I left my house a little after 8am to meet Tom at Flanders McDonald's for 9. I pull in about 8:50 and Tom comes out with Dan Dunn who came to see us off. We leave right at 9. As planned I met Tom in the McDonalds East Lyme parking lot about 8:50. The temp was around the mid 20's when we took off. We had called Mark just prior to leaving so he could leave his house in Prospect and meet us at the rest area on 95S just past Route 8 near Bridgeport. We figured about 1 hour to meet Mark and as we came upon the rest area we saw it was closed for construction with a sign that the next one is in 14 miles so we continued on. A few minutes later Tom says I think I see Mark is a few cars ahead as there is another motorcycle and chances are it could only be Mark. Sure enough it's Mark and we catch him and he falls in and we continue on our way. We debated wether to go either the Tappan Zee or GW bridge which I prefer as it's faster & shorter but can be trouble getting across the cross Bronx Expressway which generally has traffic issues. We listen to the traffic channel and it didn't sound like any major problems so we chose the GW. It turned out to be pretty good with only about an overall 5 minute delay for a short period of heavy traffic. One of the added things to watch out for this time of year and especially this harsh winter is potholes. Some can be big enough to swallow your bike! Surprisingly we didn't encounter any huge ones but they were quite a few smaller ones to be aware of although on one section of the Cross Bronx the seam between lanes was consistently about 6" wide & 6" deep. We all have EZ-pass so that made it nice once on Jersey Pike. We stopped at the second rest area on the Jersey Pike for our 1st gas around 11ish. This is where we saw our 1st and only other biker riding. We did see several trailered bikes. We decide to eat a small lunch now quickly and get back on the road quickly to try and get through Washington before rush hour. So off we go. Fortunately Tom took the Queen instead of Old Red and we were cruising 75+. We got into and through Washington about 3:30 but once on the south side heading into Virginia we got jammed up for over an hour in a bumper to bumper mess. I could never understand why one minute your standing still part of the time, then you'll go up to normal speed for a 1/2 mile, then slow down or stop then go a steady 20, then something else, then repeat!!! I took a civil engineering course in traffic back in college to try an understand the cause of traffic and there is no understanding it!!!!!! After we finally get moving again we had our
2nd gas stop in Virginia. We take back off and Mark realizes he didn't clip his helmet. He tells Tom & I to continue slow and he'll pull over and catch up. We continue on in the right lane about 50 and in a few minutes Mark radios for us to get over to the left lane as he coming up. We get back in line in the left lane and all of a sudden we see a giant dust storm from the other side of the highway just in front of us as from a crash on the other a mini van comes crashing into the Jersey barrier and comes partially over spraying debris and car parts into our lane. Fortunately it was over before we realized what happened and the stuff in our lane was not any bigger than someone fist. If we were 5 seconds earlier we would of been in the debris spray!! After this excitement we keep heading south down I-95. We pull in for our 3rd gas stop about 5:30. As we gas up we feel it getting colder as the sun is going down. Our goal is Wilson, SC and we call ahead an book a hotel room. We head out for the last 150ish miles and after 50 miles we're all getting whipped from the cold & wind we've been battling all day and that last 100 miles seemed to never end. We pulled in to the hotel about 8:20 for a 12 hour saddle day and about 650 miles. We had a quick dinner at the Cracker Barrel next door and crashed for the night. More to come!
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