and past the empty coffee station, there was a sign, clear as mud. "Please do not go inside the counter". Of corse we complied, mainly because we couldn't figure out any way not to.

Nate's Adventer Sports model has an extrra large fuel tank. So my Strom limits our travel range between gas stops. At highway speed a full Strom tank has a usable range between 200 and 240 miles. The Honda range is close to 300 miles. The Google maps suggested route to Nate's house was about 400 miles. So perfect execution would be one fuel stop at 200 miles.

At 1230 we pulled into a plaza gas stop. I could have made the one 40 miles later, but there was already a need to pee. We also hadn't eaten. More importantly, there had been zero coffee.

Grrr Arrg. The mult-hour ride from the hotel probably wasn't as bad as I remember in my coffee detox fog. I recall: Motazuma's revenge, the unconsenting fingering of lakes, and some sort of spooky canal. But we've already acknowledged my faulty memory. The refueling stop did trigger a cooldown. Giving plenty of time for breakfast of Popeyes chicken tenders and Starbucks coffee.

Did I mention coffee. How did I get here? Apparently, I'm in New York 223 miles from Nate's house. I must have been abducted by alians. At least they didn't mistakenly return me to Anderson, IN.

Back on the road home, we handled a few construction merges and emergency vehicle passings without too much trouble. Once off the highway and back on the secondary roads of Vermont, we still had a few small town centers to navigate without stopping. This is not easy with fourway stops, traffic circles and stop lights. We did get split up in traffic on a hill with a half dozen traffic lights. I expected to find Nate stuck roadside near one. But he somehow managed to get past all of the stop lights, including a few breif stops.

It took me miles to pass the cars between us. After a road closing accident detoured the entire road into the countryside we reached a section of highway they closed and sent us deep into the town center. Our luck ran out at the first traffic light. Nate pushed his bike off the roadway at the crosswalk and onto a sidewalk. After he was settled, I went for gas, another bathroom stop, and took him back a cold drink. We carefully planned our path through town and our best exit strategy past the traffic light from our cooldown point on the pedestrian sidewalk. The end result was success, and we passed though the intersection and town without incident. In part by having me ahead to report intersection traffic openings, so Nate could safely roll through.

Before splitting up we baton passed the borrowed EZPass while rolling down the highway. No stopping required.

I received a "safely home" report from Nate before I reached my house around 1900.

Nate now has tickets to fly to Colorado on Thursday, so he can spend time with his brother. Then he is planning a few day long trip with his wife to an undisclosed location for the end of his time off work. So he is turning his vacation into three vacations. Where do these kids get the idea you can just keep taking vacations?

Now where am I going to next?