Day 1 is in the books

The boys arrived on time and are ready to go! Unfortunately this will be the last time we'll be on time all day. Between traffic, weather and everything else we ended up WAY BEHIND all day. As you'll see, it was still a great day! Let's face it, any day on two wheels is a great day.

We pulled out of Fairfax at 0850, 20 minutes behind schedule. Thanks to our supporters that came out to see us off! We made a quick fuel stop in Lucketts and crossed our first state line (Maryland) at 0950. We quickly got to PA at 1029. Some construction on I78 slowed us up.

It was time for lunch and we found a great place to eat. Funck's Family restaurant in Fort Indiantown Gap, PA. Unreal portions of food. We're in trouble - I see major weight increase if this keeps up!

And of course there's our usual RIDECAM issues (this is getting old!) No picture at all today and tech support was not available. Maybe we'll have better luck on Monday.

By now, we're pretty behind and I believe we crossed into NJ at 1330 on our way to Paramus to meet the Patriot Guard Riders (PGR). The PGR guys were great as we were over an hour behind. Very sorry to keep them waiting.

Then the whole group (10 bikes in all) went into the nice tree lined neighborhood of the Donegan home. The welcome committee was ready with drinks for us. It was nice to see Dancing Bear's childhood home - that would be Tom :)

Now it get's interesting - major traffic heading to NY had us alter our route. I'm glad we had PGR escorting us! And then the rains came - not very long, but enough to soak us pretty good.

We took a quick break at a rest area and then continued on. The scenery as we crossed the Tappan Zee bridge was gorgeous! I wish I could have taken some pictures but the road along the river was very winding and needed full time attention.

We finally made it to our hotel about 1845, about 2 hours behind schedule. Unfortunately they couldn't hold our reservation at the Striped Bass Restaurant, but thanks to a great recommendation from our PGR friends, we had an awesome meal at Pete's Saloon in Elmsford, NY. Many thanks to John Tibbs, Bob Kepler, Phil Donahue, Matt Higgins and Jack Kinchella for taking the time to meet and escort us. We greatly appreciate it!

As usual, the boys are asleep now and I'm slaving at the keyboard. Kickstands up at 0745 as we need to make sure we're at West Point Academy ON TIME. See you tomorrow!