Day 36- July 27

Day 36: July 27th 36,701 on the odometer.

As I pull the bikes out, the storm clouds are building. Not a good sign. Neither is the gas leaking out of my #2 carb and into the airbox. Makes it hard to start. We spend our usual hours loading the bikes, and it is noon before we get on the road and into the rain.
It is a drenching thunderstorm as we cross the Hudson River into Albany. I manage to somehow lose my way on Route 9 going south. We stop and wait under a gas station awning for a bit to give my badly misfiring bike a chance to dry out and my badly misfiring organic navigation device a chance to get us un-lost. It rains steadily until we get past the Catskills. We don’t get off our route again except for a detour around what appears to be a fatal bike-car accident. We are too far away too get an idea of what might have happened.
The roads would be good if not for the lousy weather. My worn gear is pretty much completely drenched through. Ceci’s is keeping her nice and dry, with the exception of her boots and gloves. The communicators aren’t working worth a damn in the wet. My Bandit isn’t doing well either. Between the rain cutting out my spark, and the gas flooding the #2 carb, I have to keep very active on the throttle to keep it running, and very careful to keep the tires from spinning on the wet pavement when it suddenly hits on all 4 cylinders. Idle is still high when it’s firing on all cylinders, I’m guessing from the extra gas in #2?
The weather is really slowing us down so we don’t stop to visit the Delaware Gap National Recreation Area as we go by. It looks really nice here though. I also like it through the Poconos and all the little coal towns. It slows us down a bit but I really like the architecture of all the old buildings.
Plan was to make it to Gettysburg tonight, but we come up short and stay at a Hampton Inn in a town where gas is about 30 cents higher than anywhere else. Just my luck. At the hotel we call my Aunt Joanne, who lives in our next intended destination of Virginia Beach. My luck continues, as she is out of town for the week. Time to amend our amended new new itinerary. At least the map pocket is keeping the things that don’t blow out pretty dry.
We manage a mere 249 very wet miles today.