Gorgeous ride through rolling hillsides in NY, Pennsylvania and Ohio

It's hard to believe this is our 26th day on the road because we're having so much fun traveling around the country. Today I started with a morning run in Springville, NY where I found the beautiful rail trail for part of my run. We left at 8am under sunny skies with perfect motorcycle temperatures in the high 50's.

We rode about 2 hours through western New York state through rolling hills and farmland, then another 2 hours through Pennsylvania, using our Garmin GPS system to guide us.

Using the Garmin takes off the pressure of creating a route and then making sure we stay on that route because Mike simply follows the Garmin's directions. If we miss a turn because we're admiring someone's beautifully landscaped lawn, or pointing out an Amish man walking along his fields, the Garmin simply recalculates and keeps us headed in the right direction.

We reached Ohio, our last state for the day, with about 2 hours left in our trip. I was curious about the origin of the name "Ohio", and discovered that it originates from the Seneca ohi:yo' which means great river or large creek and was their name for the Ohio River. Ohio became a state in 1803, the first state partitioned from the Northwest Territory. That explains why the historical signs in the towns we passed through listed dates in the early 1800's for the original settlement.

Mike describes the rolling hills as 'whoops' because he enjoys speeding up just as we crest the top of the hill so that our stomachs jump and we 'whoop' with the fun of zooming along the lightly traveled roads through the midwestern farmland.

We saw Amish horses and buggies, a couple of Amish children playing in their yards, an Amish man walking along his field, and another Amish man riding a horse along the 2-lane paved county road throughout the day. The Amish church started in the late 17th century in Switzerland, and in the 18th century Amish started emigrating to the United States. We challenged each other to point out Amish farms, notable because of the lack of cars, tractors, electric lines, and TV antennas or satellite dishes.

Today's ride was simple and calm with mostly straight roads up and down the rolling hills, with an occasional sweeping turn through farmland, or a sharp turn as we passed through several small towns. We had time to notice the old overgrown apple orchards along the roadside, vast green lawns that must require hours of care each week to maintain, decades old barns and farm houses that are gradually falling apart and becoming overgrown by weeds and trees, lakes overgrown with weeds as well as bright blue lakes dotted with boats, the signs in what seems like every town identifying their 'historic downtown' and the big cumulus clouds in the sky.

Tomorrow we continue west into Indiana and look forward to visiting my stepmother for the night. We're always attuned to the weather forecast and plan to leave early to hopefully miss the predicted rain and thunderstorms that are headed our way.  Here is today's route

An out-of-the-ordinary day on the BMW

Usually we plan our route for the day's ride to stay off the Interstate highways, much preferring the slower pace of local roads that also give us more of a feel for the communities. We also book our hotel room so we know where we're headed, and plug the hotel's address into our Garmin GPS system so that no matter how many scenic 'wrong' turns we take, we always end up where we plan to spend the night.

Today we threw caution to the wind. The weather forecast was for intermittent rain and thunder storms, and while we planned to spend the night somewhere in Pennsylvania, we also needed to ride into Delaware to check off our 13th new state. We decided to start the day's trip with about 100 miles on I-81 heading north from Harrisonburg, VA to Chambersburg, PA to cover the miles quickly and hopefully beat the storms.

We started at 6:30 am before the sun came up, and watched the light gradually highlight the Blue Ridge and Allegheny mountains in the distance. I-81 travels through the Shenandoah Valley and crosses the Shenandoah River.

We crossed in and out of Maryland and Pennsylvania a few times today so that we could dip into the northwestern corner of Delaware. We rode through Gettysburg, PA, site of the bloodiest battle of the Civil War, the inspiration for President Lincoln's famous Gettysburg address, and the turning point in the war that ended General Robert E. Lee's second invasion into the North.

This was the most traffic we've experienced yet in our 14 days on the road from home in Arizona, and it was jarring and frustrating to be in stop-and-go traffic through the numerous towns and small cities. We decided to let the Garmin GPS take over, and were relieved to be routed away from the centers of most of the towns and instead enjoyed the quieter side roads through the rolling hills of this part of the country.

We finally stopped for a late lunch in the beautifully named town of Honey Brook. We saw a billboard advertising a local diner, and Wimpy & Dee's didn't disappoint. Our waitress was friendly and helpful, the chocolate milkshake perfect with our sandwiches, and we enjoyed the 1950's memorabilia.

While we were eating lunch cellphones all around us started buzzing with a thunderstorm and possible flooding weather alert. We decided to find a hotel within an hour's ride to hopefully beat the approaching storm, and settled on Limerick, PA. This part of Pennsylvania is home to many Amish, and our route took us past several Amish farms, a couple of Amish driving a horse-pulled cart, and children working in the fields or riding push-scooters.

Everything out-of-the-ordinary worked out today:  we just missed several storms, riding on wet roads where steam was rising off the pavement covered with puddles; we rode into Delaware; the Interstate helped us get around congested areas and ride faster; and taking our chances using the Garmin instead of pre-planning our route took us on curving roads through the beautiful green countryside.

We rode 360 miles today and 4167 total miles so far on our trip. Each day brings new challenges and something unexpected as we continue to make our way northeast.  Here is today's route

Moving from Vermont to Arizona on our BMW

We're off! After weeks of 'lasts':  last lunch with a friend, last run on familiar roads, last volunteer meeting, last day of work, last night in Vermont; we're ready to start logging in some 'firsts', beginning with the first day of our move to Prescott, AZ.

We sold our cars, hired a moving company to pack and ship all of our household goods, and we're making the trip into a motorcycle adventure. This is the perfect opportunity to ride the BMW across the country as we transition from Vermont to Arizona.

For a summer filled with hot temperatures, high humidity, and lots of rain today was perfect:  blue skies with a few fluffy clouds and temperatures hovering in the high '70's as we wound our way along county roads and state highways through Vermont, New York, and into Pennsylvania.

As we rode through Manchester early in the morning, I tried to print all of the familiar sights on my memory one last time:  the new library that Mike worked so hard on, Hand Motors where he worked and where we purchased all of our cars, the view of the Green Mountains on Wilcox Flats that never ceases to amaze me with it's beauty, the soccer field in Arlington where the boys played hundreds of games, and the BattenKill River where we tubed and swam.

 

As we headed west through New York we spotted horse and buggy signs, and then passed an Amish horse and buggy, reminding us that it's still possible to travel slowly and live simply. Most of the time we had the winding, curving roads to ourselves as we passed by fields of corn, hay, and wheat.

Our route took us for a few miles through heavy traffic from Chenango NY to Athens PA on busy routes 17 and 220. I was glad to leave the trucks behind as we traveled through the 265,000 acre Susquehannock State Forest on Route 6, the longest continuous  highway in the continental United States. The roller coaster hills and steep hillsides covered with forests reminded me of Vermont. We could stay on Route 6 all the way to our stop tomorrow night in my hometown, Valparaiso, IN but we want to take our time and explore other roads.

We're spending tonight in Oil City, PA in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains after an 11 hour trip. Tomorrow we leave mountains behind as we head into Ohio and Indiana. We moved from northwest Indiana to Vermont 22 years ago, and it seems fitting to spend one night on this move West back in Indiana.