Up at 6am, packed up and on the road by 7. Fortunately there was no rain the night before so the tent was dry. It was, however, still covered in pollen - yuck.

Pre-packing

A fellow STN'r, FJRski, was going to meet me for a ride on my way back home. We did some cell phone tag over the past couple of days and decided on Port Jervis around noon.

Not an interesting first half of the ride home, the plan was to take I-87 for about 120 miles to Kingston, then hook over to 209 for the run down to Port Jervis. The weather was very overcast and gloomy looking, and I was certain rain would make an appearance today.

Old Rolls on I-87

Made a brief stop in Albany to visit my old college, SUNY@Albany. I've always loved this place, and took a couple of photos with the bike. The campus was designed by renowned architect Edward Durrel Stone..

The #1 drinking hole as an undergrad. Best fries in the Capital region.

My old dorm - nice high room in the tower overlooking the mountains.

The main entrance to the podium.

Once I got on 209, I stopped to don the raingear, for once before the rain actually started. It started raining lightly about 30 minutes out of Port Jervis.

I had never been on 209 before, and it turned out much better than I hoped. It wasn't a destination road, by any means, but it wasn't an endless stretch of retail, car dealers and stoplights either. Sunday morning probably helped with the lack of traffic.

Made it to Hawk's Nest about an hour early. Just like my ride up on Tuesday, I did Hawk's Nest in the rain. I was only there a few minutes before FJRski showed up, running early as well. He enjoyed a quick stogie, and we beat feet south to get in some riding before the rain started up again.

FJRski snapped this pic of me with my rain-ready bike

I didn't have the GPS logging, so I can't say exactly where we went, but it was a very scenic twisty ride down to Augusta, NJ.

Following Frank

FJRski sent me the route via e-mail:

From Hawk's Nest we took Rt 97 into Port Jervis and picked up Rt 42 to US 6.
Just outside PJ we picked up Rt 23 south to Sussex.
Then we followed CR-639 to CR-565 to Ross Corner.

We were keeping our eyes out for a place for lunch, and FJRski pointed at the Chatterbox, a roundish-shaped restaurant at the corner of 15 and 206. I nodded that it would be fine. As we waited at the light, a classic car club pulled into the lot. Good sign. We pulled in, and there was a line-up of 10 or so bikes in the back - another good sign!

Like being at Americade all over again - easy to find my bike! FJRski's FJR in the foreground

The interior of The Chatterbox

Lunch was excellent, they do a good burger and fries here. We oggled the cars a bit afterward, and then continued on south toward Johnny's Truck Stop where we would go our own ways. More twisty backroads, no rain, and a nice relaxed pace made for a great little ride to cap off the week at Americade.

Again, thanks to FJRski:

Northwest on 15 for short way to CR-519 south to Rt 206.
Then CR-603 to CR-517 to CR-629 to CR-645 to CR-635 to Johnny's.

We chatted a bit at Johnny's, and I headed home via 31 and I-295. Home by 5pm to a very warm welcome.