6-28-08 Day 1 And We"re Off

Note - some posts may be delayed due to lack of web access

Pinch me because it hasn’t set in that our trip has begun. I think that’s the general consensus among the five of us. We had about 20 people show up for breakfast this morning for our send off. The Day newspaper had a reporter and photographer there, and rumor is they will try to put a story in Sundays (tomorrows) paper. We had 2 people   (IZ Smith & my friend Harley Charlie) escort us to Waterbury to pick up Tom’s brother Mark. We left the Shack at approx 8:15 this AM and found a hotel on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls some 500+ miles and 11 hours later. We went down to the Falls after dinner last night and got the aove pic.

Recap of the day - We had 3 gas stops, a lunch stop and one pause to put on our rain gear. Of course it stopped raining about 2 minutes after we started out with our gear on and we sweated our butts off until we stopped for gas again and took the gear off. We did our border crossing into Canada at the Peace Bridge in Buffalo. Pretty quick just showed our passports, they write down your plate number and ask you if your bringing any contraband! Just takes a few minutes and then there’s a $3.00 toll on the Canadian side. Did I mention that we got caught in another shower the last 5 miles to the hotel of course without our rain gear! One of the interesting things I've noticed is that thanks to Bob Douton, a member from our club, he made us "Alaska or Bust" signs to put on the back of our bikes. This has generated lots of interest between people passing us that either give us a thumbs up sign or honk there horn or becomes a conversation starter when they see us where are bikes are parked. There are lots of folks that would love to trade places with us but that ain't gonna happen!!!!!!!!!!