All Things Outdoors

Suddenly we wake up. What? It's 8am already?? Wow we slept so much last night! Looks like we covered up for the lost sleep.

We scrambled to get ready, ate breakfast at the motel and we were ready to leave. I decided to take out the inner liner from the jacket, thinking it might be hot outside. Kuntal already wore her jacket and thought of letting it be as is. We stepped out into the parking area, and realized how hot it was. It was 80 something already! And oh humid of course. She had no choice but to take out the liner from the jacket and the pants. We started and filled up gas first. By the time we got gas and hit freeway, we were already cursing the humidity.

This time I decided to ride a little slower than the traffic. It's so much relaxing that way. Kuntal could feel the difference as well. Glad we were not hating the traffic too much anymore. We quickly crossed into New York State via 95S. 

We could see the Long Island bay and the ferries on the way. Wish I could have gone to Stony Brook to show Kuntal my university, but we are time pressed now. May be in the next trip. As we crossed the Bronx area, we could see the city traffic building up. George Washington bridge was what we had to take to go to NJ. Traffic slowed down for quite a distance before the bridge. Luckily it wasn't too much for us. 

Finally crossed the GW bridge and we could see the city skyline at a distance on the left.

Now that we were in NJ, we had to call up Aayush, my younger brother, and decide on a meeting place close to NJ turnpike. 

We took a break at a gas station to coordinate the meet up, and stock up on water. The heat is in upper 90s today. Did I mention the humidity? Decided to meet up at a rest area about an hour into NJ. Let's move. We are back on to 95S, now called NJ turnpike. Here comes the first toll. Wtf! The machine won't dispense the ticket. Cars started piling behind us 😣. Pressed the attendant button, but no response. God knows if anyone would ever show up! This seemed to be the first toll on this freeway, so I thought chuck it. We'l be paying the max toll at the exit anyway. The turnpike was pretty full. Good speeds too. Close to the EWR airport there was a traffic delay due to an accident. So much for the express lanes! Saw bunch of cars taking emergency road and crossing over from express lanes to regular ones. Drive is crazy here. As we reached our meeting place we realized that the rest area was on the other side of the freeway. Took the next exit and asked Aayush to come there instead. Lounged at a Dunkin Donuts. Good to see him finally! And his new car too 😊.

By now it was about 1:30. We called Anuj (Kuntal’s friend) and his wife Priyanka to let them know we are running late. Decided to have lunch with them in Philadelphia. It was just an hour from there. Within a few minutes we were in Pennsylvania. 

Glad to find better roads and better traffic. We already crossed 100F on our way. By around 3pm we were at his apartment. We were sweating profusely. It was so nice to feel the AC in his apartment. Heaven!! It was exactly what we needed. Thank you for the wonderful lunch too!!

After meeting Aayush and Anuj, going through the heat and the crazy NY/ NJ traffic sure made us feel all worth it.

Towards Washington DC now. It's 2 hours and 30 minutes from here. We were back on the road by 4:30. Took a sightly lengthier route to avoid the freeway traffic congestion. We crossed Delaware and Maryland. 

By now I could see more and more motorcycles on the road. Pretty much all of them waved at us too. Felt nice to be back into friendly territory again 😊. The 301 road in Maryland was particularly nice. Trees on both sides of the road. Huge! Like wall to wall. Cutting off all the direct sun light. 

We could see farm lands again! All of that took us to the Bay Bridge. Yup there's one on the East coast too. It was a nice and particularly long bridge.

From here we decided which motel to go to, in DC. About 35 more minutes. We could see how nicer the roads to Washington has become. No trouble with the traffic as well. Just the heat. We were just waiting to get off, remove our jackets and take a cold shower. It's almost 8:30pm when we reached at the motel. Looks like a not so happening place. It's in DC but just at the border. We ordered some Thai food for delivery. Frikkin took more than an hour for delivery! Spicy as hell too, ouch!. Long day!

It's July 19th.

I know its been a long time since i posted this. LOTs to catch up ... so lets get right to it ...

Interestingly we woke up pretty early around 8 - 8:30am, even though we slept so late last night. Not sure what our plans were for the day, the laziness was sort of leading the day. Deepti made us awesome breakfast and tea, and was insisting to stay for the weekend as much as she could. We finally got ready and left by 11:30am. Vivaan was so excited to sit and start the motorcycle. Everything was so much fun! We are looking forward for our next meet up, hopefully in Bay Area next time. Love you guys!

After yesterday's terrifying and exhausting traffic, we decided to take the back roads today. We started on a gps route with the avoid-the-highway option. It was actually very nice going through the internal roads. The weather was nice too. It just rained before we started. 

But after a while, we thought of covering some distance first, and may be then taking the inner roads. The roads so far were nice, but all residential and too slow to do it all day. We ended up on the same freeway again : I-90. And obviously it quickly turned into a parking lot. To top it off, we got rains too. Soaking-us-wet rains. So glad to have bought the frogg togg pants. But you know what happens when it pours. You get wet anyway. With the awkward wet clothes we finally were able to cross the traffic, the rain and the stupid stupid I-90. It became a little nice after that. Weather wise that is. With the wind, we were able to somewhat dry ourselves. By now we were in Connecticut. 

For some reason I always thought Connecticut is not a big state. It's pretty huge actually. In fact Hartford seemed to be quite a big city. We stopped on the way for quick lunch at BK. While I was waiting at the picnic table right outside of BK, an old couple walks out of the store. Not knowing I was sitting right across at the table, the guy says to his wife, now this is the bike I would love to have. The woman knew I was sitting right there, while he was looking at the bike, and was quite amused with it. Finally she had to say, the owner is sitting right there. We had a good laugh at it. 

Then started the after lunch sluggishness. Boy it's hard to ride. I was feeling super sleepy. Not sure if this was lunch or the lack of sleep. We took a rest stop but the call for sleep was just too much. We decided to ride just a little more and then call it a day. Found a La Quinta in Stamford, which was only about an hour ride. But the last hour of the ride is what is always so painful. The sleepy head, worsening traffic, increasing humidity and temperatures rising to upper 80s. Heavy traffic while everyone was driving 15mph more than the posted limit. I was just waiting to get done with it. We finally did. When Kuntal got off from the bike, she said, I'm not going on freeways anymore! Yup, not having so much fun. Slept within few minutes of reaching hotel. Yup, it was only 7:30pm. Woke up later again and got a sandwich from the City Limits diner downstairs. Back asleep by 10:30pm. Hoping to get away from the overcrowded cities and roads soon.

It's July 18th.

The morning light from the window woke us up early today. It was around 6:30 or may be 7am. Neelam had made us wonderful breakfast. Milan was anxiously waiting for us in the morning. I even got a big jumpy hug from him. We got ready quickly as everyone else had to leave for office. It was wonderful to meet Nilam, her friends Deep and Ahmed, and of course the lovely Milan! We were so glad to have stopped and spend some time with them.

We were back on road by around 10:15. This time we decided to go a little north and enter back in US via the 1000 island area near Kingston. We didn’t want to go through all the Toronto downtown traffic again. We took the 401E, which pretty much hugs the Lake Ontario all the way, and took a break about every hour. Not sure what it was but we were feeling very very sleepy! I was yawning and trying to keep myself awake all the time. I’m pretty sure it was Nilam’s awesome food 😊.

As we came closer to the border, the obvious question was coming up. Will they let us in or not?? We only had our GC with us, and no passports in hand. From what we read, this was all they needed. But some websites explicitly said that we also need our passports. Not knowing what would happen, we kept riding towards the border. As we approached the border, the views of the 1000 island area were stunning. Beautiful small islands in the lake with small lake houses on it. It looked like a perfect summer vacation spot. We crossed the border and said goodbye to Canada for now. Reached the customs and border protection and found 4-5 lanes. I just went in and was waiting on the 1st lane. That happened to be the longest and seemingly the slowest lane. I was avoiding to change the lanes as was mentioned while entering Canada. Kuntal was asking to change lanes and started commenting on how these guys are so slow and mean compared to what we experienced while entering Canada. For some reason I was a bit nervous. Not knowing if they will allow us with the documents we had, or allow us but give us some grief, or turn us back altogether. We went in. Helmets off. Standard questions. Work? where? when? etc, etc, and we were in. Don’t know why these guys behave so mean & full of attitude. Not sure if they are trained to be. Kuntal noted that the guy asked when did we start from California. Not sure if that was routine questioning or if he was interested in our trip. In any case, we were in 😊. Welcome to the New York State.

Took a quick break for restroom and snacks and decided to head towards Boston. It wasn’t too far so we decided to ride up to Adirondack area for the day. We took internal roads via Hwy 12. Good break from the major roads and traffic. Luckily the road took us via some interesting Amish country. We found bunch of horse carts, people dressed in full Amish atire, folks working on the side of the roads, clothes being hang dried, etc. We were hoping to find a place to stay or eat where we could spend more time with them but unfortunately didn’t get that opportunity. Horse and cart crossing signs on the roads everywhere. Rest of the place had snowmobile signs. Looks like it gets some good amount of snow here.

Ate at Capris Pizza place in a small town of Boonville. Amazing bread sticks with butter garlic! Couldn’t find a decent place nearby so we rode down to Utica and stayed at a motel.

What an awesome day yesterday! We had a good night sleep and were then treated with the perfect breakfast at the hotel. We were tired of the same old motel breakfast. So glad to get fruits, little omelettes among other niceties. The checkout time at the hotel was 11am. We were planning on keeping all our stuff at the hotel, and go for sightseeing at Niagara Falls. But the hotel won’t extend our checkout times to what we would have liked. They did happily agree though on keeping our luggage at the front desk. So we packed up, put most of our stuff on the bike and then kept our bike gear at the front desk.

Off for some sightseeing. We had enough time at hand. Neelam would be back from office by around 3pm, and it’s only about 2 hours (including traffic) from here. We decided to start by noon, so we could reach there on time. Niagara Falls is incredible. I’ve seen it before, but not from Canada. We first took the cruise which took us near the falls. You don’t realize what a behemoth it is until you go that close to the falls. The mist from the falls is enough to soak you really well. Kuntal had so much fun at the cruise. It’s a 30 minute cruise but the time just files by. By the time we were back, Kuntal’s rain poncho was inside out 😆! The misty wind blew it out and when she wore it again, it was inside out. We had a good laugh at it. We then decided to walk up to the visitor center next to the Horseshoe Fall. Lots of good photo opportunities on the way. We didn’t realize how far it was. Walking back all the way back was a big pain. By the time we were back in the hotel area, we were tired of walking, and exhausted by the heat. It was about time we ate something. After much debate we decided on eating at Curry Queen. It was right next to the shopping/ entertainment area. Got some good food. Apparently some of the folks working there were international students. Seems like working off the grid to make some money. Kuntal got good tea, so she was satisfied.

We then went back to the hotel, got all our stuff, and we were back on the road by the 12:15 or so. So glad that there were no rains in sight today. Got some gas first, and then off to Toronto. It’s only about 150km, how long would it take anyway. Well, we thought so. Traffic wasn’t bad as we started from Niagara Falls. But as we came closer to Toronto, the 3 lane highway almost became a 2 way highway. The carpool lane was temporarily turned into 3+ for the Pan Am Games. Initially this was still ok. As we came closer to the downtown area, it turned into stop and go traffic. Not knowing if motorcycles are allowed in carpool lane, I was waiting for some motorcycle to cross so I would know what the law was. In fact I was keeping an eye on the traffic in the opposite direction as well. There were hardly and motorcycles on the road. No posted signs either. Grudgingly we became part of the traffic. It was about 30 mins into the traffic that a motorcycle came by in the HOV lane, riding 2 up. The moment he crossed, we jumped into the carpool lane like a happy puppy. What a relief! The traffic was so smooth after that. Moments later we were riding through the downtown area. The city skyline was neat. CN tower was standing out, among some other nice buildings. Crossed the downtown and then went into Scarborough area where she stays. It took quite some time to reach her place.

It was customary to take a photo of the Bharat milap ☺️. Kuntal was so happy to see her. The landlords’ dog, Milan was super excited to meet us too. He wouldn’t leave Kuntal alone. Thanks to Neelam, we had some awesome food and juice at her place.

While we were chit chatting, I thought I would message Hitesh, my school friend, and see how far he is from here. For some reason I remember him being about 5 hours from Toronto or Niagara Falls. Turns out he is in GTA and only an hour away. We decided a place to meet mid way at a mall. After he got off from work, I rode down to the mall. So glad to have the GPS on the bike. Riding down the roads in Toronto was a breeze. Met Hitesh after more than 12 years! Time just flew by at the mall. I told him about the Canada immigration/ passport story. He was hoping that U.S. wont allow us back in without our passports so we could spend more time with him 😊.

Didn’t realize it was 9pm already. Managed to deal with the traffic on my way back to Neelam’s place. Ate a little, more chit chat, and then went to sleep a little early.

Knowing that our service appointment for the bike is at 1pm, we were a bit relaxed. But decided to be there as early as we could. Would be great if they took our bike in first and save us some time.

We started around 10am and reached the Detroit suburbs within an hour. We reached the town of Plymouth where the BMW dealership was. BMW of SE Michigan was what it was called. I introduced myself and the bike and they took us in quickly. Filled up the necessary paperwork. I asked how long would it be? He said, should be an hour and half. Nice! The guys were amazing. They took interest in our trip and were as helpful as they could be.

While we were waiting at the dealership, we met another motorcyclist who was also in for service. Jeff was getting his bike ready for his trip to Wyoming! He was from the Detroit area and runs an apparel business. He has been making shirts with logos and such since 11th grade! We were so jealous seeing his pictures and listening to stories of his adventures. Great to have met him. We checked out a couple of new motorcycles while we were waiting. Kuntal wants me to get K1600, while I’m thinking of F800GS first.

Around 12:30 our bike was ready. We were back from lunch. Just in time! Met the service specialist back in the garage who worked on the bike. Everything was perfect and we were ready to go. While we were fiddling with the GPS, he asked where we are headed to, and suggested to take the Mackinaw bridge up North if we had time. Or atleast through Port Huron into Sarnia using the Bluewater bridge. Ok! All set, we both were on the bike, and I see something on the dashboard. LAMPF! What the hell!? I checked the front lights. Everything looked ok to me. Asked the guy to take a look again. It was the small parking light in the front. He replaced it in a minute. I asked what do i owe for the bulb. He said you guys better spend it on something good on your trip. 👍😃 Thank you! The guy rides a GS too and we were talking about his tires. Lucky guy rides 15 mins on dirt for his daily commute, while rest is on the road.

We were now off towards Port Huron. We pretty much crossed Detroit to take I-94 to Port Huron. Traffic wise, Detroit area seemed not as bad as Chicago. Definitely felt as if the infrastructure was old/ less maintained. Roads in particular. It was the time of the day when you just want to get away from the traffic. Specially given the fact that we had lunch about an hour ago. After getting out of the traffic, we stopped for some water at a gas station.

Now here is the thing. We have been planning all this while to go to Canada to meet our friend Neelam and to see Niagara Falls. Before starting on the trip, I knew that we don’t need a Visa to go to Canada. We had our green cards and that should suffice. But damn, I didn’t realize that we might need the passports as well. After all, we were traveling to another country. I checked the Canadian immigration websites. Of course they mention that you only need your green card. But another section of the site says you need your password as well. What the hell! We were kinda disappointed. But then we thought, we are on a trip where we are not planning much anyway. We don’t know where we will be at the end of the day. So what if the Canadians turn us away. We will just turn around and plan something else 😊. And that’s not it. We also need to come back to US. What if we are able to enter Canada, but while coming back we need our passports? Oh well, we'l ask our friend to overnight deliver us our passports to Canada. We will probably get more time to spend in Canada that way 😊.

Too much thinking. Let’s just go. Will deal with whatever we have to. With that spirit, we headed to Port Huron. As we approached the town, we again started seeing farm lands. It’s a small town, hardly any traffic. There was some construction going-on on the freeway and so they had detours marked on the road. I was following my GPS, and ended up going the wrong way. Great! Turned around from the town residential area, and got back to the freeway. Then saw the sign again, Bridge to Canada. Excited, we went on in. It was a weird feeling while crossing the bridge, not knowing what’s going to happen. The road speeds went from being slow to dead slow. Finally went close to the immigration check post. No lane changes allowed. There was a car ahead of us so we waited. Within seconds the car started moving. After a few seconds I went in. It’s like a tool booth. I stopped the bike and turned off the engine. The lady officer asked for our IDs. Kuntal had her license so she was trying to take it from the back pocket of her jacket. She almost stood on the bike, and said let me get off the bike so I can take out my ID. The officer used her finger to point out and say, NO, dont get off. Meanwhile, I took my time to pull out the green cards from the inside of my jacket. Handed over. She checked the IDs. Helmets off. Standard questions followed. Purpose of visit? Where are you going? Why? How do you know your friend? Where do you live? How long will you stay? What are you carrying? Fire arms? Do you own any? Etc etc. All this while on the trip, I got so used to telling people that I am from California, when she asked where do you live, I kinda stuttered and said California. Kuntal said Milpitas, CA. 😊. The good news was she didn’t ask for our passports, and gave us the clearance to go ahead. Wore the helmets again, started the bike and we were through!

I was quite excited and almost wanted to dance while riding. We started to look for the welcome sign. It’s customary to take pictures. What the hell! No welcome to Canada sign! That’s disappointing 😕

From here, everything changed to km and km/hr. I changed the units in my GPS as well. Excited we also messaged Nilam that we are through. Facebook tumblr pictures etc. The speed limit slowly went up to 100kmph. I wasn’t sure how people drive here. Do they follow the posted limits or higher than that is the norm? There was hardly any traffic. Pretty much farms everywhere. No big towns around. We went in to a gas station to fill up. Both of my credit cards didn’t work. Dang! I went in to see the cashier. Turned out to be an Indian guy. Was talking in Hindi and Punjabi with another customer. He said, just use the pump to fill the gas and then come back to pay here. Okk! In the meantime, Verizon sends me a message saying that around $50 was charged to my account for roaming etc. Arghhh… Airplane mode from here on.

We then decided if we should go to Neelam’s place or to Niagara. Both were about the same distance. Ended up deciding on Niagara Falls. It was about 300km. So almost a 3 hour ride. On our way we stopped at a Denny’s/ Gas station for restroom break. Er, bathroom break. While we were getting some snacks, a guy was waiting outside in his truck, checking our bike. When we went out, the guy talks to us. Older guy, very mellow. He rides a Harley. He was excited to know about our trip. Talked about local stuff. Stergis. He talked about this place too. Same as the guy we met at the BMW dealership. I need to check it out. While having the conversation, i also got the Eh! 😊.

Back on the road, and it was drizzling all this while. Not soaking us or anything, but a few light showers. There was this one spot though, where we saw the rains hitting hard ahead on the freeway. We pulled over at the exit, and I started putting on my rain pants and jacket liner. Damn, it started hitting hard just when I was almost done wearing stuff again. On the road, it was almost a white-out for a few minutes. Everyone slowed down and put on their blinkers. I didn’t get wet, but my gloves were soaked. Kuntal got a little wet. Few miles ahead and no rains at all. Wow. We were riding in that kind of weather. Even after that, we got a few showers, not as bad as this one, and it didn’t last long either. Feels like the rains in Bombay.

It was a long ride to Niagara Falls. The half wet condition was making us specially uncomfortable. Booked a hotel using Hotel Tonight. I think we got the best deal yet. It was a $200 or so but we got it for $50 something. 2 free drinks. Perfect hotel, with all the amenities we needed.

We freshened up and then desperately needed food. Found Indian food. Can’t beat Indian food when you are really hungry. We walked to the restaurant. Too long of a walk actually. We weren’t sure what kind of food we would get. Turns out that it was one of the best Punjabi food we had so far. First bite and the word “Dhaba” came out from me. Just what we needed! On our way back it was almost 9:30. I insisted Kuntal to ride on the Ferris wheel to show her the Niagara Falls. At least the night view today. Short walk back to the hotel, and sweet dreams.

Yup, I’m almost 10 days behind my schedule for posting the daily travelogue. But none the less, I’m back.

We started around 9 today. No free breakfast at the inn. We decided to ride a bit and cover some distance today. It’s 9th day and we are still in SD. It feels like we are running behind schedule. We rode a good distance from wall and stopped at a remote and local town of Kadoka. On our way we crossed the entrance to Badlands National Park, and the Minuteman Missile. Kuntal found a local diner for breakfast. As we took the exit from I-90E and took the internal road for the diner, I crossed something. Looked like a snake. But it wasn’t moving completely like a snake. It seemed like a car ran over it, and so it wasn’t moving completely. I said to Kuntal there’s a snake on the road. We turned around and went back. Wow, it was a big snake, lying on the road. Not dead. Not being ran over by a car or anything. Just being slow I guess. We took a couple of pictures and then turned around and went to the diner. While I was parking, we weren’t sure if this place is open or not. It’s a place where you don’t see anything. Turns out it was open. We went in and waited to be seated. An old couple came out after their breakfast I suppose. They said, just go in and have a seat. I guess that’s how locals would do :). We were greeted and seated. We got simple stuff, which was pretty good! This place has everything old. Old toys, coca cola bottles, every old collectible you can think of in mid west. We had to listen in to the conversation of an old lady sitting on the next table. She must be in her 80s or 90s. Recharged with the breakfast we were back in the saddle.

We took the same internal road to get back to the freeway. What do you know… The snake is still there. Probably in the same area too. Lazy fellow, taking a sun bath!

Back on I-90E. It’s a long ride. All you see is lots of grass everywhere. Rolls and rolls of shaved grass everywhere. It was in 80s and mildly humid. Hot but manageable. Can’t stop in the heat though. We were pretty much riding at the max freeway speeds. It was 80mph all throughout. Couple of construction zones. Corn fields. Corn fields anywhere you could see. Water tanks with the town names on it. Scores of wind mills.

We crossed into Minnesota. Not much difference. Speeds changed to 70mph max. But corn fields everywhere. Wind mills. We kept taking water breaks and such.

Finally we stopped at Albert Lea. We travelled almost 460 miles. Pretty much the whole day. Highway speeds but light traffic. It was a traffic where you can see folks moving from east to west or west to east, carrying their stuff. Either jammed in a car or in a tow track/ trailer.

We decide to eat first before going to the hotel. We went to a Chinese restaurant. Pleasant change of taste. As always we ended up ordering too much food. Also bought some missing essentials from the near by store.

Out hotel was a little deceptive. Excellent interiors except that the rooms were 80s. Atleast the hot tub and pool inside the hotel were relaxing!

After yesterday’s tiring heat, I guess we were bound to be late today morning. ☺️ First things first, route plan for the day. Got the Colorado road map to make sure we cover the best of what we can. Then I went old school and noted the route on a piece of paper. Who needs a GPS!

It was pretty humid early on in the day, but while we were riding just pass Moab, the cool breeze was good enough and the occasional drizzle was even better.

Quickly took the inner road to La Sal. The scenery changed as we were crossing La Sal mountains. Inner roads, hardly anyone driving across, light drizzle all along. We started to remember the Monsoons in India. Colorado is beautiful indeed. Kuntal already wants to move here!

From La Sal we crossed the Oregon border, and reached Naturita. Boy it was enough for me with the helmet speakers. Luckily found the velcro strips I needed to fix the damn thing. Had 2nd breakfast (1st at the motel) at Yellow Rock Cafe/ Diner. Old folks everywhere in the town.

From Naturita we continued on CO 145 which is where the major fun began. Light drizzle continued all along, roads were a little wet, but no issues with the grip. Glad I changed to pilot 4 tires. Wasn’t even feeling like it was raining at all. Splendid landscapes! River flowing all along the road. Road goes through gorgeous mountains, and the ride was even better with the monsoon rains.

Crossed Norwood, Placerville. Things just turned better and better. When we reached Mountain Village, it was like Switzerland. I’d let the pics do the talking. By now we had reached 10,000 ft. and the temperature fell to 54F. Still drizzling occasionally and it was just a perfect ride. We were comparing it with the scorching heat in Utah yesterday.

Lunch at The Enterprise Bar & Grill in Rico, and we continued down hill through the Dolores Canyons towards Dolores. About 5 miles to Dolores and we finally hit the downpour. How long could we have been lucky enough to avoid it. Typical monsoon rain - heavy rains for a couple of miles and dry after that. Nonetheless, it was still a fun ride. Reached Dolores, stopped for gas. Met another GSA guy at the station. Oh btw, lots of GS, Wings and other bikes on the way.

From here on it was a straight ride to Durango where we took an early halt for the day. Day 5 is laundry day. Lot of motorcycle friendly stuff around. The motel has a bucket and fresh set of rags in the lobby to clean up motorcycles 😎

After a discouragingly long wait for the Mexican dinner at Nayarit, finally it’s a wrap for the day.

Yes, Colorado is beautiful! Can’t wait for more of it.