Skip to main content

Into the Canadian Wild

If you’ve been following the shorter updates on Facebook or Twitter, you’ll know that I left Washington DC on Thursday morning riding on a brand new red Genuine Rattler 110 scooter.  The first day of travel was about as epic as things will get on this journey, taking me over 500 miles to Boston via Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York City.  I spent most of the day on small local streets trying to ensure my motor got the best break-in possible and as a result I was on the road for over 19 hours.  I decided to spend a couple days in Boston to catch some final R&R before heading onwards on the next big push, hopefully a bit more sanely managed.

While I was in Boston, I stopped by Scooters Go Green, a great local dealer here.  The owners were fantastic and hooked me up with free service and some extra fluids for the road and we had a great time talking.  I highly recommend them to anyone doing some scooter shopping in the Boston area, they had a really quality store and obviously took a lot of pride in what they were doing there.

The rest of the time I spent relaxing around Cambridge, a neighbourhood that made me laugh endlessly…  let’s just say there are an awful lot of awkward turtles here, the level of social interaction amongst strangers is very different than in DC.  Maybe there’s just too many braniacs around!

Regardless, even though I had a great time (thanks Carla!) it’s time to get back to what this entire trip is all about – the open road into Canada.  Tomorrow morning I’ll head mostly north into Vermont with the goal of arriving at Brighton State Park (300 miles) for the evening – after that I’m into Canada somewhere around Montreal and playing it by ear every day.  My goal is to take the northernmost westward roads I can, which isn’t saying much because there don’t appear to be many roads that go east-west once you start heading north.  It’s going to be an interesting challenge.

Once I get into Canada I’ll slow down a bit and start paying more attention to the countryside and towns and people around me – it’s going to be pretty cool.  Right now I feel the need to reach that goal and get a comfortable system in place with my gear before I start constantly unpacking/repacking to shoot photos and video constantly. 

To everyone asking me what the route is, what the plan is, when I’ll be where, etc…  seriously, don’t you know better by now?  If I planned this entire thing out it would defeat most of the purpose – rather, I prefer to watch order settle from the chaos.  We’ll see!

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Patagonia Beckons

Today I begin what may become one of the most difficult tests of long term mental and physical endurance and strength I have ever undertaken: for most of its remaining 2500km through Patagonia, Ruta 40 is considered one of the most desolate highways in the world. Over half of the remaining road is gravel, sand, and dirt. The number of towns listed on a map once I pass Perito Moreno can be counted on one hand, and there are many stretches of hundreds of miles without provisions, fuel, or places to stay.
Post a Comment
Read more

Gear Review: Sea to Summit Big River Dry Sacks

In the past couple months on the road I think I’ve spent more time riding my scooter through rain than I have in the dry – this is clearly reflected in the fact that as time has gone by I’ve invested more and more money in things to keep my stuff dry, since wet gear sucks. One of my favorite purchases for this trip is the pair of Sea to Summit Big River Dry Sacks I picked up just before leaving, in 13L and 20L sizes. They cost me around $20 each and are one of the best pieces of gear I’ve purchased in years – extremely durable, effective, and simple to use.
Post a Comment
Read more

5 Things that Suck about Traveling Solo

I find it telling that it seems a majority of the interesting travel blogs I run across are written by solo travelers, most often women. I think there’s a reason why we write more than people who travel with friends or in groups and that it’s pretty self evident: it’s an outlet for our loneliness. In the last year and a half, the vast majority of my time has been spent away from home, alone. As I write this, it’s been over a month since I’ve conversed with anyone in my native language, and I can remember every single conversation in English for the month before that. The truth is, I don’t think I could have done this without the internet – without a blog to share my thoughts, without Facebook to see what my friends are up to, without the occasional e-mail to provide a façade of normalcy… without these things I’d likely have driven myself insane with my internal dialogue. Now, I grant, there’s a reason I travel alone and I do love it, but lately it seems all I run across in the blogosp
Post a Comment
Read more