U SHOULDA BEEN THERE
Reprinted from PA Chapter “B” Newsletter
Written by Ken Miller
Oh what a beautiful morning,
Oh what a beautiful day.
We had a wonderful weekend,
Oh what a great holiday.
Each year over the Labor Day weekend Chapter B plans a holiday trip. This year’s trip was to Watkins Glen, New York. The trip planners were Dave Seidel and Dave Bolonski. These guys wanted to make sure that there were few if any glitches to the trip, so they went to Watkins Glen weeks before to scout out the town, the motel and the surrounding area. This extra effort paid off.
Well to make a short story long, this trip began at 8:45 A.M. on Friday September 3, 2004 at the Sheetz store on Route 222 near Reading, PA. The weather at that time was a bit cool, but dry. There were 11 bikes and 22 people going on the ride. We left at 9 A.M. and our first stop was at the Cracker Barrel in Bloomsburg, PA where we ate breakfast. Soon after that we made a quick fuel stop, which gave us enough gas to get to Watkins Glen, N.Y. We arrived around 3 and checked into the Budget Inn in downtown Watkins Glen. The owner of this motel is Bob and he could not have been more accommodating. He even pulled his car out of its carport so that we could have a hospitality room at night. The motel even came complete with a waterfall out back.
After we got everything settled and corralled our trailers we went for a little ride. Dave wanted to show us the layout of the town and to point out some points of interest. We stopped at Savards Restaurant for a good meal and returned to the motel for a well deserved good nights sleep.
Saturday September 4th we all got together at 8 A.M. and the weather was cloudy but dry. We ate breakfast and took a trip up north along the west side of Lake Seneca. We stopped and did some wine sampling at the Glenora Winery along the lake. We went thru the college town of Geneva and stopped at a state park at the end of town. There is a lake there and we walked around for a while. Then we decided we wanted to see Lake Ontario, so we went up to the town of Sodus Bay. This is a marina town with many boats of all sizes. We left Sodus Bay and went south to Waterloo, N.Y. to see the famous Locks. These locks lower boats 16 feet to a canal that connects Lake Seneca to Lake Skaneateles. We walked around the locks and watched a few boats come thru. We got back on the bikes and got on Route 96A which runs down the east side of Lake Seneca. We stopped at the Wagner Winery and sampled more wine. There are 26 wineries in the Lake Seneca area. Then back to Watkins Glen for a Pizza Hut stop. We got back to the motel, freshened up and took a ride. On the way back we spotted this outdoor amusement area where they had racecars you could drive. Pass this up? Not on your life. Most of us took our turn going around the track. It was a first for most. Then we went back to the motel and had a birthday party for George, Stacy, Lucille and Cindy. We thank Mike and Phyllis for bringing the cake on their trike from Reading. We had a round or two of slippery nipples. (Butterscotch schnapps and Bailey Bristol Crème). It’s getting late so it’s off to bed. It was a perfect day weather-wise with the sun burning off the clouds by mid-morning.
Gee it’s Sunday already. The weather is a carbon copy of yesterday. Breakfast is individual choice today, but be ready to leave around 9:30 – 10:00. We will be heading west to Corning, N.Y. Dave B. will be taking interested people for a tour of the Corning Glass Museum and the Corning Glass Factory. Dave S. will take all those not wishing to go on a tour to downtown Corning for a walk around town and the shopping district. We all met back at the museum for lunch. After lunch we took a tour around the countryside and wound up going past the Watkins Glen International Raceway. We got back to Watkins Glen and then went to the Watkins Glen State Park. We took a walking trail up thru the gorge. The gorge is 1.5 miles long and had 832 steps you go up to get to the other end. It has many waterfalls (some you can walk under) and the water cuts deep into the rocks. We took the bus back down. Now we did some shopping, ate and went to the ice cream store right aside our motel. Tonight some people got frisky and started playing some jokes on others. It seems somebody took building blocks and piled them about 3 feet high all around the back of Mike’s trike. Also, my trailer mysteriously disappeared even though it was chained-locked to a fence. I still haven’t figured out how they managed this. We were pooped from a busy day so we partied just a little tonight because we had a long ride home the next day.
Monday September 6th was Labor Day. We ate breakfast and started for home. We stopped for gas, ate at Cracker Barrel again, and got into the Reading area about 4 o’clock. Everyday the weather was perfect, we got to do many interesting things and again we all owe a great deal of thanks to our hosts, Dave Seidel and Dave Bolonski.
P.S. We met a couple at our motel from Canada and gave them their first ride on a motorcycle. After we got home we received a note from them saying that their motorcycle ride was the highlight of their vacation. They invited us to stay with them next Labor Day in Toronto. We just might take them up on that. Their names were Ken and Marion.