From Kitchener to Ravenwood

We left Chris' place on June 10 and spent the night in Petersborough, Ontario, then on to Kingston on the 11th. We went from the Land of 1,000 Lakes to the Land of 1,000 Islands. Crossing the bridge back into the States, we were able to look down and sure enough, the water was full of thousands of little islands, several of which had a house or two sitting on, with a boat garage next to it. We saw a place offering boat tours and stopped in to check it out, but it was closed.

One odd sight we saw on the way was a small goat farm. The goats had big horns, but on the tips of their horns the owners had placed tennis balls, assumably to keep them from stabbing each other.

From Kingston we rode to Lake Placid, NY. That wasn't one of our intended destinations, but Toby and several other's had suggested it, so we figured why not.

We stayed at the Wildwood Inn - overlooking the lake and priced right. We were on the second floor and had a wonderful view of the lake and were within walking distance of town.

While we were there, we met up with a group from Canada which we refer to as the Canadian version of Wild Hogs. They were five guys out for a short vacation. We ended up spending the afternoon and part of the evening visiting with them and having a great time. They all work together and some of them are in the same motorcycle group.

They left early the next morning and Jim and I walked into Lake Placid and checked out the sights. We visited the ice-skating rink where the Olympics were held and did some shopping. We bought new stuff sacks for our gear. The previous ones opened at the top so if we needed something at the bottom we had to dump everything out. The new ones open on the sides, so it's easier to dig around to find what we need without having to empty the whole bag.

From Lake Placid we rode back to Rochester on June 14 where we stayed with Toby again.

On the 15th we rode to Columbus where we stayed with Ann. We started out taking some marvelous back roads, but by 3:30 realized we'd never make it there by dark if we didn't get on the freeway. We stayed with Ann three nights.

While there we went shopping at the Iron Pony and bought new, cooler gear. Jim bought some First Gear mesh gear and I got some Fieldsheer mesh gear. Much cooler than the leather gear we'd been wearing. Ann was kind enough to ship our other gear to my sister for us so we wouldn't have to haul it all the way back.

We had a great time at Ann's just hanging out. Ann's daughter and some of her friends came over and we played the Cornhole game. Jim and Danielle were the champions. The next day we went and watched Ann's daughter at her softball game. It was nice to be off the bikes for a few days, but we were ready to hit the road again.

On June 18 we rode out to the Hocking Hills State Park where we camped out for three nights. While we were there we did a lot of hiking. There were a lot of caves and bluffs to explore. One day we hiked close to six miles.

Out in the trees it's easy to let the imagination run wild. I could see where some of the science fiction and fantasy writers get their ideas. For example, the trees with their roots spread out above ground reminded me of the scenes in the Lord of the Rings movies where the trees were walking. We also saw some weird bugs, and one spider that was absolutely HUGE!

The water falls weren't running because of the dry conditions in the area. They usually don't start drying up until July we've been told. The area does look dry - the fields and yards are starting to turn brown and the creeks and rivers are all low.

We left the campground on the 21st to head over to Burr Oak where we were going to meet up with some people from the Sabmag group. On the way we stopped at Ravenwood Castle near New Plymouth. It's a recreation of a castle that we saw an advertisement for.

We arrived at the cabins at Burr Oak, but didn't see any other bikes, so we rode to the Lodge to check in. We ran into ZimBob there and made introductions. We got the key to our cabin and went back. Tom Blum and Pat Coffee were already there so we visited with them for a short while before the others started showing up.

Our roommate - Sean Votier showed up with Vic, a guy he had just sold his Triumph Sprint ST to. Numerous others showed up as the night went on.

The next day, after breakfast, Phil Ross took Jim and I and Chris Park for a nice ride where we experienced the twists and turns of the Ohio roads. We had lunch in New Matamoris and headed back to camp. Phil managed to keep the ride around 200 miles so we weren't to exhausted when we got back to camp. More people had shown up during the day.

The next day, Katherine Becker was our leader. It was a nice leisurely ride. Katherine escorted Jim and I and Sean around the countryside, picking up Phil along the way. We had lunch in Marietta along the river. Jim ordered some tires from the Triple Nickel motorcycle shop. He's not sure he'll make it home on the current tires.

On the way back to camp we stopped at an information center that showed pictures of the strip mining that had taken place in that area. They had a bucket from the machine that did the strip mining. It was huge. It made our gold dredge mining buckets back home look small.

Back at the cabins people were hanging out and telling stories about the days rides.

People started pulling out the next morning. We hung out until nearly everyone was gone - not quite sure yet where we were going to go.

We ending up spending the night (June 24) in New Matamoras at the Aldeco Motel - where previous Sabmag events had been held.

We spent June 25 and 26 at Ravenwood Castle. It's a quiet and peaceful place, nice to relax in before we start making the trek back west for our class reunions. We really enjoyed ourselves at Ravenwood.

So far, we've ridden over 10,000 miles.