DAY
14, SATURDAY, JUNE 15, 2013
My alarm sounded at 6:30 AM and I turned it off. A minute or two later, C.E. woke up. I got up to get dressed and my alarm sounded,
again. I didn’t understand it because I
know that I turned my alarm off. It was
C.E.’s alarm. He has the same ring tone
that I do. We got dressed and packed our
stuff. C.E. told me that he has what I
had and that he doesn’t feel very well.
We finished up and I told C.E. that I was going downstairs for breakfast
and that I would see him there. Jan and
Ken were already having breakfast. The
others came in slowly and had their breakfast.
I left to go back to the room to see if I could try and catch up on
posting pictures onto Facebook. I was
only able to post one! C.E. came in and
we both took our stuff to our Motors and packed them. I walked to the front desk to check out and
saw Chuck and J.B. having coffee and looking over the map. It was J.B.’s turn to lead. We were all packed and rode next door to the
gas station and filled up. We left at
8:25 AM with J.B. in the lead.
We have a first!
It didn’t take J.B. long to “screw up” as the lead. As a matter of fact, this was the fastest
“screw up” that we have had in all of the years that we have been doing these
rides. J.B. led us northbound and we got
on U.S. 1. Within, I guess, 10 minutes
of riding, we came to a fork on the road.
The road going straight north was marked “1” and the road to the right
was marked “88.” J.B. went right! Chuck was fourth in line and he pointed
north. We all followed J.B., because
that is what we do. To J.B.’s credit, he
caught it quickly and made a u-turn. We
all followed, even though there were other cars trying to go north and south
without hitting any one of us. We all
made the u-turn and went back to the fork in the road. J.B. then turned the proper way. At the next light, Jan, who was last, rode
next to me and said, “That’s going to make the blog! That has to be the fastest ‘screw up” we’ve
had so far. I guess it’s difficult to
differentiate between a 1 and an 88.” We
continued north on Highway 1.
Highway 1 has many little towns that vary in little
ways. It seems like your ride for a few
blocks and another sign pops up, “Welcome to….”
We rode for 39 miles and entered a town named Brunswick, ME. The last four in the group: Ken, Greg, Al and Jan, caught a red light at
an intersection. The other four continued
on, but slowly, so that we could catch up.
At the next light, the other four turned left and pulled over to wait
for us as we caught the red light again.
The light turned green and we all turned. The other four were still stopped by the side
of the road and we stopped with them.
Traffic was heavy on this street.
J. B. could not go any further because he lost his throttle for his
Motor. The throttle or “get up and go
controller” would not allow J.B. to gain any speed. When the traffic was clear, J.B. made a left
turn and parked across the street on a dirt parking lot. The others eventually made the turn also and
pulled in. J.B. got on the phone and
called the Harley Davidson Service people and explained the situation. They told him that it was a quick fix over
the phone. J.B. touched the right grip
with his right hand, raised his right leg, turned the ignition switch on for 15
seconds and then off. The right hand and
the right leg were lowered. He had to do
this three times. As he did, some of us
also raised our right hands and right legs for support. I’m sure that the motorists passing us in
their cars probably thought that we were doing some kind of spiritual dance for
the Harley gods! It sounds funny;
however, IT WORKED! The Motor started
right up and we were good to go. When
J.B. pulled over onto the dirt parking lot, Chuck jumped all over J.B. about
stopping at a dirt parking lot and not at a place where we could go to the
bathroom and buy coffee! We all got
ready to go and to try to get back onto the street was another story. We waited for the street to clear, and it did
for J.B. and Bruce to get out. Chuck
rode his Motor onto the street and blocked the southbound traffic so that the
entire group could get out. You should
have seen the face of the older gentleman driving the car that was stopped by
Chuck’s maneuver. You should have also
seen the females face too! We all got
out and left at 9:23 AM.
J.B. led the group and stopped in 3 miles, still in
Brunswick, at a gas station/mini-mart at 9:30 AM. That was much better! We all went in for a pit stop and bought some
fluids to replace what we lost. Now,
when we were leaving, it was a spectacle to watch! We all got ready. Jan and Ken backed up and rode to the
opposite end of the large parking lot to get in our line or formation. We were talking about which exit we would use
to leave the parking lot and get back onto the highway. J.B. rode his Motor to the south and then
around the building. Ken rode back to
the front of the mini-mart and stopped.
I backed up and got behind Ken about 50 feet. Bruce, Greg, C.E. and Chuck followed J.B. and
rode around the building. J.B. came
around and stopped next to Ken. The
others came around from the back of the building. Ken and J.B. turned around and met up with
them. They all lined up behind J.B. and
exited the parking lot from the far north exit.
Jan and I started up and got behind the group. It looked like a Chinese Fire Drill! All we needed was Circus music to go along
with what the group did. We left at 9:50
AM.
We continued on Highway 1 going through all of those
little towns. It was getting close to
lunch and after riding for 21 miles, we stopped at the Dockside Restaurant in
Belfast, ME at 12:03 PM. We parked
across the street along the side of the road on marked parking stalls. The pavement was fresh and we were on an unusual
incline. We carefully parked our Motors
and eventually felt good about the Motors the way they were parked. We walked across the street and got two
tables of four outside on the balcony, overlooking the street, the Motors and
the water. After we had finished eating,
we heard a crash! Ken yelled, “Oh my
God!” We looked back to our Motors and
my Motor and Ken’s Motor were down! I
went to the Motors, followed by Greg and J.B.
Before we knew it, two local Police Officers were there to assist. They told us that they had received a call
from a female that two Motors were down.
We got Ken’s Motor up from its right side and Greg secured it and parked
it so that it wouldn’t fall again. The
two Officers, J.B. and I lifted my Motor and put it back, rubber side down! I moved it into a better position so that
when I put the kick stand down, it was leaning to the left as it should
be. I put a metal plate under the kick
stand so that it wouldn’t dig into the fresh asphalt. We surmised that after Ken parked his Motor,
he put it on the center stand. With the
fresh asphalt, the right leg of the center stand dug into the asphalt. With the weight of the Motor, it dug into the
asphalt and fell onto its right side, striking my Motor at the left saddlebag
and pushing it over onto its right side.
Both Motors were up righted and we thanked the Officers for their quick
response and their assistance. I gave
each of the Officers a Phoenix Police Patch.
The Sergeant then gave me one of his.
After we were finished taking care of the Motors, we returned to the
restaurant to pay for our meals. We
returned to our Motors and I inspected mine.
My Motor got some scratches on the right, rear view mirror housing and
scratches on the left saddlebag and left side of the trunk. Ken’s Motor suffered a broken right, rear
view mirror. With all of this done, we
left at 1:13 PM.
J.B. led us on Highway 1 and after 58 miles; we arrived
at the Acadia National Park Visitor’s Center at 2:36 PM. We had to go there because some of the guys
needed to buy a pass so that they could enjoy the Park. We started the tour of the park and first
stopped at Cadillac Mountain. We parked
our Motors and walked the summit. We
took pictures and enjoyed the awesome scenery.
It is written on one of the signs that if a person stood there alone at
dawn, he might see the sun’s first rays.
We continued our tour and stopped at a gift shop. We went in and bought some stuff. Let me tell you, we didn’t buy much because
we don’t have much room to store it. So
ladies and families don’t get too upset when we return home and we don’t bring
you a lot of goodies! We would love to,
but we can’t. We left the Park at 4:57
PM after riding only 21 miles. J.B. led
us to a Shell gas station. We arrived at
Somesville, ME after 7 miles and got there at 5:09 PM. We all gassed up and leader changed. Ken was up next and got with Chuck and the
map to see where he needed to lead us.
We left at 5:26 PM.
Ken did a great job of leading the Group to Banger,
ME. We wanted to spend the night in
Banger because it was away from the Park and the prices of the hotels were much
less expensive. We were told by a woman
at the Visitor’s Center that the hotels close to the Park go for over $400 a
night for a single room. None of us
could pay that much for a room except for Chuck, and we weren’t going to let
him stay by himself! We rode for 45
miles and stopped in Banger at 6:23 PM.
Ken stopped in a parking lot after trying a couple of streets to find a
hotel. Chuck got out his map and cell phone
and found a Best Western not far from where we stopped. He told Ken where to go…NO, Chuck wasn’t mad
at Ken. He didn’t tell him that kind of
“where to go.” Chuck gave Ken the
directions of the Best Western. We rode
for 5 miles and at 6:39 PM we arrived at the “Best Western White House
Inn.” The front looks like the White
House in D.C. The inside of the hotel
has a presidential theme, with many pictures of the past Presidents. I walked into the lobby and saw a life size
cut out of President nobama. I walked
outside and tried to keep J.B. from entering the lobby. He insisted because he needed to go
potty. I told him that if he entered,
that I wouldn’t be responsible. J.B.
took a few steps in and saw the cut out and quickly made a 180 degree turn and
walked outside. The look on his face was
priceless! Three of the guys “made the
deal” for the hotel and we got our rooms.
We rode to our rooms and parked the Motors in from of our rooms and
unpacked. After the stuff was off loaded
from our Motors and into our rooms, we cleaned up our Motors a little and
“tucked” them in for the night. The
restaurant where we went to dinner was within walking distance and we didn’t
have to ride. C.E. wasn’t feeling very
well so he stayed in the room and went to sleep. Greg didn’t want to go and eat so late so he
stayed in his room and went to bed. We
ended up going to dinner at about 9:30 PM.
The restaurant, at a Truck Stop, had a few patrons. Just before 10 PM, it filled up with many
more patrons, including families.
Apparently, the car races were over.
We finished and walked back to our rooms. Everyone went to their rooms while I went to
the breakfast room to type this blog, another late night!
Today we rode for only 219 miles but we finally made it
to Acadia National Park! This Park is
what we based our Ride. Now that we
toured the Park, we are going to head westbound. So far, we have ridden for over 4,300
miles. It’s only a guess as to how many
miles we will travel on this ride. So,
until tomorrow…
No comments:
Post a Comment