Dear Fellow Traveler
Dear Fellow Traveler.
Come along with me for a little ride. This particular trip is one that was planned for a few years but just couldn’t find the exact time to go. See this one was like many trips that I have taken in the past. Many times, while reading a travel guide, or watching a show on the discovery channel I would come across a unique place that I would immediately grab my map book, or in this case laptop and open google maps and search for the location and drop a pin on it. I will say google has certainly made this process so easy, which I’m not sure if it takes away from the adventure of it all? Back before our lives were so consumed with devices, I would have to use the old map books, actually go to the library or bookstore to try and find some information on places like this. Then usually over the winter months I would randomly pick up my map book and flip through the states looking at all these little marks with half legibly notes scribbled in the corners trying to explain to my future self of what is wait for me at these little random x’s on the map!
So, this X was on my map for a few years. I had seen a photo from a Moto Blogger that I had been following for some time. Fuzzy Galore at Girlie Motorcycle & Road Trip Blog – Full tank. Wandering heart. (fuzzygalore.com) has a fabulous motorcycle page full of awesome photos and great stories of her travels around the country. Go read her posts or follow her on Instagram!
One such photo stuck out on this day, and I know I just had to go see it.
I asked my over worked buddy Tommy if he wanted to go for a ride. And to see if he wanted to come with me to find a sculpture that is located at a gas station in upstate NY. Some 200 miles away. Now I’ve done 400-mile days many times to find places like this, or to try a Hotdog shack in Vermont, or see a bridge in Maine so doing a 200-mile one way trip to see a sculpture was no big deal. However, after talking with Tommy and realizing it was his birthday weekend so why not make it a 2-night weekend trip on two wheels! I told him I will plan the route, find the lodging just meet me on the MA Pike Friday afternoon with an overnight bag packed!
Usually, I don’t like traveling the highways on these trips, but there are times you just need them to either get around (thru) cities or major rivers. We used I90 aka The Pike to get out of central MA and cross the mighty CT river. Once we hit Western MA we jumped onto the back roads and worked our way south into the northwest corner of Connecticut. The bikes we chose for this adventure were going to be our road bikes. No ADV machines with knobby tires on this trip. Tommy had his new H2 Ninja, all supercharged up and I had my trusty 20 year-old Ducati ST3
Riding with Tommy is fun, usually he likes me to lead and set the pace, but on the odd occasion he would take over the point things would move quickly. At one point in the trip, I made a comment that if he led for this ride, we would either end up arrested or dead, more on that!!!
We took the long way to Great Barrington MA and had a great meal at a local Mexican restaurant, with a little fried ice cream desert celebrating Tommys birthday. It was a great 1st day of riding! The next morning, we crossed into NY and had our 1st stop at the Milbrook Diner, then a stop for coffee and chat with other motorcycle people at Moto Coffee Machine in Hudson NY. A great place to check out if you are riding in that area. Heck, I’ve even hosted a breakfast Ride To Eat here once and people rode in from Central MA for a Sunday morning breakfast here.
Once we crossed the 2nd Mighty River of this trip, the Hudson we started following some roads that were recommended to us from our friend Kasandra who lives out in this amazing area of really nice roads to ride. Most of these roads were unnumbered or 3-digit county roads. Those are the ones to ride in Dutchess, Albany and Greene County. Wow the roads out here are just absolute pleasure to ride a motorcycle on!
After a day of blasting around upstate NY at some insane speeds, listening to the supercharger whistle as he would blow by me, and watching that H2 completely take off from me on the long stretches of empty roads was just too much fun! The old Italian girl was just no match for that green machine. However, the sound coming from the Sil Moto Pipes on the ST3 was enough to keep me smiling as we piled on the miles.
We ended up in a small little town just north of the Catskills and invited Kasanda to join us for dinner to thank her for the awesome recommendations on these roads. It was a great steak dinner, and we shared a delicious dessert.
Sunday morning arrived and it was time to start heading home, but 1st we needed to go to the spot this whole trip was about! A fun ride thru Catskill Park at some insane speeds (Tommy led most of this day) we found ourselves in the little town of Rocky Hill NY. Here at the off ramp to NY 17 you will find a cool sculpture by New York metal art sculptor Zac Max, aka Zac Shavrick. Now I don’t know if Fuzzy found this randomly or knew it was here, but I would never have known it existed if I wasn’t a fan of her writings and travel stories.
These are the things that stir my soul, these are the things that I so look forward to when I think about riding my motorcycle. It’s not just the sculpture, which is truly unique, but it’s the discovery of these things, the planning out the travel to it and then actually getting on my bike and going to find it. I can’t fully explain it, however I know a lot of you out there that may be reading this get it.
I know fuzzy does!
Oh, and what did I tell you earlier about having Top Gun Tommy lead? Well on one open stretch of road in a unnamed town in Western MA we came up to a group of “Riders” in perfect riding formation. You know the type…lol.. they were certainly enjoying their ride at their pace (under speed limit by the way) As we approached them at a rapid rate Tommy said something like ” Im going for it” on the comms and then the green machine took off! Like the 2nd pilot in on blue angles, when the leader says lets go, ya go!
Actually, this photo was taken after that pass, and was after passing a pickup truck at a slow speed. The local officer was very kind and let us off with a verbal warning, I hope she doesn’t read this story!
