My two brothers (Brian and Greg) and I have enjoyed motorcycling, cumulatively, for over 100 years. When we can, we ride together. We currently ride cruising bikes capable of limited off-road use to enable us to go exploring. I ride a 1992 Kawasaki 750 Vulcan; Brian a 1992 Honda 750 Nighthawk; Greg a 2002 Suzuki 805 Intruder. We only dare travel 100 miles between refuelings so range is a serious on-going problem especially on our more remote trips.
We have explored much of LI from NYC to Montauk Point (check out the dirt trails north of Montauk Hwy. near the Lobster Roll Restaurant.) We have also explored most of Connecticut on three trips via the ferries over to Bridgeport and New London.
So where to next?
As we discussed our trips we realized that it was the journey we enjoyed. It’s the ride! The journey is the destination.
So…pick a destination, any destination.
Greg found a piece in a local paper about the NY/MA/CT tri-state marker. I recalled having hiked to that monument many years earlier on a camping trip with our father. So that became our next adventure. We rode the bikes as close to the marker as we could and hiked in the rest of the way, a small rock cairn indicating where we had to leave the trail to search the nearby woods.
So far we have visited 12 of 38 dry land tri-state markers, excluding the Four Corners (UT/CO/AZ/NM) and one for the District of Columbia. (Google “the corner corner” for directions and details.)
We visited the local tri-state markers first and then during the summer 06, on a trip to Sturgis, we did four more (OH/MI/IN; MN/SD/IA; MT/WY/SD; SD/WY NE.) We use the Atlas Gazetteer maps from DeLorme electing to take the most scenic and/or the faintest map lines shown if possible. Many roads are unpaved, some no more than trails, adding to the edgy enjoyment of our explorations. Use of a battery operated, hand-held GPS is under discussion. Searching out these markers has taken us places we probably would never have gone, meeting people we probably would never have met.
On one of our last trips while returning to base after locating our latest marker we took a wrong turn (somewhere) and wound up lost (somewhere) on this great motorcycle road. It was an ideal sweep of lefts and rights, of ups and downs with the pavement perfectly pitched. That ride home at dusk was the righteous ending to a glorious day.
Later Brian reminded me that even when you’re lost, when the journey is your destination, you’re always home
The Journey is the Destination
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