Starting Location: Jonestown, PA
Ending Location: Bennington, VT
Daily Miles Ridden: 391
Cumulative Miles Ridden: 1401
This Day's Route: I-81 north to Scranton PA [2], several backroads to
PA 370, PA 370 to near Hancock NY [3], backroads detour to Deposit NY, NY 8
north to I-88, I-88 north to Rotterdam NY, Hwy 7 east to Bennington VT[10].
The day started out with perfect weather in Pennsylvania.
The Mid-Atlantic and New England states had been having unprecedented
amounts of rainfall in the days and weeks leading up to the trip. Many
secondary roads and bridges were closed due to flooding and related storm
damage.
My planned route was to cross the Delaware River from Pennsylvania into New
York at Hancock, NY. This proved to be impossible as the bridge had washed out.
After making a detour I finally crossed into New York and stopped for lunch at a small town diner. My plans were to take highway 30 through the Catskill and Adirondack parks but the local folks I met there strongly discouraged this due to the many washed out bridges and closed road sections. So I decided to press on to New England and possibly catch these parks on the return trip after the road crews had a chance to repair some of the damage.
I finally stopped in Bennington, VT for the night. A major thunderstorm was brewing so I got a room. As I was unloading I met my next door neighbor, a motorcyclist from New York who had come here for a weekend trip. We sat outside discussing bikes and such for a while and he suggested that I take highway 100 through Vermont since it was a scenic mountain route favored by local riders.