Day 14 & 15 - Travelling Down the East Coast

Wednesday, August 6th

Today I left Madawaska, Maine around 7AM. It must have rained overnight because the bike cover was totally covered with water. I returned to the main highway using a different route suggested by the Maps App on my iPhone. About an hour into the ride it started raining so I pulled off at a rest stop. It is vented so at the next stop I pulled over and put a sweatshirt on. I found that I stayed warm and dry. It was actually comfortable.

While on the trip back to the Interstate I encountered a section of road that was under construction. There was five miles of dirt road. One section of the road they were drilling holes for blasting. The bike is covered with dirt so it looks a mess. Around noon the sun came out and the temperature warmed up so it took the suit off and rode the rest of the day.

The traffic in Boston was a mess and it took 90 minutes or more to get through town. So I covered the entire length of Maine, a short portion of New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.  I got to New London, Connecticut and called it a day. I covered 600 miles in about 14 hours.

Thursday, August 7th

I decided to leave later than normal in order to miss rush hour in New York City. I should have waited a little longer since I hit stop-and-go traffic in New Haven, Norwalk and Stamford. When I hit the New York state line is was clear sailing. Then I got to 3 miles from the George Washington Bridge and it was like I was sitting in a parking lot. A series of Interstate highways all come together. The problem is that the lower deck of the bridge is being repaired and two lanes were closed and there was a massive accident on the upper deck which reduced four lanes down to two.

After 4 hours, I was a whopping 100 miles from where I started. I now know what people deal with that have Carpel Tunnel. I took a long break at one of the rest areas on the New Jersey Turnpike. I caught up on email, Facebook and my blog. After grabbing a bite to eat I continued on the trip.

I hit Baltimore around 3:30PM and sailed right through. I got to 30 miles from DC and hit another deadlock. I got to a rest area and decided to take a nap hoping the problem would go away. Nope, traffic is still there. I looked at the maps and saw RED everywhere so after calling home I decided to call it a day.

Today I traveled through Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland. I only covered 340 miles so today so it was a disaster so this has added an extra day to the trip. Tomorrow I will leave extra early and head to Saint George, South Carolina which is just over 500 miles. I hope to be out of the DC area shortly after sunrise.