Nashville to Maine

[fortyhourdays]

Well this week has been pretty crazy, so I thought I'd share a little bit of what I've been doing the last few days.
I started about 30 miles south of Nashville, TN by strapping the Nighthawk into my band's trailer, and driving 1000 miles up to Amsterdam, NY to play a couple concerts.

Here's the route I took


At the concert that night I met a fellow Nighthawker.  He had a 450, so we stopped for a photo op


Then I rode up to Northville, NY to stay overnight at a friend's lake house.  I didn't have time to hang for too long though because I wanted to get up to Maine to see my family for the 4th of July.

The morning of the 4th, it was kickstand up at 5:00am.  I had about 470 miles to put behind me.


I pondered taking a more scenic route through Vermont, but decided I wanted speed over fun so I could get home in time to see my grandparents.  I decided to slab it the whole way across I-90 through Mass. 
Here's the route I took


Unfortunately I'd broken my windscreen a couple months ago, so I did take quite a beating from the wind.  I taped some gaff tape across the top of my helmet to block the sun since I was riding East at dawn.


I stopped to get a sunrise picture for the sunrise/sunset game


I found I get pretty horrible gas mileage on the freeway and probably averaged a stop about every 90 miles to fill up.  I think I was getting between 35-40mpg.  On the few times where the speed went down closer to 50-55 as opposed to 65-70 my mileage went back up to close to between 45-50MPG. 

I stopped once I hit the border of Maine for my State Line phototag looking considerably less happy than when I left NY at 5am that morning.


At 1:30 PM I pulled into my parents house, just in time for 4th of July grilling


I got my three generations phototag from left to right with me, my brother, my dad, and my grandfather.


Also got to have a little friendly archery competition after lunch


So I may not have quite an iron butt yet, but I think it's getting pretty close to being made of brass.  I thought that long of a trip in eight and a half hours was making pretty good time considering I had to stop so often for fuel.

[Burgi]

What a great trip!! 
Did you take the Turnpike into Maine? I was on it few weeks back and thought it would be an be an awful ride on a bike. Hope they got the construction done before you arrived!
and the cooler is for???

[fortyhourdays]

What a great trip!! 
Did you take the Turnpike into Maine? I was on it few weeks back and thought it would be an be an awful ride on a bike. Hope they got the construction done before you arrived!
and the cooler is for???

The pavement was still grooved for quite a ways, but no active construction was happening on the 4th.  I split off once I got to 295 in Portland anyway.  Oh, and it's not a cooler.  It's one of those Rubbermaid Action Packer boxes that I bolted to my tail rack for the trip.  I had my tools and laptop in it along with an extra quart of Rotella T and various other things I thought I might need.  All the weight on the back of the bike definitely made my steering head shake worse at low speeds.

[drdubb]

Great trip. I visited Maine for the first time in 09 and I really wished I was on a motorcycle. Bought the night a few months later. Stay safe.

[tbante]

Very cool Jon. We gotta go for another ride. Pants is thinking about coming up the Natchez Trace......maybe we could go all the way down there and meet up with him and come back up the Trace and camp along the way.

[fortyhourdays]

I'd love to, Tom.  I won't be back down in Tennessee till mid August, but if I'm around when you guys go, count me in.

[gammer]

Great trip fortyhourdays!

Where are you now? Because, you weren't too far from me...

[JB1290]

Great report, forty. Looks like you had a great trip. Looks like you did a great job on the rebuild because there was no mention of any mechanical issues. 

[BAMBY]

Gammer, your picture edit made me laugh "gammer lives here" lol 
fortyhourdays, glad to see you made it back in the saddle!

[hppants]

Great RR, Jon - if there was any doubt as to the effectiveness of the Dining Room Mechanic, let them forever hold their peace.   

What did you family grill on the 4th?

[LOKi]

Well done on the ride report. I don't think I could resist riding through VT. I have driven those roads in the cage and thought a bike would be much better. Those back roads in VT are sparsely populated by cops so the speeding you can do makes up for the extra miles. But then your mileage would be even worse.

Thanks for sharing

[fortyhourdays]

Great trip fortyhourdays!

Where are you now? Because, you weren't too far from me...

Hey Gammer.  I'm up in Maine close to Bar Harbor now.  I thought about trying to hook up with some fellow members along the way, but since my grandparents were only in town for the 4th I really wanted to get back to see them.  Hopefully my next ride will be a little more leisurely with time to stop and meet the great people on this forum.

No mechanical issues on the ride except my kill switch is starting to act up a little.  I need to take it apart and clean the contacts.  It works fine so long as I don't use it and only shut the bike off with the key, but if I shut it off with the kill switch, I have to wiggle the switch around before it will start again.

@Loki.  I've driven those roads in a cage before too and it is beautiful country.  One thing is for sure, the cops were everywhere running speed traps on all the major highways so I have a feeling those back roads would have been devoid of any traffic enforcement.  Oh well, next time.  I'm hoping to have time to get a ride report in of Acadia National Park before I head south again.

[fishball]

I don't know how I missed this one.  Great trip 40hr!  The interstates in New England can be pretty in places... at least compared to SE Wisconsin where I am from originally.