Sunday, October 08, 2006

North Carolina to Sudbury - Day 2

It was raining this morning so we lingered over breakfast in Wytheville. When we finally set out north on I-77, we ran through fog as we went through the two tunnels that led to West (By God) Virginia. We saw two deer in fields, but there may have been more. It started to clear around Beckley and the sun came out by the time we stopped for gas in Summersville, so we took the rain gear off. We saw two Summersville cops and one State Trooper just north of town.

After catching I-79, we cranked the speed up to 130/140 KPH, stopping for gas and lunch in Morgantown. We ran up the hill to the K-Mart, where I got cut off by two oblivious woman drivers while I was trying to get into the parking lot. Failing in our boot purchasing challenge, we continued north to Pittsburgh. For once (maybe because it was Sunday), the traffic through the construction zone at the 279 interchange was light. We were paced for a while by a late 70's BMW R90S, a beautiful bike that looks so small today.

We gassed again in Grove City and continued north to Erie where the temperatures were cooling down and leaves were falling heavily. On the Thruway, I miscalculated the mileage to the Angola Service Center so we got off and fueled along US 20. I checked with Niagara Falls for rooms and found that prices were up because of the weekend, so we elected to continue into Buffalo on 20.

I missed the Thruway interchange I wanted to find with hotels in Hamburg and we found ourselves in a rougher area in Orchard Park. There was a Red Carpet Inn within sight of the Blaisdell stadium. It was a but rugged but the room was OK. We walked across the road to Louie's Texas Red Hots and had supper. After eating, Terry took Patsy back to the nearby Wal-Mart and left her to shop. Back in the room, we watched TV and passed the time until he had to go and bring her back. We watched more TV until we all fell asleep.

Note: This was Sunday. The following Thursday night, Buffalo got hit with an early blizzard that paralyzed the city for days. I guess we were very lucky.

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