Day: 28
Date: 29/4
City: Sparta, North Carolina
Miles ridden: 249
Cumulative miles: 1219

Today we got up earlier and met for breakfast at 8:00, then we left for the Blue Ridge parkway around 10:30.  The speed limit was 45mph, which was faster than the day before. We once more rode through clouds, but this time we also got to see the clouds from above at a lookout! The roads were just perfect, long bends for miles and miles and the landscape was spectacular.

Isn’t that nice?

After a short break we continued on, just enjoying the ride. Later that day we hit a detour which brought us to Sparta just at the end of the day. We booked into a motel – thanks to some serious haggling by Val we got the rooms cheaper after presenting a RAA membership card.  Who knew the discounts carried over /this/ far? 😉
We had missed diner time in the local restaurant next to the motel, so in the end we went to a Mexican Restaurant called Mis Arados . This turned out to be a great find – the food was great and cheap! Back in the room, when we tried to plan the next days. We soon realised that the museum in Magi Valley was closed on Tue and Wednesday – of course these were the days we would be there. Will see what we can do about it tomorrow.

Day: 29
Date: 30/4
City: Ashville, North Carolina
Miles ridden: 161
Cumulative miles: 1380

We decided to skip Maggi Valley, so we had a late start today, leaving around 11:00. Blue Ridge Parkway was great, nice curves and beautiful landscape, like a mixture out of the Great Ocean Road in Victoria and some of the mountain roads in Tasmania. We had a couple of stops at some nice places:

The best stop for Bjoern was on the top of a mountain, where you could see the 4 or 5 smaller mountain ranges in the far distance. The lookouts are often crooked and stopping there proved to be hazardous to one of our bikes in particular. Val had our first ding on the trip when the bike tipped over on a stop next to a curb. She and Victoria- her bike – (Brian’s is called Victor by the way 🙂 ) got some bruises, but hopefully that will all pass soon.

This is shortly after the topple; all picked up and ready to go again. Way to go Val!

We enjoyed the remainder of the day

 

Note the Wombat and the Diddles in the picture! 🙂

The cloudy weather prevented us from seeing everything clearly, but it was still beautiful.

For lunch we went out of the park and found a place that did sandwich subs – baguette like things – quite tasty.

As a side note this sign in the loo caught Bjorn’s attention and made him laugh out loud:

After some more awesome scenery,

we arrived in Ashville around 17:30. We found nice accommodation and had a nice Mexican meal with huge beer for me and a Margarita for Sigrid.

Next morning we caught up with Mike,

and then we continued along the parkway. By chance we met Mike again at the end of the parkway and that night and stayed together in Bryson city.

This is the visitor centre at the end of the Blue Ridge Parkway

One exiting thing remains on this leg of the trip – the ride of the Tail of Dragon Road…

 

…which will happen tomorrow 🙂

Day: 20
Date: 21/4
City: Fords, New Jersey
Miles ridden: 150
Cumulative miles: 450

We all got our bikes out today…

And then went to a shopping centre. Ordered a prepaid phone card for me, Wombat and Val ordered packsafe net for each of us. Next we decided to do a test ride to Bear Mountain, which has a very pretty road.
I also tried to use the video camera, the battery was flat. Must be because of the GPS I think :/

We also climbed to the top of the mountain, which had beautiful view.

19/04

The troubleshooting by Sigrid and Simon was successful; the problem was that Sigrids version of Word wasn’t setup to send the pictures to the server. Once fixed, we had breakfast at 9:30, but by that time Wombat and Val were really hungry. After breakfast we packed our stuff and started the drive at around 11:30. Val once more found beautiful accommodation with indoor pool, heated spa and gym for $72 about 10 miles away from Twisted Throttle, which is the shop that supplies the heated vests and other motorbike accessories we need for our trip.

 

We arrived there around 19:20 and had a nice meal at Fat Belly, which is sort of a Irish pub.

We went back to the hotel and had a swim in the pool and relaxed in the hot spa. Wombat didn’t have bathers with him, so neither Val nor him could use the pool.
Once we were relaxed we had a brief meeting to see what we’ll do the next couple of days.

20/04

The day started by us attempting to use the pool again, but it was closed for cleaning :/

So we went to breakfast a little earlier and met up with Wombat and Val.

After packing up we left for Twisted Throttle where we were planing to stay for an hour. We arrived 10 AM, started browsing and got really good customer service from Will. He was patient enough to give us advice, let us try all the different sizes, waited until we made up our mind (I’ll take this bracket! Actually, wait, I don’t need it. No, wait, Actually I take it 😉 ). There was also free coffee, donuts and some pinball machines :-).
Val and Wombat disappeared into the twisted throttle dungeon (a top notch workshop with all the bells and whistles that an engineering workshop needs) to try some of the equipment on the currently build project bike, which is a 2012 V Storm.  All four of us bought heaps of stuff- but for Sigrid the most important thing was the heated vests and heated gloves. In the end, everybody was happy and Will was kind enough to take a picture of us and put it onto the twisted throttle Facebook.

After our little shopping spree we left there around 2pm, which was just marginally longer than the planed 1 hour… So we headed down to the nearby beach and took in the scenery.

The awesome T-shirts are thanks to twisted throttle!

Before heading back to New Jersey we had some food at a local store called Iggys

Later that night we got caught in a bad traffic jam coming back into New York. It took us almost 2 hours to move about 4 miles, which reminded me of Berlin. The time felt even longer for Bjoern and Wombat who were busting to go. It was quite funny to see them racing at the next petrol stop after the traffic congestion cleared, and the total relieve on their faces after J

18/04

We got treated to a coffee from room service by Val at around 8 o’clock. Had a brief chat with Simon about our Blog problem but we postponed the troubleshooting to tomorrow. Went for breakfast, simple continental including Muffins which were quite nice.

We drove to Niagara Falls and parked the car infront of the travel information building. We only had to pay $5 (instead of $10) and got a free coffee with it. Ok, Sigrid said it was quite bitter, but it /was/ free 😛

The information desk clerk tried to sell us a 4 hour trip for $80. Sigrid and Wombat said that they saw something similar at the other information stall for only $33. So we gave it a miss and went to the other information stall. The lady was very helpful and advised us that most of the attraction would be free, only for the boat trip and the Cave of the winds had a charge attached to them. So we decided to entertain ourselves (good choice!). First we walked over the pedestrian bridge to the Luna Island.

The view from the Island was magnificent. We were directly on the edge of the American falls.

And we got a picture of the honeymooners!

After that we went to the Terrapin point on the Horse shoe falls, which is the Canadian side of the falls.  I have to admit that it was even better than Luna Island.

It seems that the Canadian falls are much bigger. From there we went to the ‘Cave of the winds complex’ which brought us down to the base of the waterfalls by elevator.

It was really nice, but most of the walkways were closed for renovation. All of us realised that we must have taken more footage then we thought, because nearly all of our batteries where empty. So we went back to the hotel, got the spare batteries and memory chips, had a quick bite at McDonalds and went back to the falls for the boat trip. We got the tickets, went onto the tower, took a couple of pictures and then headed down to the boat mooring.

We hopped onto the boat not long after, and had a marvellous boat trip.

After that we went onto the bridge to enter Canada.

Everything went well and we crossed the border without problems.  Once on the Canadian side we looked for a coffee shop. Quite by accident we discovered that we could still go on the ‘behind the waterfall walk’.  It was 6:20 and the walk was open until 7:00.

Unfortunately the walk was a bit disappointing.

So we headed over to a restaurant and waited until 8:30 when the lights for the waterfall come on. Now THAT was spectacular. We took loads of couple of pictures, here’s some of them:

and went back over the Canadian American Bridge and then to our hotel home.

17/4
miles: 303
Sigrid organized a car over the internet for this part of the trip.
We picked up the car in the morning with Wombat, but we would have needed to pay another $50 to allow additional drivers – like Brian and Val. Opted against it, which meant that only Sigrid and Bjoern could drive this hire car:

As it turned it it wasn’t an issue anyway.
We allowed the wombat to drive first

then Bjoern drove to Niagara without any problems. Wombat navigated. Sigrid and Val had their laptops to keep them happy. Along the way we had some fun with our travel companions

And a well deserved coffe break:

As we approached the falls we were greeted by beautiful blooming trees, they looked like they had snow on them!

We saw the the water falls from the top and raced towards the edge. We were very excited!

Then the falls.. even only a short look was awe-inspiring

After the excursion we looked for accommodation – it all seemed a bit dear around there… Finally, with Val’s help looking up accommodation on the internet, we found a newly build Motel 6 for a good price

Everyone like it 🙂

Had dinner after that at the ‘Ponderosa’ restaurant which reminded us a bit on Sizzlers back home a few years ago. We chose it sow we could get something not too spicy as Wombat had some issues with his gallbladder. We also organized some oats for him, but with no microwave or cooking in the room he’s been able to avoid them thus far 😉.

The night ended with us having a beer and checking out the pictures we took of our trip so far.

Day: 10 – 12
Date: 11/4 – 13/4
City: Fords, New Jersey
Miles ridden: 300
Cumulative miles: 300

Here we are, having a yummy breakfast in front of the Central Vermont Bike shop. We almost have the bikes!

Finally, we arrived at Central Vermont Motorcycles and met Jay and Jeremy. We talked with them on the phone and via email for  nearly 3 Months and they helped us a lot during the purchase and registration process. Finally we got to meet them in person!

When you have to do something remotely, it’s been my experience that there’s a couple of things that don’t go to plan.  You just accept it and move on.  But not with these Guys!
Everything was organized and went perfectly smoothly.  Even our special number plates had arrived.
The customer service here is just exceptional. Jay even drove us back from the airport where we had to drop off the rental car!

Once all the paperwork was done, Bjoern got to work on the bikes putting our additional luggage and the GPS on. Meanwhile the Diddles spent some time taking possession of their bikes 🙂

The first time we have brand new bikes!

The number plates look great!

You may have noticed…. My topbox does not clip on anymore. Bjoern fixed it with a strap. We are almost ready to go now, the only thing is that the weather is rather chilly and rainy. So out comes all of our raingear – that should keep us reasonably warm!

Eventually we had to do some minor mechanical work on the road… the batteries for the GPS were almost empty and to add the device to the power supply of the new bikes requires some modifications…

Done, but it became a bit late so we stopped in a small town about 100 miles away from Jersey

What a great day, though!  Time for sleep 🙂

Today we met Mathias and Gabi at 8 am, so they would still be able to go shopping after breakfast. Well, it ended up being 8:45 before we got going, but it was a good plan 😉
We had a nice breakfast while Gabi copied my pictures to her Macbook. We went back to the hotel, Gabi and Mathias said good bye and went to the city for their shopping spree. Meanwhile we ordered a taxi and got a ride to the LaGuardia airport, more specifically, to the Hertz car rental stall. We first got a Toyota Corolla, but the bumper was sagging, so we got another car.  This one was a Chevrolet.

Finally we left for Stephens home. There was a brush fire next to the highway, so it took us about 2 hours to get there (stop and go, stop and go, stop and go…). We  only arrived at Stephens house after the GPS told us to turn right too early, so after some UTurns (which always reminds me of a family holiday in Canberra) we arrived at Stephens house. Katherine opened the door and kept Mr Guinnes – the big black New Foundland dog – in check. We said hello to Colleen, repacked our stuff (we got the GPS and brackets!) and left some stuff in Stephens Van. We were not clear if we could leave the Van as it was or if we should put all of our stuff under the decking. Nobody knew and Sara said they would move it if needed. So we took off.

This is a picture from one of the service areas; they all seem to look the same

Five hours later we checked in into the Red Roof Inn – nice sign 😉

We had booked it in the morning, including free wi-fi and breakfast with waffles, pool and a sauna. We had a swim, sat in the sauna for a bit and, after a short shower, went shopping at 22:00 at night. We got some Australian wine (cheaper than we get it back home!) and some carrots, dolmades and some cheese. We went home, celebrated a successful day, played with the Spot and the Kindle for a bit and went to bed.
Tomorrow we get our bikes, yippee!.

I did notice that the bash plates hadn’t been in Stephens Van. I should really ask Stephen if it might be somewhere else. I’ll just have to wait until we are back, and then check what is there and what is missing…

 

We got up later in the morning today, had breakfast and then tried to fill out the online form for the N.Y. road authority. We had to sort out or Eazy pay tag. The website didn’t accept a foreign credit card so we called them. After getting the run around  for a while, a very patient lady got all our details and linked the tag to our credit card. We also called the insurance company and clarified what we had to get as proof of our previous bike insurance.
We finally left the hotel at 11:15 and took our first wrong turn onto the highway. Bjoern’s excuse was that the GPS is a bit flaky when it comes to short crossings… 10 miles one way and 10 miles back and we were finally riding in the right direction. 🙂

The rest of the trip went well, and we tried to keep the bike on about half throttle. (They’re new bikes, you have to ride them in first)

As we got close we missed the turn-off, this time the detour was much shorter, only around 5 miles.  So we arrived at Stephen and Karens house by a slightly more scenic route.

Whoops! The bikes are a bit big for the door…

We met the whole family and Wombat and Val again. They are still willing to put up with us for the next few days. Bjoern got all his new toys. He felt like a boy at Christmas. The best thing was that the bash plates arrived! Nice! Unfortunately some screws and a small brackets are missing. After catching up for a while, we followed Karen, Sara, Wombat and Val to a shopping centre. We tried to get a 12V soldering iron and a multimeter. That was unsuccessful, but browsing and shopping for other things was fun. We rode back to their place for some dinner ~ Colleen is a great cook! Sigrid called the Palace hotel and we went to use up the night Wombat and Val paid for when we were still in Adelaide. Had a beer and a wine at the bar , then were off to bed for some well deserved rest 🙂

We had a late start to meet our friend Belinda in Brooklyn. We’d not seen her in about 20 years, she is an American friend of our from when we lived in Berlin.
Bjoern used the extra time in the morning to book the car for the journey to Vermont to pick up the bikes.

We took the subway again and had some fun with the diddles along the way 😀

Meeting with Belinda was great, we talked all the time – we had so much to catch up on! Belinda prepared some sort of pancake for us, this way we adhered to the Passover ritual of not to have anything that rises. We also managed to get an extra dose of patting cats – Belinda has two.

Meet one of them – isn’t she cute?

After a very tasty brunch we had a walk through Belinda’s neighbourhood. How beautifully colourful!

This included Toms Diner, the one from the song by Suzan Vegas… dubdidudu dupdidudo dupdo dudup….

At least the diner owner thinks so 😉

Belinda said good bye to us on the subway

And then we went to look at Ground Zero

I thought it was a pretty moving memorial.  And the new towers are going up at the rate of knots!

 

The next few photos are from the walk to the Waldorf Astoria to catch up with Gaby and Matthias – a great place to meet 😉
Again, we had some fun with the Diddles

 

Once there we soaked up the surroundings while having a drink and then took some pictures

We headed back to little Italy, and had a nice meal in a Swiss restaurant.

And then spent some time walking through little Italy

stopping only for essentials, like for tiramisu, coffee and beer at a café.
Finally we went home, tired but happy 😀

Miles:0

Today we had a marvellous breakfast in a corner store at the train station. It looked like a restaurant from a movie. For me it was like paradise. They offered all types of omelettes and you could buy a bottomless cup of coffee (the coffee tasted nice and so did the omelettes!).

We all enjoyed it so much that the start to the city was a bit delayed. Today we thought we’d have a look at the Brooklyn Bridge. To be honest, Mathias came up with the idea, we just followed along :D. So we jumped on the train and nearly got it right.

We picked a train that did actually go to Brooklyn but via a different route. So we decided that we would walk the rest of the way. When we went through the streets, we saw plenty of Jewish people burning something in big piles, there where fires all over the place. I saw some bread and a toaster in one pile.

Belinda explained it to us later that this is part of the Passover celebration; all yiddish people shouldn’t eat any food that rises (that is, containing yeast) in their house, so it was all burned. We thought it was all really interesting:

 

After some detours we arrived at the famous restaurant on the side of the Brooklyn Bridge, but before we entered the restaurant we queued to get some freshly made ice-cream from a shop in an ex-fireboat house. The ice-cream and the view at this place were great.

This is the ice-cream store and Bjorn realised that the skyline was mirrored in the door. Nice shot! 😀

After we finished the ice-cream we went into the River Café restaurant,

Gabi and Mathias ordered two glasses of wine and I ordered two glasses of Champagne. Uhm.. As we are in New York and they call it sparkling wine, that turned out to be a rather expensive mistake… :/
Nevertheless, it tasted nice!

 

After a nice rest we walked over the Brooklyn Bridge.

It is impressive how people could manage to build something like this in the early 1900.

From there we walked across to the Hudson Rivers river front and found a curious sculpture area.

It looked like some topics were related to money, but we couldn’t figure out what it was all about. Regardless, the sculptures looked interesting.

We kept walking,

but by Peer 40 we started to feel our legs and we went into the city to have some dinner. Found a cosy Pizzeria had some salad, pizzas and wine and went home after.

 

The next day started simular,

Breakfast at the corner shop at the train station. After that Gabi and Mathias went to the city, Sigrid and I stayed home to organize some things needed for picking up the bike (and writing a blog).

In the afternoon we meet with Gabi and Mathis at the Apple store.

We had a short look and went out again; Gabi bought a protection for here iPhone, but the prices for the ipad2 were the same as everywhere else.

In a nearby building we stumbled across a bike for Bjoern!

Then we walked to the Rockefeller building, which was beautifully decorated

And more specifically, it was also decorated for easter 🙂

So up we went

Some pictures from above

Still more sightseeing , this is Grand Central Station

Gaby and Mattias had enough for the day – we motored on to the Empire State Building

The views from there are even more impressive! Sorry to say , even the Diddles agree, the Empire State Building beats the Rockefeller Centre for views over the city J

The lift there is a well-kept relic of the past.  Loved it!

On the way home we took the subway and were very surprised to find it not as deserted as expected. We had a nice ride home and arrived at abut 3am on Sunday morning, Happy Easter!