On Thursday I left Wellsville, NY around 7:30am and ended up riding 555 miles through Pennsylvania, Ohio and half of Indiana, arriving at Angela's Mom's house at 11:30pm. Early in the day I had thoughts of riding about 300 miles or so to Canton, OH. There I could make a trip the next day to see my sisters and their families in Cincinnati for Friday night and then turn northwest on Saturday to meet Angela in Kokomo, helping her Mom after some back surgery. Later in the day the weather forecast was not looking good for Cincy on Saturday so I decided to make a run for Kokomo pending the weather and my stamina, I'd call it hour by hour. And that's how the day played out, hour by hour. 
I rode some really nice 2 lane roads today. However, shortly after crossing the Pennsylvania state line what showed on the map as a nice paved road to the Allegheny Forest played out into a dirt road!! I'm not a fan of dirt or gravel roads if I can help it. 
I back tracked a few miles and found this back road that did the trick and got me where I wanted to be in a nice way. 
Part of my interest in riding in western Pensylvania was motivated by political curiosity, looking for vestiges of the last election cycle. I found this along the 2 lane in the Allegheny Forest at a Tattoo shop of all places followed by a home made 4'x8' "Trump" & "Make America Great Again" sign a few miles more down the road. 
And in Kane, PA on the side of a church in the downtown area this somewhat fatalistic call to prayer for America because of our failings as people to solve its key problems. 
On the more uplifting side I found a nice breakfast in Kane also!
My breakfast was served by another Texas Hot restaurant, basically the same name as the place I ate last night in Wellsville, NY. Apparently the businesses are unrelated other than their founders both being Greek and having spent some time in Texas before settling in PA. Both were nice places I would recommend. 
I'm not a trusting type of person and I fought my urges to check my oil and oil level and tire pressures there at the shop when I got my bike back yesterday. This morning I thought I'd go ahead and found this unplugged hole in my engine casing!! I called the service manager back in Troy, NY and he swore to me this was only access to the timing indicator and would not allow oil to get out or contamation back in. He offered to have me stop by to get one until I told him I was 400 miles away now. I pushed him and he agreed to send me a replacement plug in the mail to my home. #sad
The Allegheny National Forest offered some nice, lightly traveled roads but the scenery and mountains were unimpressive. Maybe after Newfoundland landscapes and the Cabot Trail on Cape Breton I'm not easlily impressed or maybe I'm just getting tired of traveling?!
This would be my third of four state line crossings today. So far, even though there have been some building of bigger clouds the weather has been pleasant. By this point in the day I was even riding in a t-shirt without a jacket for a change. That would change. 
I was interested in traveling through Youngstown, OH. I'd never been here before and just wanted to get an impression if I could. While the downtown wasn't exactly bustling it seemed well maintained, no signs of "broken window" syndrome, and the suburban areas had some energy to them. 
By about 4 in the afternoon I had about 350 miles behind me and I needed to study weather forecasts and radar to make my decisions about stay or go and where to go. I sucked down a Rockstar as a pick-me-up, ate some almonds and an apple and calculated my options. I could have easily crashed near Canton for the night and probably made it to Cincinnati about 300 miles away the next day without to much threat of foul weather. But Saturday and even Sunday looked to be problematic to get to Kokomo 150 miles away to meet Angela. As much as I wanted to visit with my family in Cincy I felt I would lose a day or two because of weather which I didn't want to do. In the end, I decided to make a run straight west across the rest of Ohio to Kokomo a little over 200 miles away. It would be my longest, hardest day of the trip. I also decided not to do anything stupid, or careless and if the weather turned to crap, or I was getting tired or bleary eyed I'd stop and finish the next day, even if it meant rain or a travel delay. At this point I remember thinking I had morphed from a motorcycle riding tourer to a semi-truck driver returning from a long haul trip, just trying to get home for the night. This point always comes to me on these long treks. I had pushed it off after the natural decompression that came after I reached my goal of St. John's, Newfoundland by focusing just on the next day at hand and seeing the geography and people that presented themselves that day. But now, back in the Midwest and close to Angela and a waiting trailer to take my bike back to Colorado the time had come to run hard.
By 6pm I was running into a long wall of thunder storms moving east north east. The blue dot on the left is me and you can see Kokomo on the left, connected to the blue dot by the storm front. My plan to go west was being challenged. 
Just east of Upper Sandusky I jumped off the highway to shelter my bike from the hard, blowing rain that just whipped up. I grabbed a couple of hot dogs and waited. I was loosing daylight but the weather was too stormy to safely ride. 
About an hour later I saw a gap in the front and went for it. 
I had light rain and stiff cross winds for about 30 minutes but then I broke through the front and saw the sun and blue skies to the west again!!
And this waa the view back to the east of where I had just been. 
By 9pm I crossed into Indiana on US224. Getting close.
I had about 20 more minutes of rain again east of I-69 on IN-1 in the dark which was not cool. Visibility at night, with a wet road, and rain on your face shield is not good for safe riding. I almost shut it down but I had a couple of slower moving cars to follow and knew I could ride south out of the front. When I turned west on IN-18 the rain moved off to the north and it was some of the nicest night riding I remember doing. I had glimpses of the crescent moon and continuous flashes of lightning to the west and north to entertain me the rest of the ride into Kokomo. I got to my destination before the next wave of storms hit. 
At 11:30pm my bike safely parked in Sara Hale's garage and Angela who had just arrived about 6 hours earlier was still awake to greet me. Yea!!
Friday we reconnected without being so bleary eyed tired, checked Sara out of the rehab center and got her back home and settled in. We'll be here for about a week to make sure Sara's in good shape before trailering my bike back home again. It was a great trip, perhaps a trip of a life time. Over 6,900 miles in total and all kinds of new places and new people encountered plus a lot of old and good friends who helped me along the way. It's been a great experience and I wouldn't trade it. And thanks to my vintage 1984 R80RT for getting me all the way to St. John's reliably and in relative comfort and style!
Today was the day to get a new rear tire for my R80RT as well as an oil change and valve adjustment plus 350 miles on the road. I left the Hachenski's around 7:15am to avoid/bypass traffic on the 45 mile ride to the BMW shop in Troy. I got back on the road at 12:45 and busted towards western NY to try to make up time and found a place to crash in Wellsville, NY around 8pm. 
Those are 1976 BMW R900's parked in front of the shop I went to. The bikes are eight years older than mine so I had talk to the gentleman, who turned out to be as equally mature, who had parked them there. Mike and Tim were from Massachusetts and were just returning home from the Blue Grass Festival in Telluride, CO. They were going to get home today but on a whim decided to stop and test ride some new dual sport BMW's just for the hell of it. 
On the road for several hours I stopped to contemplate the rest of the plan for today and where it might lead me the next day. I was enjoying some homemade granola that Shelley had baked for me last night. Very tasty. Thanks Shelley!!
I compromised one of my riding guidelines today by spending about 200 miles on Interstate 87, 90 and 88 after leaving the BMW shop. I knew I wanted to try to get at least 250 miles in today and the absence of fairly direct US or State highways heading my direction led me to having just a bit of my soul sucked away for those 200 miles. The traffic was light and the scenery interesting which minimizes the amount of sucking. 
My route happened to take me near Elmira, NY, the Sailplane Capital of the US. As a kid I loved airplanes and built and flew radio controlled planes. I had planes with engines but I think I loved flying my sailplanes more than anything. And devouring all of the RC hobbyist magazines they always talked about how great Elmira, NY was for sailplaning and where they would even have RC sailplane competitions. I had to stop and visit. 
They also had the National Soaring Museum co-located with the glider port on Harris Hill. 
I got to watch about a half dozen sailplane tows and landings within 30 minute. Late in the day the rising hot air currents called thermals were gone and the rising wind currents pushing up Harris Hill were pretty light so not much slope soaring to extend the flights beyond about 15 minutes. 
And this is the view to the west from the end of the runway. Facing prevailing winds made Harris Hill a natural center for sailplanes. Also a great spot just to enjoy the sunset which was coming fast!!
As part of my compromise to riding the Interstate today I bargained with myself that I would not sleep along the Interstate but rather get on a two lane road and ride until I found a small town and a old highway motel to crash in. And I found them both in Wellsville, NY just 10 miles north of Pennsylvania and about 90 miles east of the far western tip of New York. 
300 miles after getting my new tire I've rubbed off all of the shiny surfaces and she's ready to be counted on for normal traction now. 
As it was late after I checked in and I was tired, I was just going to skip dinner and eat some nuts and an apple I had in my bag but my room was pretty depressing so I used food as my excuse to visit Texas Hot in Wellsville. It was a nice, old style diner that did a good business, famous for their chili on hamburgers. 
I went a different way and chowed on the old faithful Coney Dog. 
And now my bike and I both get some rest for tomorrow we'll ride through the Allegheny National Forest in NW Pennsylvania and end our day somewhere in Ohio. 
A nice and easy 171 mile day leaving Quechee, VT around 8:15am and riding through the Green Mountains and along Lake George in New York before arriving at my hosts for the night, Mark and Shelley Hachenski in Greenfield, NY not far from Saratoga Springs by 1:30pm. 
The first leg of the trip took me north on VT100 along the eastern edge of the Green Mountains. 
Good to great roads and pastoral views for the whole ride. 
VT125, another Vermont scenic route bisected the Green Mountains east to west. The Green Mountains were scenic and the ride was great but they don't compare very well against the White Mountains in New Hampshire. Sorry Vermont. ☹️ After popping out on the west side I was ready for my breakfast at Rosie's Restaurant in Middlebury, VT. 
As I road east towards Lake Champlain it became clear I was in a big valley now and much more agricultural uses could be seen. 
The scenery and the skies were beautiful today. The forecast had called for chances of rain all day long, especially by mid-afternoon, so I had planned my day to try to be at Mark and Shelley Hachenski's place before 2pm. I got a little rained on for about 10 minutes in Corinth, NY just before arriving. Within an hour of arriving a big storm broke out with a downpour and even blew over a nearby tree. It was nice to be sheltered with a beer in my hand. 
Approaching the bridge over the southern tip of Lake Champlain. Had the forecast been more optimistic about sunshine today I would have preferred to have ridden further north into the midlldle of the historic long and big lake. 
Mark told me I couldn't miss his house because of the red barn and flag. He was right!! People in Vermont can't miss it either! Their house sits on 16 acres and was built in 1810. It's a beautifully restored farmhouse with well kept grounds. They even have chickens!! I slept in my own little self supported guest house just off of the pool. Very nice accommodations and wonderful hosts for the night. Thanks Mark and Shelley!
Mark's a longtime good friend and colleague from GE Engineering Services and is now heading up GE's Digital Program for gas turbines. It was great catching up on old times and new GE business. We both enjoyed an Ugly Burger from Druther's Brew Pub in downtown Saratoga Springs.