Trip Log - Day 4 – (Fri) Tooling around Ohio, late arrival to Olean, NY

Our morning ritual had a bit of shocker on this day. As we tune in the weather channel the reporters are very busy going over the tremendous storm activity that occurred throughout the day yesterday. The report turns to a live feed to a reporter in Nappanee, Ohio on which he shows the remains of the town after a E5 tornado touched down late in the afternoon yesterday. His main backdrop is the severely damaged Dairy Queen that was directly across the street from where we stopped for a slice of pizza. From what we could tell, the twister touched down a few hours after we left Nappanee for Sandusky. I guess the good Lord must be a biker that is partial BMW’s...

On the map and the Sandusky Ohio looks a lot more interesting than it was in person. A small seasonal town with a great views of Lake Erie.














We took a quick ride downtown near the fishing pier for a quick peek and we headed out towards Cleveland via Route 6. This was a great ride since Rte 6 circles around the bottom of Lake Erie and winds it way through a whole series of small towns. Unexpectedly the average speed limit was 35-40mph through this leg so this put us behind a bit as we make our way towards Cleavlend. However we really enjoy the views like the worlds largest Easter Basket Lakeview Park in Lorain, Ohio was worth a Kodak moment. The homes on the lake front were pretty big but packed in pretty tight to each other.

Our lazy trek continued with another stopover in downtown Cleveland at McCarthy’s Ale House.













McCarthy’s is a great backstreet Irish Bar with a huge selection of beer an awesome pan pizza and these great crab slammers which we of course had to partake in.

Too much gawking in Ohio put us behind schedule so we pick up the interstate for a run to make up some time however we lost daylight pretty quickly as we head into the Allegany Forest.

It's unfortunate since what we could see of the reservoir and forest area as we lost the daylight was spectacular. Heading over the mountains towards Olean, NY things cooled of pretty quickly. We get a chance to test out the antilock braking system as we travel through the forest and a few deer decide to make a run for it right in front of the bike.

We were ready for a cocktail as we headed into town. Good thing Olean (pronounced O-Lee-Ann) has the most bars per capita than any other town - and dumpy ones too!

First stop, Granny’s and what can I say. You know it’s a real dive bar when they are too lazy to turn their Jagermeister machine on and serve you warm Jager - I hate warm Jager!

After a less than stellar dinner at Angie’s “Olean’s finest dining” (so they claim) we do some minor bar hopping to make sure we get the full experience and head back to the room.

It is actually hard to put this sleepy town into words but a bad episode of South Park comes to mind from some of the experiences we have that are too numerous to list here.

Trip Log - Day 3 – (Thurs) Tornado Storm Dodging to Sandusky Ohio

Today will bring the longest leg of our Journey – destination Sandusky Ohio approximately 350 miles east / northeast of Chicago. As we assess the situation, although the storms are spotty to the east as well as to the west of us and it is pretty windy we decided to make a run for it.














Now comes the fun part – trying to fit all of our stuff in three hard cases. Not as much room as we expected to have so bought a waterproof duffle to bungee over the back and that seems to solve the luggage problem. As you can see by the time we pack up the clouds disappear and it turns out to be a really windy, but really nice day.

First waypoint is Nappanee, Indiana by noon. We decide to immediately get on the interstate to make some better time to get ahead of the storms to the west of us. We discovered yesterday that the bike if very comfortable at 60-70mph due to the front fairing so a hour or so on the interstate shouldn’t be that bad. That is of course if you don’t have 50 mile and hour wind gusts…

As we head out of town the wind is incredible. Passing tractor trailers at 60 mph with potential wind gusts peaking 50mph become a bit of a challenge. So much so at one point as we pass a big rig and just cleared his wind blast and then get broad sided by a 50+mph wind gust that literally pushes us off balance and over into the speed lane. Since I know better than to pass while sandwiched between two vehicles, we had room to recover without incident. But I think I felt my wife’s nails dig into my skin right through my leather jacket after that one.

After finally getting back on Route 6 we make our first stop in Nappanee, IN. Not a very large town (like don’t blink or you’ll miss it) but interesting enough do to it’s Amish influences.













Quite a few ZZ Top looking guys running around on bicycles as well as the traditional black horse drawn carriages double parked at the grocery stores.













After a lunch break at a rather homely Big Pappa C’s pizza joint we head on to our next waypoint - Napolean, IN

In route we stop for some Kodak moments along the way. One of which was these really huge power producing windmills in Bowling Green, Ohio.

With the high winds blowing through the corn fields at warp speed, these suckers are really spinning fast but they are eerily quiet. The pictures don’t do justice to the size of these ominous machines

We ultimately arrive in Sandusky, OH as dusk sets in. After a quick check in we head over to Manny’s sports bar across the street. With a bar full of Indians fans, you don’t admit that you live a few hours from Boston even if we aren’t big sports fans. This place was bonkers for the tribe so we kept a low profile and enjoyed a few beers and good food.