An Excellent Motorcycle Adventure! Day 2!
Buffalo NY to Painesville OH
Today we had to deal with weather.
When you are traveling by motorcycle, you are going to be impacted by weather. It is a fact of life, not to be avoided, part of the experience… so EMBRACE it, and DEAL with it. No Complaining.
But seriously, we are already avoiding weather on the second day?
We set the alarm for early Tuesday morning so that we can check early morning televised weather reports and use our Advanced Storm Tracking Technology (ASTT).[1] There is a stalled warm front extending from roughly St Louis MO (our destination on Wednesday) to Buffalo NY (our current location). It had, the previous night, produced tornados in Detroit MI and funnel clouds in Indiana. We are less concerned with seeing a tornado than we are with staying dry.
We after a detailed data analysis, we arrive at a plan of action. There is a small cell of thunder storms approaching Buffalo which should arrive at about 8:00 AM. There is an extremely large cell of thunderstorms about two hours behind it, stretching to the southwest. We will depart Buffalo at 7:30 AM, maneuvering south of the first storm and then race to Columbus OH, skirting to the south of the second storm and arriving in Columbus before a third storm cell arrives.
We are on I-90 again, heading for Pennsylvania and then Ohio. The bike needs gas again, so we gas up at the rest area just west of Hamburg NY.
The skies are threatening, with low, dark, overhanging clouds. It is very gloomy and actually a little cold. I wish I had put my gloves on, but don’t want to stop. We get hit with a few rain drops and then a few more. The eastbound traffic in the other lane, sometimes cars have their window wipers on. We are tense.
But slowly, the skies clear without us getting seriously wet. We are on our way.
There is not much going on on this section of I-90. Wea re still in the St Lawrence watershed, so nothing new there. We see some vineyards. The odd cow to two. The most interesting thing in this part of the journey is the“leaving New York State and entering the Seneca Nation” sign.[2] I had forgotten about the Seneca Nation, although I had driven this road before. It was a small oasis on the thruway full of billboards, and apparently low cost cigarettes and booze.
Welcome to the Seneca Nation (public domain)
From the Seneca Nation we pass into Pennsylvania. There initially is not much to see, but eventually Lake Erie comes into view. There is a small resort area at Presque Isle, which looks like a beach, a water park and the usual assortment of “Interstate Highway Lodging Options” (IHLOs).[3]
We are making good time as we cross into Ohio, and the skies have cleared to “partly sunny” and the threat of rain has dissipated. The odometer shows we have traveled 165 miles, which is half the distance to Columbus, so we are comfortable stopping at Painesville, OH for breakfast.
The Waffle House
We pull off the interstate at Painesville OH. There are many breakfast choices, so I am secretly amused when Ruth suggests The Waffle House. She knows how much I like it. I’ve spent a lot of time in the South and the Southwest where… so I don’t either. Waffle Houses are ubiquitous, but we don’t have them in Cambridge.
This one is nearly deserted. There is an elderly gentleman sitting at the counter having a spirited discussion with the woman manager about taxes. I can’t quite hear the details. There are two elderly women sitting over coffee watching the traffic go by. There is an elderly couple having breakfast. There is a young mother with two young girls. I calculate we have reduced the average age of the customers by three years. We occupy the booth next to the elderly
Our server is a young, bleached blond, woman. She has a very complicated tattoo on her left forearm. It is a long text of some sort and I keep trying to read it, but it is upside down and in script so I’m having trouble. It seems to have about thirty words. I am fascinated. We order coffee and tea.
I watch the little girls spill their food all over the floor, but nobody seems to mind.[4]
Ruth and I strategize on the rest of the trip to Columbus, we try to access our ASTT system but we cannot get a signal. Apparently cell phone and internet access is difficult in rural areas.[5] The server returns with our coffee and tea and is ready to take our order. I’m still trying to read her tattoo without being too obvious about it.
Unfortunately for me, when the food arrives, it is the other server that delivers it, so I don’t get to see the mysterious tattoo again. I order another cup of coffee in the hopes of the 1st server will deliver it, allowing me to see the tattoo again, but I am stymied by the efficiency of the 2nd server as he brings me my coffee. I eat my breakfast sullenly.
We finish eating and Ruth goes to use the restroom. She is not gone 10 seconds when I hear a voice from the booth behind me, “That your motorcycle out there?” It is the gentleman behind me in the adjoining booth.
“Yessir.” I look behind me, but he doesn’t look at me as he continues talking.
“I used to have a motorcycle onst.” I wait for him to continue. “It was one of those ol’ Harleys, you know with the ‘suicide shifter’… the stick shift on the side and the foot clutch”. He pauses. I’m thinking this would have been in the late ‘40s or early ‘50s. He continues wistfully, “I shure wish I had it today… be worth a lot of money…”.
“Yessir,” I tell him, “folks pay a lot of money to restore those old bikes… $40,000 – $50,000 sometimes.”
He nods, “I reckon I paid about $500 for it back then.” Then allows, “But I’m too old for motorcycles now.” He almost turns around to look at me. Then looks at his wife, “I’d have to ride alone now.”
His wife joins the conversation, “I’d like to have killed him onst… I rolled him over on a snowmobile” I take this to mean that she shifted her weight the wrong way once and caused the snowmobile to go out of control.
He confirms the story, “I wouldn’t never let her ride on the back no more.” Then continues, “She also tried to kill me rolla skatin’ onst… tripped me up and threw me down on the hard wood floor.”
She laughs. “And I almost run him over with the car…” She is pleased at the memory.
We all sit in silence for a bit, silently reflecting on the past mayhem… but then he sees Ruth is coming back from the restroom. He places three dollars on the table for the server’s tip, takes his bill and rises. “Well… good talkin’ to ya… have a good trip.” I thank him and they depart. Ruth sits down and I drink the coffee that I didn’t really want.
I never got his name.
When we leave, there are only the two elderly women left, with their coffees. As we are paying the bill, we eavesdrop on a discussion between the Waffle House Staff: the two servers, the cook and the manager. They are having a spirited, cogent, informed and intelligent discussion on Federal Food and Drug Administration Regulations for food labeling. The 2nd server is making the case that food kills more people in the United States then guns, “… you got obesity, diabetes, heart disease…”. That’s all I can catch as we head out the door.
Painesville OH to Medina OH
We get back on the bike and continue on our way, eventually heading on a more southerly route via I-271 and then I-71.
When we get a little south of Medina, there is a big sign on the side of the road, “You Are Now Entering the Ohio River Watershed”. I am very excited by this. Even Ruth, who doesn’t quite share my fetish for watershed to the same degree, is somewhat excited.[6]
Medina OH to Columbus OH
The skies are really threatening now, and sometimes we see cars in the northbound lanes with window wipers on. We get a few drops here and there. We can see rainstorms off in the distance.
The bike needs gas again, so we stop in Ashland OH to fill up. There is a tourist trap called Grandpa’s Cheese Barn. I ask Ruth if she needs any cheese for the trip, but she demurs.
Some other riders come in to gas up. They are three people traveling together, a single man about our age on a Harley Davidson Electra Glide Ultra. The other two are a couple on one of those new Harley Trikes. We exchange pleasantries and comment about dodging the rain drops. They are heading north on I-71, essentially heading east while we are heading west. They’ve never seen the east coast before, just as we’ve never seen the big mountains and rivers of the west.
After a few more miles we arrive in Columbus. Columbus seems deserted to us, there is no traffic and no pedestrians. We have a few more false starts trying to find a hotel and drive around a little bit until we find one right on the river.[7]
We have just unloaded the luggage under the protection of the hotel awning when the skies open and the rain pours down. I estimate it at a rate of four inches per hour.
All in all a good day.
Summary
Date: June 24, 2014
Departure Location: 391 Washington Street, Buffalo, NY
Arrival Location: 50 S Front St, Columbus, OH
Total Miles: 350
Total travel time: 6:55
Total miles/total travel time: 50.6 mph
Number of States: 3 (New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio)
Number of Watersheds: 2 (St Lawrence River/Lake Erie Division, Mississippi River/Ohio River Division)
Stops: 3 (Hamburg NY (gas), Painesville Ohio (breakfast), Ashland Ohio (gas))
Weather: Cloudy, Threatening Skies, Clearing, Partly Sunny AM, Cloudy PM, Threatening Skies, Scattered Showers PM
Temperature: 7:00 AM (Buffalo NY) 68 ͦ F, 12:00 Noon (Medina OH) 85 ͦ F, 7:00 PM (Columbus OH) 85 ͦ F
Lodging: Double Tree Suites by Hilton, Columbus OH. Restaurants: Waffle House, Painesville OH; Fin, Columbus OH
———————————————————————————
[1] We have these nifty hand-held communications devices and “subscribe” to several weather services where we can directly access US Government National Weather Service Doppler Weather Radar Imagery, keyed right to whatever out current location is. It is amazing technology, although understanding exactly all the “ins and outs” of how it operates is beyond my understanding except in a most general way.
[2] For an interesting take on the Seneca Nation and their battles with the State of New York, see http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/17/nyregion/thruway-intensifies-dispute-between-seneca-nation-and-new-york-state.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
[3] Hampton Inn, Days Inn, Red Roof Inn, La Quinta, etc., etc., etc.
[4] When we discuss this later, Ruth says she couldn’t believe that the staff didn’t clean up the mess. She already has a low opinion of Waff Houses, so I am worried about what this means for the rest of the trip…
[5] Unsurprisingly, the Waffle House does not offer free WiFi.
[6] A word about my fascination with watersheds. I try to only count watershed where the river actually ends up in the ocean. When we enter the Ohio watershed, we are really entering the Mississippi watershed. This is tremendously exciting. We will be in the Mississippi watershed for the next ten or eleven days!
[7] The Scioto River is a tributary of the Ohio.
wtimothycarey 