Up for breakfast at 6:00 to meet everyone at 6:30.  There were a couple of guys checking out my rat bike this morning.  They are my kind of people, who work for a living!  Contrary to popular belief, I, yes, I do work for a living too.  I can really relate to our working class because I sell tools to people who work for a living, everyday.  I am very blessed to be able to ride around our beautiful country, and meet a lot of wonderful people. 

I started Oregon Tool & Supply in 1983 with a $5,000 loan from my mom.  It is now 25 years later and I am able to reap the rewards of my labor, mainly because of the excellent crew who take over for me in my riding trips.  Bernie has been with me almost since the beginning, Geary for over 16 years, Dennis for over 10, and I have a super crew in the Coos bay location as well, going on 9+ years.  That was said in response to the question of, “How do you get to spend so much time on the road”?  I guess you could say that I’ve been paying my dues for quite some time!

Back to the trip.  After breakfast we headed down highway 7 to Schenectady, where we picked up I-90, which happens to be the New York Turnpike system.  More roads to pay tolls at.  We each got out a starting ‘ticket’, from a couple of different booths.  Three out of four of us went west.  We all watched Drew go east!  There isn’t any turning around on a turnpike! Drew found a way to do it.  The tollbooth guy wanted to charge drew $11.00 to get back on again.  Drew told him what happened, and the guy said, “You can’t use those turnarounds.  They are for emergency vehicles only”.  Well, it was already done, so the guy told Drew to write ‘engine trouble’ on his ticket, to justify not paying yet.  He caught up to us after a few miles.  We stopped a bit more than we should have, for restroom breaks.  “Hey Head Dog!  We didn’t learn that when you have to, you CAN hold it for 120 miles or so!!!”  We are lost without you!!!

A sandwich stop, and a few more gas stops, and we finally got to Niagara Falls.  The parking for the State Park was $10.00.  We figured that we have had our wallets open enough to ride on the toll roads that we aren’t paying to PARK!  We rode up the street a bit and parked by the sidewalk.  Drew found out from the guys who were trying to get us to pull into their lot, and have us PAY, that we would get tickets for parking there.  Well the stupid sign says, ‘NO STANDING from here to the corner’.  We figured we were cool, ‘cause we weren’t going to stand, we were just going to park!  Well that isn’t what the New York sign means!  So we moved our bikes and put two bikes on each side of the driveway of the guy trying to get us to PAY to park in his lot!  He said we were going to get tickets there too.  We told him to watch our bikes, ‘cause we aren’t moving them again, ticket, or no ticket!  Off to the falls we went.  We took a few pictures and had someone else take a picture of all of us together.  The falls look pretty cool.  It just looks like it is possible to go over them, if one is well enough equipped.  No, I won’t be trying it anytime soon.  What a spectacular sight, the cascading water rolling over the rock shelves under the grand arched bridge, just upstream from it’s destiny of the “Edge of the World”.  And to the final destination, carrying with it over 500,000 gallons of water per second, just free falling to unknown and unseen depths beyond our comprehension.  Ok, ok, I know.  That sounds a little deep coming from a rat bike rider!  Back to real life.

On the bikes again, with NO tickets, :) and Drew suggested we fill up before going into Canada.  At $4.49 per gallon, we can’t see how it could get much worse.  We turned around and there was another tollbooth.  ANOTHER toll to cross the Rainbow Bridge!  We pulled up to the Canadian checkpoint, and I noticed ALL of the guards, from all of the booths staring at us like we just came in from outer space.  All I could think about was the last time that Joni & I tried to get into Canada in 2003.  I think it had something to do with the rat bike!  Bottom line is they wouldn’t let us in.  See the story about my 2003 ride to Milwaukee.  This time was different.  We had our passports with us.  The guy asked me what I do for a living.  I showed him my shirt where it shows, Oregon Tool & Supply, and told him that my wife and I own a tool store.  Drew said he is retired and he never asked Randy or Cynthia.  He also never asked us how much money we had on us either, unlike in 2003.  Wow, he let us all in, including the rat bike & rider!  We rode for a little while and I signaled Drew to pull over because I thought we were going the wrong way, again.  My bad.  We were right this time!  We followed the QEW highway north until we got to 403 west.  As soon as we pulled on to it, traffic stopped.  5:00 rush hour traffic! This rush hour traffic was different and strange.  We would come to a complete stop.  Then we would go 30-40 mph and just stop again.  Repeat the process a dozen times and then we were free and clear. 

When we got to Brantford, I pulled off to a Best Western to see if anyone else wanted to call it a night.  After a bit of discussion, we stayed there.  Renee & Tarolyn, behind the front desk, were very helpful in persuading us to stay here.  Renee told me her dad has a 1969 ex police Shovelhead.  Wow, I love it when gals talk ‘Shovelhead‘, instead of Harley.  She told me he also has or had a 1972 Shovel.  It appears that she has had some good upbringing!  I told the two gals about my web site, and Renee called home to have her parents look at it, and told them that the rat bike and Milo are here at the motel.  It wasn’t too long before I was meeting her mom and her brother.  Both of them were very cool people.  We swapped some stories of riding, and I explained a few things on my bike that they asked about.  A couple of more motel employees came out too and stood by my bike for pictures.  They didn’t mind the oil it was leaking on their parking lot.  I reckon they don’t see too many rat bikes around there.  They were all enjoying our visit.  The rat bike opens a lot of doors and bridges a lot of generation gaps.  It sure feels good, when I can make people smile by simply giving them something to look at that is a BIT unusual!  And of course, it makes me smile even more!  I had to excuse myself, for dinner.  We went to the motel buffet, which was excellent!  I went back for thirds, until I found out about the desert table.  Does that count as going back for fifth’s?  Back to our rooms and we will get to sleep in ‘till 7:00 tomorrow.  We will see how much our own country wants us back in, by the degree that they want to search us!

(Forgot to mention that yesterday, we stopped at a neat little road side café in Vermont.  Samantha, our waitress, was a down home country gal that probably has never been out of the county.  The place had a lot of ‘funny saying’ signs all over.  Very good food too.  We were the only ones there.  We must have missed the lunch crowd)!

That’s it for now…..goodnight….