“Good-ay”, he welcomed me.
“Hello”, I replied. “Rob”, as I put my hand out to shake his.
“Hello, Name's Chris."
“What is that? A Harley?”, Chris questioned as he looke the ACE over.
“No, a Honda Shadow, American Classic Edition”.
“Oh, I thought it was a Harley”.
If you look at my pictures of the ACE, you will notice that some of them have the chrome Honda Shadow emblem cleaned from the tank. I did that because I like the graphics on the tank and the emblem took from the graphics. With no emblem, the make is questionable. You would really have to know that it is a Honda Shadow ACE (obviously the ACE stands for American Classic Edition).
“No, a Honda. What do you have there, a Gold Wing?” I could not see it real well.
“Yea, I just got it. Are you looking for a campground?”
As I still could not hear him very well, I replied, “Yea, let me pull it over just ahead and we’ll do business”.
I looked over his Goldwing. I love the old Goldwings. I am not sure what it is about them. Maybe it makes me think back of my Grandpa Paschal's motorcycles that he would allow me to ride sometimes. In that era, the color brown was so in, therefore so many of the old Goldwings are of the same color. Here's a snapshot of my grandfather and his CB750 in the mid to late 70's to give you the idea.
Chris' Goldwing was one year shy of my favorite generation, it was a 1982, and brown of course. It had the Windjammer fairing on it and he reported that it only had 23k miles on it.
“No kidding!!!”, I sounded my surprise. “That’s amazing!”
I gave him a little Goldwing history from what I could recall.
“They came out in 77 or 78, I don’t remember exactly but Honda promised the moarket a factory fairing/windshield. They kept promising every year until it finally came out in 83 as they were noticing that they were losing some of the market. That’s why you have a Windjammer on here. The original owner obviously did not buy Honda’s story and added the after market fairing instead of waiting. In 83 they increase the size of the engine to a 1200cc. and finally deleivered on the promise of the faairing.
"Man, I’d like to have an old Goldwing!” He probably thought I was nuts after riding in on a 2002 motorcycle, maybe even a trade since I spoke so highly of the old tourer. As I kept looking over the Goldwing “Whaow!! Dude! Your rear tire is worn! You better get that replaced!”. I had NEVER seen a tire so worn out. It was completely slick with no tread at all except near the sides of the tire.
“Yea, I need to”.
“You should take it over the Americade and get a new one. You can probably get a good deal on one”, as I tried to offer some help.
“What’s the Americade?”
“It’s the largest touring expo in the country and it starts tomorrow”.
“Oh, the Thunder in the Mountains is going on at Old Forge this weekend.”
“Never heard of it but I can assure you, you will not be disappointed with the Americade”.
“Yea, I just bought the Goldwing on Ebay. It was in Utica”.
“No joke! I bet I saw your Goldwing on Ebay as I look every few days for an old Goldwing or ST1100. I recall seeing one in Utica.”
“What’s a ST1100”, he asked inquisitively.
“It’s a Honda sports/touring bike. It cuts the wind like a knife. It’s one of my dream bikes. I’d rather own 3-4 older used bikes at 4k-5k a piece than one at 30k, such as a Harley. No bike is worth that much to me, let alone a vehicle. You should check them out on Ebay… nice.”
I shared with him my ride so far and told hi that I was from Orange county New York. He, of course, related it to Orange County Choppers”.
Chris had 3 sites taken out of 208. I have never heard of such a thing. 3 SITES taken!!!??? I thought "Where is everyone?". If you want to see a map of the grounds, here... http://www.reserveamerica.com/jsp/commonpage.jsp?goto=/usa/ny/golb/newindex.html
I asked Chris which sites are the highest in demand and he recommend the sites along the road. They were all open.
“Chris, just pick the one that you think is the best for me and I’ll take it”. He chose site 204. As he was signing me in, he type in the computer that I was from Utica.
“No, not Utica, Campbell Hall.” I don’t know what Chris’ fascination was with Utica. He asked me earlier if I had ridden through Utica. Everything was UTICA. It made me think back about the movie Road Trip that Tom Green acted in.
“Site 204 is about a quarter of a mile west on 28. You can’t miss it. You’ll see the signs on the right. If you see another site that you prefer, take it and let me know what the number is.”
“Sounds good. Thanks Chris.” We shook hands one last time before I left. I was more than just another customer, I had the same hobby and dream as him; balancing down the road on two wheels.
I made the right onto 28 and watched for site 204. I missed it and had to turn around. The signs were too small for me to catch clearly the first time and it displayed “Site 203-205”, so my brain obviously was not working too well. I turned around and hit the dirt pathway for sites 203-205.
“He’s kidding…” I actually said to myself. “He expects me to ride down this path?” There were large rocks and tree roots all over the path, not to mention that the dirt was VERY loose. “Well girl, lets see what you’ve got.” My mountain bike at home is a Giant AC, so I thought I’d see how this “AC”E would do on the dirt. We had to make a right on a path to go directly to 204. “This is a joke! I though the main path was bad! This is unbelievable!” The path to 204 was steep with even more roots and rocks. “I’m going to power walk you down girl” (power walking, if you don’t know, is when you let the motorcycle move or accelerate with your feet near the ground, ready for rebalance assistance.)
I dropped the kickstand once I landed at the site and it went right down into the soil. I had to break out with the kickstand pad. She then stood upright, ready for a break. It was 1:47p and the site is located at coordinates N43.80915 W74.60095. Here is a few snapshots of my temporary home after I set the Eureka Backcountry tent.
It was 2:35p and I knew that I had to get back on the road to be in Lake Placid by 4:00p to meet Brian and Danielle.
