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Diary from the 5th of September in
Maine |
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5th till the 9th of September:- A major milestone in our
journey was crossing the border into Maine. This means we have gone the
full width of the USA, all we have to do now is the depth.
We
were invited to make use of Kevin and Pams toy carrier caravan (trailer)
whilst on the Maine Coast which was great. On the way across Maine we found
our first covered bridge and took a heap of photographs. The scenery
through Maine is brilliant, every time you turn a corner it's another
great rural scene or historic town.
We followed Kevin and Pam for a
tour of the Maine coast over a couple of days, it's easy to see why
this coast is used as the set for movies. The houses, fishing villages,
islands, lakes and waterways are often story book like. As with many of
the Ural owners we have stayed with, it was great to sit around at night
and chat over a glass of wine and some fine food. It takes us back to what
we knew from day one, it's meeting the local people that makes our
adventure so great.
SOME PICTURES OF OUR
FIRST FEW DAYS IN MAINE
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URAL REPORT:- 18,500km
and still running really well. We use no oil between services, the sidecar
tire is still the original and I suspect it will survive the entire trip.
We made the Ural work really hard across South Dakota (and in a few other
places) when we have had strong head winds. Whilst I don't like doing it
we run at full throttle at around 50mph to counter the wind. The fuel
consumption got down to about 23mpg in this situation but the Ural doesn't
seem to mind. Through South Dakota the temperatures were around 100F when
we were doing this.
Took it in to Crawfords, Terry did a full service,
found it was pretty good, still a bit tight though, throttle cables were
out of balance and tire pressures were low. With the tires I checked the
Russian gauge and found it reading about 10psi low. This we discovered
helped explain the particularly poor mileage and high tire wear. Runs a
lot better with proper pressure.
Still have to keep checking nuts and
bolts, the idling seemed to be erratic and Al from Crawfords found the
hose clamp that connects the right carb to the manifold was loose enough
to let in extra air, tightened it and the engine settled down
beautifully.
The Duro tires seem to be giving about twice the mileage
of the Russian tires, still have to do a full test as the pressure problem
would give us some false info here.
JUST A NOTE:- Crawfords
at South Lyon, like Ural NW, gave us exceptional service from staff that
were just brilliant. Dealing with Terry Crawford was an absolute pleasure,
it feels good to deal with such a straight and brilliantly competent
operator. The only worry was how he can work on Urals and keep a workshop
that is the ultimate in tidy/cleanliness, I couldn't keep a
workshop that neat even if I didn't work in it.
We also spent some time
with Becky and Vance Blosser, Becky runs the Russian Iron web site for
Terry. Again, two great people with true dedication to the Ural
family.
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September 10th to 16th
2007:- When you go down to the harbour at Camden, Maine, you are
confronted with the spectacle of large numbers of traditional old sailing vessels from small
pleasure craft to large trading schooners. It finished up being more than
Julie and I could bear so we booked ourselves onto the
Grace Bailey, an 82ft on the deck gaff rigged schooner built in 1882.
After two days of less than favourable weather, but part of the experience, we
enjoyed a brilliant day of sailing in sunny conditions with the maximum
gust measured at 35 knots. The wind was consistently over 25 knots
and it was a day to remember. To not enjoy such a day
would require someone with no soul. The following day was a classic story book type
sailing day, clear skies, fair winds and making a reasonable pace.
As has been
the case right through the USA we met some great people and had a lot of
fun just chatting, playing cards and telling stories. The food was
excellent (except the porridge) and there was plenty to eat and drink for
the entire trip.
The Grace
Bailey is as close to original as possible. The
only electricity on board are batteries on a box on the foredeck to
supply lighting to the cabins. All the rigging is totally traditional from
the manila ropes to the timber cheeked blocks and the sails are even
in traditional cotton canvas. Below deck the cooking in all done on
a genuine ships stove. The only concession to modern technology is a GPS
that was brought on deck when visibility was reduced severely on day 2 to
confirm our position.
We came away from the vessel having a much
greater appreciation of sailing 2 centuries ago, and with a lot of new
friends.
It's hard to take photographs of a ship when you are
on board, we took over 300 images but have cut it back to 14 that you can
view HERE |
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September 17th to 22nd 2007:- After our stay with
Kevin and Pam it was hard to move on, we were so at home but there was
still a lot to see and miles to travel.
The ride back across Maine, New
Hampshire, Vermont and New York was even better than the ride across. The
roads were quiet and the fall colours were even more vibrant, although not
fully to colour, compared to when we travelled east into Maine a
couple of weeks before. We found our first covered bridge that was part of
the road system, some fantastic old towns and just beautiful countryside.
Whilst it wasn't on our original route we went to Saratoga Springs,
possibly the nicest town/city we have visited on our journey. Chris and
Anna, Ural riders that live in the hills beside a lake just out of
Saratoga Springs invited us to stay overnight and it was just great. Their
house is on a small lake with brilliant views in a really quiet
location.
We moved on through New york State,again, by being off the
interstates found some fantastic old towns and villages that are the
epitome of 1950's USA. Those that tour and drive the interstates just miss
so much. We stopped at an old sulphur springs town called Sharon Springs.
It was totally fascinating to see the big old tourist hotels, most now
being restored as tourism again becomes important to the district. We
wandered around before stopping at a little wayside cafe for lunch where
we had a bit of a chat to the gents at the next table. When we went to pay
our bill it had already been paid by the gents that we had been chatting
too. Very humbling. As we travelled we often met up with the Erie Canal, I
tried to sing the song to julie through the intercom but she lacks the ear
to appreciate fine music.
We continued up to Lake Ontario and followed
the southern shore through to Niagara Falls. Niagara Falls was not what we
expected. The falls were brilliant, it really was worth the trip out of
our way to go there. Parts of the town on the USA side appeared to be the
result of failed industry and extreme poverty/lack of funds. With
some shocking city roads and rows of old empty shops we could have
been in a movie set. Other parts of niagara Falls city were better . But,
that day we played 'tourists' in Niagara Falls, it was a day to remember.
From Niagara Falls we headed through Buffalo and followed the south
shore of Lake Erie and camped about two hours down the highway at
Westfield. There we met with 3 biker couples who were doing a wine tour
and had a brilliant evening chatting, drinking, eating and playing 'corn
in the hole'. (ask Julie, she's the king of that game.)
We then headed
west then south, crossing from New York State into pennsylvania then into
Ohio on the way down to stay a few days with some more Ural riders, Jim
& Janet. On this trip we went through a lot of towns which made
it a particularly slow journey. We passed through some more towns
obviously affected by worsening economic conditions. The
highlight of the day was a visit to a Pumpkin Festival where we saw some
seriously big pumpkins.
The photographs attached HERE will illustrate the text
above...
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SEPTEMBER 22nd - October 12th:- We spent a week with Jim &
Janet, managed to get a service done on the Ural. We went for a couple of
interesting rides, saw some interesting cattle and, most important, met up
with some friends from the West Coast that had come east for a variety of
reasons. Managed to be a participant in the Smithville Apple Festival with
the other Ural Riders.
Moved on from Smithville to Chesapeake Bay where
we met up with Colin and Jeanne from Goolwa in South Australia. They had
purchased a yacht in the USA and were taking in back to Australia. We
stayed 4 days on the boat and have now ticked off our list the 'sail on
chesapeake Bay' item.
From there one of the most brilliant rides I
could ever imagine began when we started down the Blueridge Parkway. This
ride can only be described as 500 miles of the most magnificent botanical
gardens, and with the fall colours must be one of the world's best rides.
We stayed for a couple of days in a "Biker Only" campground, sat around
the fire at night with a group of like minded people, and Charlie, a local
Ural owner took us for a tour of his area. we also managed to spend a
night in wind and rain in a National Park Camp, but the rain started after
the tent was up, and stopped before morning. We have had so much luck like
this.
On the Blueridge the speed limit is 45mph, no truck or commercial
vehicles, and no-one seems in a hurry. We averaged 35.1mph for the 500
miles and loved every second of it.
At the moment we are sitting in a
campground in Ashville, it's very cold and we are waiting the arrival of
another 20 or so Urals for a rally, this rally is the 'Fall Annual
Rebellious Tour", F.A.R.T. Rally for short.
Whilst it's not
possible to catch the feel of the Blueridge Parkway, here are some pictures that might give you some
idea...
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October 13th - 24th:- The best layed
plans sometimes take a massive change at the most inconvenient time. We
finally downloaded an email from USA Homeland Security. Our application
to continue travelling for an extra 6 months had been denied. Numerous
phone calls to Homeland Security, US immigration and the Australian
Embassy achieved nothing. We had to be out of the USA by the 23rd of October
or become illegal aliens. In speaking to immigration we found out if we did
stay it would not be a major problem in the short term, just make it a bit
hard to get back in later so we decided, reluctantly, to leave.
We had a
look around Asheville, spent many enjoyable hours with Ural owners at the
F.A.R.T. rally, went to Biltmore House then drove up to South Lyon (near
Detroit) to drop the Ural off at Crawfords (Ural Dealer) for Terry to
sell. Peter and Sally drove up from St Louis to spend a couple of days with
us before we left from the Detroit area. It was a couple of great days
and we will be forever be thankful for the friendship of Sally & Peter
(as well as many others) whilst we were in the USA. From there a
flight via Phoenix to San Francisco, spent a few day with Dennis &
Becky (Ivan Rider) and they showed us all around the San Francisco area
before dropping us at the San Francisco airport for the flight home.
Again, we were very appreciative of Becky and Dennis's friendship and
help.
Back in Australia with jetlag, a certain amount of confusion and
no home (our house is rented out until January) followed before we
puchased ourselves a camper trailer and plan on spending the next couple
of months just wandering around and having a look at areas of South
Australia where we haven't spent much time.
There are pics here of our last few
days.
The refusal of Homeland
Security to allow us to stay made us very unhappy. Knowing what we know
now we should have just flown to England for a week, booked out of the US
as we left and booked back in with another six months when we returned. We
could have done the same by riding into Canada or Mexico. We decided to
reapply via the paperwork system. I thought it would be simple, what I
didn't realise was that we had to resubmit all the paperwork we had to
supply for the original visa. I submitted what we had but deeds to
properties and the like we didn't carry with us. I assumed copies of the
original paperwork would have been on file. Apparently it is, it just
wasn't accessed by Homeland Security. It just seem wierd that by riding
into Canada and back we could have achieved the same result without
money(it cost us $300), paperwork and all the checks. It seems so
massively inconsistent. Anyhow, we will know next time, we plan on
returning and completing our circuit. |
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