Day 3 Rutland, VT to Mahwah, NJ

Day three dawned clear and much warmer than yesterday. We loaded up the bikes and headed out to explore the back roads of Vermont on our way back to NY. As you may know if you have traveled in Vermont, most all roads follow a stream or river with numerous bridges and beautiful scenery at every turn. These same streams that were beautiful today must have been raging deamons last September when Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee passed through this area within a few days of each other. Evidence of the damage was everywhere with homes washed off their foundations and hundreds of yards of roads rebuilt where they obviously had been washed out. Rebuilding is still going on almost a year after the storms and from what we could see, will be going on for some time to come. We originally had planned to visit West Point, but after a little research on the internet we decided to avoid the traffic. Gradutation week is set to begin this weekend and if it is anything like the Naval Academy the week before graduation brings hoards of proud families and extended familes to the facility. We decided instead to divert to the small town of East Nassau, NY so Rich could try to find the small farm where his father had been born. This diversion took us into the wild and up a few miles up a dirt road. Yes, we revere in getting Gerry and Joe's Goldwings dirty. Rich had not been to the site since he was 9 years old, so he was not sure he could find. it. After almost turning around we came over a hill and I could hear him in the helmet communicators confirm that indeed we had found it. When you think about it for a minute it is really kind of cool to actually visit the place where your father was born. Roberta Buff and her husband came out to visit us as we were taking some pictures. She actually remembered Rich's last visit when he was 9 years old. They were very nice people and filled us in on some of the history of the house since the Berman's live there back in the 1920's. Here is a picture of Rich in front of the home.

Once we gingerly retraced our steps back to firm pavement, we headed to Orange County Choppers for a visit. This facility has been made famous by the Teutel family and their antics on the TV show "American Chopper". Their bikes are artistic creations of every theme and color imaginable. Here is a picture of Joe Badecki with the New York Fire Department 911 bike.

Since we had stumbled in on a day when they were having an open house and bike show, the place was mobbed. I think Rich and I were the only two BMW's in attendance and Joe and Gerry were the only two Goldwings. We were definitely in a minority. Predominantly, there were loads of sport bikes revving their engines up to the rev-limiters and plenty of Harleys with straight pipes. It was a sea of testosterone with a few young ladies in tight leathers thrown in just to spice things up. If you ever want to come to a place to watch people this was it. Rich slipped away and got his picture taken with Paul Teutel Sr. who was in the house for the event. He has a poster to prove it for his new garage.

After touring the facility and watching all the bikers trying to impress each other, we fired up our motors and left without anyone even knowing our bikes were running. Two Beemers and two Winds pulling out and none of us could even hear our motors running. From there we decided to head down I-87 to Mahwah, NJ and our hotel for the evening. This short stretch of interstate was the first major highway we had transited since leaving Trenton on Thursday morning. My goal was to plan a trip to explore back roads and we definitely had done that. Tomorrow, we are going to ride in a charity event for Ramapo College and then work our way back home. Tomorrow night I will wrap up the trip after we have arrived home. I hope you are enjoying following along so far.