Day 1 June 30, 2014
The day of days has finally arrived!
After a year of planning the weather dawned warm and
sunny and was the perfect day to begin the great adventure.
The bike and then completely packed for an entire week
and was ready to go except for a few last minute items into the tank bag.
The red 1991 BMW K 75S had a total of seven bags packed
for this month-long trip – one hydration pack bag, one tank bag, two hard
saddlebags, three, 40-litre waterproof roll- up type bags, and a set of new
tires bungee corded to the top of the load.
Beverly got up early for farewell pictures and videos as
I left the garage at 12 Castle Rock Rd. in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania.
I rode exactly 2 miles and realized that I had managed to forget my hydration backpack and promptly turned right around and came home to retrieve
it. I re-headed out to my place of business,
Pennoni Associates in King of Prussia to put in a half day of work from 7:15 AM
to 11:00 AM. My good friends at work Don
Spitzer, Curt Shugars, and Tom Larney made me feel important by taking pictures
as I left the parking lot at 11 o'clock for the beginning of the trip west.
Hopefully, they'll use the photos as a nice memory and an entry into this blog
site instead of an entry for an obituary page!
I headed west on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and I-70 and
managed to get to my first scheduled site after 369 miles of riding, about 20 miles west of Wheeling,West
Virginia in a camp ground within the Ohio State Park system called Barkcamp
State Park by about 6:20 PM. Both the
park office and general store were closed and there was no one to accept my
camp fee so I picked a lovely grassy camp site, set up my tent, pumped up the
air mattress, and enjoyed a hot and tasty freeze-dried dinner. I quickly fell asleep by 9 o'clock, most likely with a big smile on my puss.
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