September 30--Farewell to Jon and Family

Well, this morning we left Jon and Lori’s place. It was foggy, but only a little rain was actually falling. A herd of wild turkeys paraded across his drive right before we left, which was interesting! Kait said she had only seen them a couple of times, but Kodi said that he had seen them a lot. Jon had left for work early and we saw him off and then the kids off to school, and then got on the road about 8 a.m. On Jon’s advice, we took I-91 south through NH to Brattleburg and then across Route 9 West to Bennington, Vermont.

It was a good thing that the day was cloudy because it would have been too brilliant to drive by if the sun were shining. We finally and truly found ‘fall foliage’! The tree colors on Route 9 were absolutely spectacular. There were more colors of red than we’ve ever seen. The road was also a terrific road, with frequent passing lanes (we were being passed, not doing the passing). And of course, Bennington is the home of “New England cute”. Then we turned south and took a beautiful drive to Troy and Albany, New York, and then down the NY turnpike headed south. We actually made it to within 15 miles of NYC and had some talk of going to the Oyster Bar at Grand Central Station in Manhattan. Steve didn’t think it was a very good idea to haul a trailer through the streets with a motorcycle. Oh well, I guess he just doesn’t like the challenge of playing demolition derby with the cabbies!

So we took I-287 to I-80 which was very, very busy. Thank goodness it wasn’t rush hour. There was a dump truck taking up 2 lanes of traffic that we were a little nervous about, and got around him the first chance we could. He was clearly either drunk or tired, but definitely not staying in his own lane.

We headed to the turn off for Columbia, NJ and to the Camp Taylor Campgrounds (mile 6,099 of our trip), home of the Lakota Wolf Preserve and just on the border of NJ and PA. We missed the 4:00 p.m. tour, so we took our own tour and saw the timber wolves and fox, and saw (and smelled!) the lynx. I happened to see a letter posted on the Lakota Wolf Preserve board about Sarah Palin and her support of wolf aerial hunting in Alaska. I’m posting the html to the letter to the blog so you can read it yourself. I did a fact check on the information in the letter, and it is true, but of course, there is more of a story than is told in the letter.

During the evening we listened to frogs, some kind of noisy night bird, and the wolves howling. . .and the pitter patter of a very heavy rain storm. It was quite a pleasant evening.

I’m happy to report that Steve did not listen to NPR today, only music. This was the day after House of Representatives voted down the Revitalization Act and the market dived 777 points. We thought that one more day of listening to the giant sucking sound of the financial markets going down the drain might be a distraction to preserving our lives on the Goldwing!

We talked with Ann and Jamie and Jon this evening. All are well, and Sophie was headed to the groomers at Petco, and then to the vet for an exam. Jamie got her truck fixed and was pleased with the service and the results. The deer she hit probably is not as pleased. Tomorrow we are headed towards the Blue Ridge Parkway.