The end of the road

Well with every great adventure there comes a time for it to be over and, and that time came a couple days ago, I just haven't announced it on here yet. I continued heading north to upstate New York to stay with a good friend of mine Shawn Hogan from VMI. However on my way to Watertown i made a quick stop in Bufalo New York to see the awesome Niagara Falls. It was just a quick stop so i didn't stay there too long, that and it was raining. I was really glad though to get to Shawn's in Watertown because the rain was torrential, everything on me was absolutely soaked, there was so much rain i had almost an inch of water in my boots. So Watertown was awesome, I got to meet all of Shawn's Army friends and we went to a number of fine Watertown establishments. I also got the opportunity to go white water rafting down the Black River which apparently has some of the world's best white water runs. I can thank Estelle for the awesome white water trip. We did a lot of class 4 rapids and with all the rain that Watertown has been having the river was higher and more intense than it had been in the past three years. We had an awesome rafting guide who took us down some of the tougher routes and we went over a couple waterfalls. The next day Shawn took me to a state park near Watertown where we went rappelling on these cliffs overlooking Lake Ontario. After the rappelling adventure Shawn, Estelle and I just hung out on the rocks and read and relaxed. On our way back from the beach we saw a seafood restaurant so naturally being our hungry selves we stopped in and got dinner there. It was a rather nice place and i was a little nervous about going there because I was wearing just my swim suit and a stellar sleeveless motorcycle shirt Allison sent me. However the restaurant owner let us eat there and i thought our apparel added a little color to the place anyhow. The official last day of riding occurred on Sunday August 11th. Initially I planned to make it a two day ride from upstate New York to my home in Virginia, but when I got on the road it turned out that it was a very doable 400 plus miles away so rather than stay in a campground over night I decided to hightail it all the way back home. I was on interstate 81 for much of the trip with some heavy rain at times and at one place in Pennsylvania around Scranton i believe there was tons and tons of hail on the road. It looked like a huge storm had just passed through and thankfully I did not have to ride in it, but there was so much hail that it looked like it had snowed. It was piled up almost 3 inches high on parts of the road, and it was a pretty surreal scene to see all the hail. Well I made it home around 9:30 Sunday evening, and surprised my parents having arrived a day early. So after almost 15,000 miles and a little under two and a half months I had made it back! Oh one story i forgot to mention, so many people asked me along the way if i listen to music or anything when i ride and i would tell them no, all that time and no music, i know you must say wow how bored did you get. So when i was in Watertown I bought some headphones for my motorcycle helmet and I listened to some tunes for the first time, which really was pretty nice to have some music to listen to and why i did not do it sooner i have no idea. But anyways when I was leaving Syracuse New York after saying my good byes I got on the road for my last leg of my adventure, and I thought it was so ironic because as soon as i pushed play on my shuffled songs Johnny Cash's "I've Been Everywhere" came on it was so strange because while I was listening to the song he names of all these places, and I was mentally going through them and I swear I must have visited almost 70 percent of all the places he mentioned just this summer. So that was kind of interesting and slightly ironic that that was the first song that came on while I was riding! Well I must say this was quite an adventure I had an absolutely amazing time, I saw some amazing places, got to meet great people, see all my family, and I really learned a whole heck of alot about motorcycles! I want to thank anyone and everyone who helped me along the way and supported me through this trip. Everywhere I went i was greeted with the greatest hospitality ever! Here are some quick facts about the trip that I kept record of.

• one and a half sets of tires were used
• 5 oil changes
• over 291 gallons of fuel burned
• average miles per gallon 42 (driving conservatively at 55 mph)
• average miles per gallon 26 (full throttle driving at 80 plus mph)
• clutch cable replaced in San Francisco
• 2 flat tires both front
• dropped the bike countless times
• new chain and spark plug southern California
• only stayed in 2 hotels the entire trip
• Visited 27 states
• almost 15,000 miles traveled
• 72 days on the road

I hope everyone enjoyed reading this, I know it was rather lengthy at times but there was just so much to see out there in the United States! This really was an adventure that I will remember for the rest of my life and I was very happy to share it with you, next adventure... South America!!!