Back from Da Bash

[schnowz]

  Got home from Da Bash last night. It was good to see the other delinquents 
from the list again..
    After driving Rob nuts with varying plans on meeeting places. I finally 
decided to head up to Burlington Friday afternoon..I took Rt 112 and 100 
from the Mohawk trail up to Burlington (both great roads). Went thru about 
10 miles of wet road but didn't get wet until approaching Burlington where a 
big black cloud (the harbinger of Jim Mason's previous arrival) loomed large 
over the city..
  Saturday I hooked up with Steve and Jim for a ride down to Rob and 
Michelle's place for breakfast. Tasty it was too..
  With Rob on the FJR and Charles on his Viffer we headed out to the 
Champlain Islands and then through farmlands over to the NorthEast Kingdom 
for lunch in Newport by the Canuckistan border. Except for routes 2 and 14 
they were all new to me. A fine route it was Rob. The leaves are probably 
changing later than normal this year because September has been so warm, so 
we didn't have to worry about downed leaves on the roads. It's not hard to 
see why it's called Vermont with the Sun highlghting it, the grass was as 
green as Ireland.
  We headed back to the Motel, where as is normal we had another case of 
ditchin the Canadian - except this time Steve was with him when they missed 
the turn..After honking and waving to no avail on the entrance ramp I 
figured not to worry as Steve has a GPS.
  That night we all ate at the Hotel Restarant and guzzled a coupla 
Guiness.. Thanks Steve - my plan went a rye..and thanks to Schwartz's for 
the door to door service..
  The next day I headed back up to the Islands to take the ferry across the 
lake and down the other side for a while before heading into the 
Adirondack's. I had some roads marked out that I wanted to ride. Taking 
route 48 around the back of Whiteface Mtn, I came pretty close to loosing 
it. I had just stopped by the lake to take a few shots and mounted up again 
and totally mis-read a corner. It was a decreasing radius corner with just 
enough gravel to screw up my line. I managed to miss the gravel, but now my 
line was going to take me wide so I just cranked it full tilt over and heard 
all kinds of crunching noises from the muffler and front pipe bottoming out, 
the bike hopped sideways over the double yellas but somehow I managed to 
stay on. Luckily there is very little traffic on this road and nobody comin 
the other way. Phew..
   I continued on zig zagging around and saw plenty of deer - 3 crossed 
about 30 ft in front of me and one decided he was going to outrun me down 
the road. I saw many more, including 5 in the Motel parkin lot in Old 
Forge - they were all over town. Of course one of the other guests starts 
feeding them apples even though she commented she knew it was wrong.. I've 
seen tame deer before, but the Buck came right up and sniffed my camera 
thinking it was an apple..
 Monday I continued on my way Rt 28 below Old Forge has been turned into a 
super highway and though the section North of there is still good I saw they 
had striaghtend some parts since I was last there. I saw a survey crew 
mapping out there dirty work. 30 years from now the roads won't be any fun 
at all, but then again I won't have to worry about it as the maggots will 
have done there thing..I got off the highway and headed therough Poland and 
Little Falls and Palantine bridge.. I love some of these old towns with 
there great architecture. Here I picked up route 10 south to 30 both great 
roads with sweeping bend through farm country with little traffic and 
sweeping views into the valley and the Catskill mountains ahead. With the 
sun shining down and 70 degrees it was Total Nirvana and you really start to 
wonder - why the hell am I heading home..
  I zipped around the Catskills finding as many new roads as possible before 
heading East down super twisty RT 8A down the west side of the reservoir to 
Kingston. Kingston itself is run down, the same a s Newburgh. But both are 
on the Hudson river and have recently done a lot to renovate the waterfront 
areas. After a few pics I finally head over the Hudson to Rhinebeck and the 
buzz through some backroads in Duchess county. Duchess county is a lot of 
horse farms etc and few cops to worry about - some of the best riding within 
100 miles of here.
   I finally cross back to Kent CT on Rt 341 which is a good road but like 
all CT roads it has too many cars who drive to fewkin slow and ridiclously 
slow speed limits. I head east until I hit Waterbury where I jump on the 
Slab - what a come down. Roll into my driveway at dusk ..perfect timing
  Great weekend  - Thanks to Rob and the rest of you guys..

Pete S

Changed the oil tonight  - it was due half way through the trip.
As I entered it into my maintence log I noticed I did over 26,000 miles 
since this time last year..