Day 2: Pennsylvania to Washington DC

1 May 2011
Awakening to the sounds of birds, Mike commented that this had to be an area with the greatest concentration of birds. I replied "It's called nature Mike." But he was up and packing while I stayed in my sleeping bag, not wanting to exit into the frigid morning air. While we were packing our stuff, several groups of deer walked by without a care that we were there. The first couple times we started to quietly grab our cameras, and then they were gone. We finally gave up on that until this one group actually started to approach us with curiosity. It was really incredible to see them not 15 meters away.



Once we finally got going we were treated to some amazing roads. Eastern Pennsylvania is simply breathtaking. Most of them were 50-55mph two lane roads that meandered through the rural countryside. The roads had smooth blacktop, rolling hills, long sweeping curves with a tight one thrown in every now and then. For scenery, it was just non-stop beautiful farm houses with perfectly landscaped yards and trees that finally had leaves on them. Oh, and the weather, it was perfect. I felt like i was riding through Smallville and that I would see Clark Kent around any corner. Sadly, we didn't take any pictures of this because it was just so beautiful and an amazing ride. This portion of the trip also brought us our first gravel road to tackle on the bikes. Thankfully it was a non-event, but I know it won't be our last of the trip.

Unfortunately, my GPS decided to start taking us on these neighborhood roads that slowed us down considerably and also took us into New Jersey for a bit. Once we were back on track, we came to Philadelphia. Right outside the city, we had to stop at a Best Buy because we needed a couple small things. In the parking lot a guy came up and started talking to us and asking questions. Apparently he was a trucker and recommended Cafe Du Monde when we get to New Orleans. It sounds like it's worth a shot, but I don't know if I can trust his judgement. When I said that 85 from Charlotte to Fort Benning would be boring, he said it was a nice trip. It's great though, how friendly and approaching people are when they see two blokes on motorcycles packed with luggage. Upon entering Philly, the first impressions were not good. It was just miles of slums as we hit all the stop lights down this long straight road. And without pause when I started to sing the theme song to The Fresh Prince of Bell Air on the radio, Mike would sing the next line.

The center of Philadelphia was nice, but overall I can't say it was a great city from the small portions we saw. They did have a random trapeze set up on some street with people practicing. That was interesting. Anyway, the main purpose of hitting up Philly was to have some lunch, namely their famous cheesesteak. Now, I'm a man who likes a good cheesesteak. We decided to each get a sub from one of the two main rivals, Geno's and Pat's, which we would then share and compare. We ordered their original style which apparently is with cheesewiz and onions. Overall Geno's won unanimously. The cheesewiz tasted less artificial, the onions were sweeter, the meat less like steak-ums and the bread nicer too. However, neither holds a candle to the better cheesesteaks I've had. One thing that they had over other cheesesteaks that I've had is that there was no gristle. And I will also admit that we weren't able to check out a large portion of the city of Philadelphia. But for now, color me unimpressed.


Geno's is on the left, Pat's is on the right.





Leaving Philadelphia, we also rode through another doozy of a city... Wilimington Delaware. By avoiding highways we got a nice ride through some slums followed by an industrial area. As we rode through Delaware, the weather seemed to indicate that it would rain soon. But I was reassured by the forecast for no rain that day. More on that later. Delaware was followed by a trip down 311 to the Bay Bridge in Maryland. Sadly, our GPS classifies this as a non-highway. Believe me, it's a major 6 lane highway. It just happens to also have stop lights. With about 40 miles to go until the bay bridge, it started to sprinkle. This really wasn't much and we didn't feel like we would need to stop and put on our rain gear. Well, with about 30 miles to go until the bridge it started to really come down. Sadly, I was wearing my open face helmet that provided some nice stinging sensations to my lower face as we rode. Once on the side of the bridge, we finally donned our rain gear and I changed to my full face helmet. Some may say that it's too late at that point and you're already wet. They're wrong. The rain gear on my soaked jeans along with the extra layer on my jacket prevented the wind from chilling my garments and they provided some nice warmth for the remainder of the rain riding. As we approached DC, the rain started to subside and we were able to take in the sights as we road through and on to Arlington VA. The day ended with our arrival at Mike's cousin Brandon's place where we'll stay for 2 nights. I met Brandon, his wife Laura and their 4 year old daughter Zoe. In addition to a roof over our heads and a shower, they even had tacos waiting for us when we came! They have been more than gracious and for that I am thankful.

Next up to report will be a day around our nation's Capital, Washington DC. Andrea already covered it, but stay tuned anyway!