Frenchy's Rant

Yeah yeah yeah… I know… what the fuck??? Where the hell are the new posts?!? The Faithful Fifteen have dwindled down to the Bitchy Bunch, bitching that there haven’t been any new posts lately, and they are “sick of reading about some stupid fuckin’ motorcycle trip to Pittsburgh…. blah blah blah…”

It’s only been seven weeks since I wrote something… but I guess that’s too long for SOME PEOPLE!!!

So… Cranky Crew, here you go!

A post.

A new one.

Imagine that!

Never fear, Grumpy Group, summer vacation is nearly over.

More ranting soon…….

After three days of WWE shows, the bus returned us to Pittsburgh. Five hours of fitful sleep would have to be enough. At 7:30 AM we were heading east, well, east-ish, our one planned stop for the day was in Bradford, PA, the home of Zippo lighters. This would take us about one hundred miles out of our way, but since the weather seemed like it would cooperate, we decided the detour would be worthwhile.

I saw this billboard, and just had to stop for a picture:

Someday I want to call them just to hear how they answer the phone.

We made it to Bradford by eleven AM. The Zippo factory turned out to me little more than a factory outlet, with a few cheesy displays highlighting the few contributions Zippo has made to the world. There was a large American flag made out of red, white and blue Zippo lighters, and some other crummy displays. Hidden away at the very back of the museum was the actual Zippo factory, which consisted of three drunk looking old ladies screwing the lighters together and tossing them into a box. Fascinating!

We both bought lighters, then headed east on Route Six.

Route Six is a two lane road with a lot of curves. We were moving along at a fast clip (meaning we were speeding like hell and passing everything that got in the way. ) I zoomed around a slow moving truck that was in my way, and Abi followed. In the other lane was a trailer truck, with a well hidden police car behind it.

I watched in horror as the cop hit his brakes and did a quick U-turn.

Shit.

We pulled over long before the cop managed to catch us, heart hammering, frantically trying (and failing) to hide my earphones in my jacket. This was not going to be pretty.

The cop stopped behind Abi and they started talking. Abi got off his motorcycle and took off his helmet. I took my helmet off also and waited well in front of them for the ticket I was certainly going to get.

As I sat there well in front of Abi, I heard the cop say, “Well, the computer said your registration expired in 2004.”

Fuck. I started thinking of how the hell we could get Abi’s bike out of impound, wondering if they’d have to go to the police station, would they tow the bike… Whatever was about to happen, it was looking worse by the minute.

Then, the unbelievable happened. Abi put his helmet back on and pulled away. Seeing this, I did the same. The cop turned around and drove off in the other direction.

Turned out the police man was a motorcycle rider as well, and the first thing he said to Abi is, “Don’t worry, I’m a rider too. I’m not going to give you a ticket, but I had to pull you over for passing over the double yellow (Abi swears it wasn’t a double yellow, but I am pretty sure it was) When the plate came back expired in 2004, Abi pointed to the sticker on his license plate:

No ticket for either of us, even though the sticker clearly is for 05. Thank God for motorcyclist cops.

We prudently slowed down our pace (for a while anyway) and enjoyed the variety of dead animals littering the side of the road. We must have seen fifteen or twenty dead deer, one that had been recently cut in half in the middle of the road. We also passed at least four dead porcupines, dead raccoons, dogs, cats, skunk and other unidentifiable deceased animals.

Corning, NY was our stopping place for the evening, where we enjoyed a beer sampler at a local brewpub. Six larg-ish glasses of beer later, it was definitely time to end the long day.

The next morning – Rain. Naturally. The weather channel gave us the bad news, rain all day. Perfect. We decided to blow off the Corning Museum of Glass and start the soggy slog home.

What could be worse than three hundred miles of riding in cold rain?

A traffic jam.

Which is precisely what we encountered on Route 80. All of a sudden, the traffic slowed, then stopped. We sat in the middle of the highway as the rain pelted us. Five minutes… Ten minutes… Fifteen minutes.

We turned off the bikes and took off our helmets.

Twenty minutes. The rain continued, and we got thoroughly soaked.

A truck driver walked up and said there was a huge accident ahead, and a fire.

Great.

Other people started getting out of their cars. We talked to a couple of nice, older ladies who wanted to know if we had any liquor to share. They laughed at us good naturedly, saying we must be really dedicated to motorcycling. We offered them money to stuff the bikes into their trunk.

An hour passed. More people milled around, talking, laughing and sharing food. There was a banana truck nearby that we wanted to raid. People thought about trying to drive across the median, but it was too steep and muddy. Finally a wrecker managed to weave it’s way to the accident scene.

Half an hour later, traffic started creeping forward. People hurriedly said goodbye, then melted back into their vehicles. Once again we were anonymous.

We soon came upon the reason for the traffic jam. A car being towed by an RV caught fire, burning the car to the ground, along with most of the RV. We could see straight through the back of the RV, there was nothing left. The owner and his wife were staring in disbelief at the burned out hulk of their former land yacht.

Naturally, as we started moving, the rain stopped. Cold and hungry we stopped in Owego, NY for lunch. As we left the restaurant, we saw two people looking at our bikes. When we got closer, I heard one of them say,”Abi?”

Turned out to be a close friend of Abi’s that lives in New Jersey, who just happened to be in Owego for work. Five minutes either way and we never would have seen him. Bizarre.

The rain stopped for good, or so I thought. Outside Hartford, Abi and I waved goodbye (with one finger, naturally.)

The rain came back to drench me one final time about fifty miles from my house. I laughed as I sang in the rain the rest of the way home.

The whole 1353 mile route:

And in Google Earth:

A great start to another riding season.. Nova Scotia, here I come!!

The motorcycle trip to Pittsburgh started out hot and ended up wet, or at least the first half did. The weather changed from a high of 92 to a high of 62, and on the second day, the rain started to fall.

Centralia, PA is a place I’ve always wanted to go to, ever since reading about it in A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. Back in 1962, there was a fire at a garbage dump, which ignited a vein of anthracite coal near the surface. While the people of Centralia thought the fire was extinguished, the coal actually continued to burn under the ground.

And that coal has been burning from 1962 until today. Yup, for the past FORTY-FOUR YEARS there has been a fire under the little town of Centralia. Here is a link explaining the Centralia mine fire in more detail.

Abi and I followed Route 42, which led to Centralia. The sky opened up several times, which was surprising since Stormbringer was home.

The road to Centralia was incredible, such a shame it was so wet. On one of the many twisty back roads, a suicidal chipmunk ran directly under my front wheel. POP! went the weasel. Abi said it almost looked like I ran over a tomato, it was pretty gross.

Centralia was interesting. The main road through the town has been diverted, thanks to a sudden ground collapse. At it’s height, Centralia had over 1000 full time residents. Now, about five residents remain in the town. Due to toxic gases seeping into basements, most of the houses have been knocked down. In November of 1983, instead of trying to fight the fire, the state relocated most residents and bought every house that remained at a cost of $42 million.

This is one of the smallest houses I have ever seen. It was one of a whole row of houses that relied on each other for support. This is the only house left standing, thus the brick chimney looking things on either side. I’m not sure if it is abandoned or not.

Down one of the many abandoned side streets, sulfurous smoke was rising from the ground. The ground felt hot to the touch, evidence that even today that fire is still burning. Worst case predictions are for the fire to burn for a hundred more years. Incredible.

Fortunately, the rain stopped while we were looking around, but it soon returned with a vengeance. I would have liked to look around more, but if we were going to have time to pay a visit to Phil, we had to get moving.

That’s right, there was no way I wasn’t going to stop off and visit my old buddy Phil. I felt it was only fitting to deliver his GFY award in person.

Both the rain and the temperature continued to fall. Everything got completely soaked. The last two hours of the ride were the wettest by far, but of course the rain stopped and the sun came out twenty minutes from the end of the ride. Perfect ending to the perfect day, soggy and shivering, blinded by the sun as the ride ended.

Thursday the ride home begins. Forecast: Rain.

Summer is here. Me and my baby Busa are heading to Pittsburgh, for the first long ride of the summer season. It’s almost 600 miles from home to Pittsburgh, and I plan to make it in six hours or less, so if you see me in the mirror, get out of my way!