Moto Giro degli Stati Uniti: RAIN again, Philly, NJ Sign

Sunday August 2 Domenica 2 Agosto

Woke up this morning and what did I see
Nothing but rain pouring down at me
Then I checked the weather for Philadelphia as that was our planned destination. It says on weather.com that there are thunderstorms and an 80% chance of severe thunderstorms and over an inch of rain. We don't want to stay in a motel all day and also don't want to ride into severe weather. The decision is made to ride on and see what happens. There really wasn't much of a choice. We pack slowly but finally it is time to leave. We had the bike under the entryway to the motel to be out of the rain when loading our stuff but the entryway was flooded so we were walking in water. And away we go, for maybe 15 miles. The rain increased and our visibility decreased to unsafe levels so we pulled into a bank's covered drive through ATM area. Strange thing about New England, although the towns appear small and quaint the trees evidently hide the true population as there is always a car at every intersection and traffic on every road. And every ATM, we no sooner stopped and the cars appeared from nowhere to use the ATM. So we moved the bike to driveway number 3 which was only half covered but that was enough for shelter. We debated checking into another motel and writing the day off but the rain eased up slightly so we took off. We are not close to a major highway so we relied on the GPS to get us where we need to be although I had a set of directions written down in my pocket. So the GPS screen once again goes into calibration mode with no map display. However this time the voice prompts are working so I listen closely to the prompts and figure out what the odometer will read at the next turn. This works surprisingly well. Eventually I decide to recalibrate the screen just to see what happens. You may remember from yesterday's blog that it did not help. Well today the screen calibrated and the GPS worked the rest of the day. Hooray. The streets were very wet, sometimes flooded and every time I needed to move into the oncoming traffic lane to avoid a flooded area a car would magically appear from the other direction. But we made it to Philadelphia, found a parking lot and a good parking space. We were right in the area of Independence Hall, the Betsy Ross house and the Liberty Bell. We spent the afternoon there in soaked clothes (too much rain for the pants on our rain gear) but enjoying the sights and talking a little with the chaperone of an Italian school tour group. Finally we decided to get on the road and down to a motel in Newark, Deleware that we had a discount coupon for. But first I wanted a picture of a Welcome to New Jersey sign for my collection. We missed the opportunity yesterday so decided to cross the Delaware River and see if there was a sign as we enterd NJ. There was but the first picture was blocked by a passing car and the second did not get all of the sign. So I decided to go back the other way and come back again. So we did and just that part of the trip could be a story in itself. But we got the picture, told the GPS to take us to Delaware which it did by a very circuitous route that included a $7 toll charge to cross a bridge which took us back into Philly and the same exact on ramp that we had taken earlier. Once again the opposite side's traffic was very heavy very heavy while our side moved right along. The traffic slowed to 10 mph 4.5 miles before our offramp. There was a toll booth 1/2 mile past our ramp. 4 lanes of traffic backed up for 5 miles to pay a toll? I question the wisdom of toll roads. Finally we are checked in, eat dinner at a next door restaurant which gave seniors a free ice cream with their lowpriced meal. $10.48 for 2 sandwiches and ice creams. Then we watched the news and found that many of the roads we rode on earlier had flooded out. They even closed one side of a freeway for over 4 hours because it was flooded. 170 miles today, many of them very wet ones.

Oggi era molto bagnato. Abbiamo pensato di rimanere nel albergo ma abbiamo voluto vedere Philadelphia cosi siamo partiti nella pioggia pesante. Per un po' di tempo era cosi pericoloso che siamo fermati perche' non posso vedere niente. Ma finalmente siamo arrivati a Philadelphia, una citta importante nella storia degli Stati Uniti. Abbiamo visto tante cose e poi partiti per Newark, Delaware dove c'era un albergo economico. Nella sera sul tv abbiamo visto che qualche strade che abbiamo usato nella mattina e chiuso adesso perche' della pioggia. 170 bagnate miglia oggi.

Sabato 1 Agosto
Oggi dobbiamo vicino New York City. Non mi piace il traffico e i guidatori li. Abbiamo sperato che possiamo evitare questa citta ma il mio GPS ha problemi e ci abbiamo trovato nella periferia e traffico terribile. Accidenti! Abbiamo dovuto usare un ponte grande attraversare il fiume Hudson ma finalmente siamo arrivati in New Jersey di quale non e' il mio posto preferito. Dopo il ponte abbiamo guidato ovest a Budd Lake e un albergo dove abbiamo avuto un buono sconto. Il tempo oggi era bella ma domani ci sara' molta pioggia.