Well we slept in a bit today since it was one of our shortest and last rides of the trip. We left the Courtyard Marriott around 8:20 a.m. after chatting with the GM of the hotel for around 10 minutes. She was telling us how she and her fiance are looking to also to a long ride up the coast of CA. She recently rode for 5 days through Maine. We shared a bit of our trip with her and were encouraged by her kind words. Definitely a nice hotel and nice people. It was now off to the Harley York Vehicle Operations plant. I had done this tour twice, but Diane never was there. We got there early enough to get on the 8:45 tour, but unfortunately there was no production today. We just saw the factory and some videos. You can't really appreciate what goes into to putting these machines together until you've seen them actually put together. We were able to get on the road again before 10 a.m. Our quest was to see the Amish country of Lancaster County as well as get a nice breakfast at a Lancaster establishment. We went through historic downtown Lancaster which wasn't the same as the Amish country. It was very old and somewhat depressed.
We did stop at Leenah's Restaurant on Rt 23 in Leola, PA. Very nice people and a good breakfast. It was then off to visit the country. Even though it is not accepted and considered to be disrespectful to photograph the Amish, you can see by the pictures that there are actually no Amish in the buggies. They either somehow stay shielded or are not able to be photographed. You can see the horses and buggies, though. You can also see some wonderful Amish farms. We went through the town of New Holland, best known for their agricultural equipment ( as well as Amish farms and dairy manufacturing facilities).
For some reason, Diane took a pic of the back of my helmet. I guess she was bored. And finally the ride home. One more blog after this which will capture the stats of the ride such as how many gallons of gas, cost of dining, how many states, best and worst hotels, farthest north, south, east and west, etc.
We did log a total of 7649.2 miles according to my mileage odometer which we kept from the start of the trip.
For those following the blog, thank you for following and I hope we didn't bore you too much. Just to explain, we're not boasting about the trip, but just keeping an online diary that we can also follow or look back upon. Like I said, another blog as the final blog once we get some stats put together.
It was a trip of a lifetime and we had a real blast. We didn't want to say it before, but we can say it now--- we hardly got any rain. Certainly in the days leading up to the trip, we were concerned that rain would make this trip very stressful and long. It would also make it quite dangerous. We also thought that we could easily get picked off by a tractor trailer or a car with a driver texting or not paying attention. There were high risks involved. I thank everyone who wished us safe travels through the trip. That was our goal and beliefs. We never ride without helmets, even though more than 3/4 of the states we traveled don't have helmet laws. We also don't ride without protective gear. I will say we didn't bring heavy leathers or chaps on the ride due to the extreme heat. We suffered a bit due to high temps, but better than the alternative.
We filmed the entry to all States. The only State which didn't have a welcome sign when coming in was New Jersey as you can see by the video. At least not where we came in and where we exited.
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