We decided to go to Plymouth Rock, and Cape Cod if we had the time. As always, we make an honest effort to avoid blasting down the interstate all day, but we do what we have to. It's not our fault they put the places we want to go so far away. This works for Katrina the fashionista - she loves to pick out stylish girlie wear bearing logos from Harley dealers she's been to all across the map. It's a biker thing.
This ride added Rhode Island and Massachusetts to her resume, and she got a shirt from both. It was a lot of hauling ass the first day, and we avoided what would have been a major rethinking of the plan, in escaping a closed Merritt Parkway by sneaking off an exit earlier than we planned, pointing the bike the wrong way down an onramp and heading for our freedom. We eventually got to Buzzards Bay, MA and across the bridge onto Cape Cod in the late afternoon, got a souvenir, and headed up the coast to Plymouth.
Again, another place I've found that was way cooler than I anticipated. It's not a big city, and not really a big area, period, and it was bustling, but by no means overrun. We easily found enough space to park a Sportster, and took a walk to see the distinguished stone. What was cool was the harbor had a million spiffy white pleasure boats anchored in the shallow water. We've been to marinas but had never seen a postcard scene like that before. Felt almost like we were in the Meterranean, but instead surrounded by old American money.
I wanted to make the next day much easier, so we backtracked westward into the setting sun, and ended up in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. That, because it's up I-95 from Providence next door, where we found a festival of some sort, but didn't find a hotel room. The next day we popped back into Massachusetts for a visit to Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg. I don't make this up.
From there, we boogied across Connecticut through Hartford, Waterbury, and Danbury, and crossed the Hudson over the Bear Mountain Bridge. This is a cool ride that she and I had to excise from a past itinerary, and one that I had wanted to do for a long time. It lived up to the expectation, and was worth delaying our return home. That return came a few short hours later, and before you know it my kid was back in the car heading away from me again.
On the way up, we took our pictures at the state lines new to Katrina, like we always do. And within minutes, they were on the World Wide Web. Kids... Despite having to tell her she shouldn't be sitting back there Facebooking at 75 mph, it got me to smiling. I remember her as a little girl when the only bike she would get on was Pop-Pop's huge, whisper quiet land barge, and then we had to stay in the yard. She soon was riding that one around the block, and eventually ended up going to Brownie camp on it - and that was all the way on the other side of Allentown! Since then, we've been an awful lot of places together , in 10 different states. We've also spent very little time in rainsuits, which is kinda cool.
Now she's going to be a senior, and I'd imagine there won't be too many more of these. She is really a great kid, and she's truly a chip off the old block, which makes us really close. I always told her mom that she got her girl, but otherwise my genes went in there and beat up hers and took their lunch money. Trina and I are cool and I'm really really lucky to have her. I don't think she'll ever be too far away.
No comments:
Post a Comment