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Rumbleseat's East Coast Run 2003 Part Seven and a Half

PART SEVEN AND A HALF. Left flatdog racing in NJ Friday morning. This was the last forum member I'd see until after an extended side trip through Nova Scotia. Cut across the southern part of NY and into Danbury CN. Started raining pretty hard early in the day and never really let up. Had the top up and did the towel wiping thing most of the day. I was beyond Hartford, CN when I called it quits for the day. Still raining. Checked into a motel and unloaded the luggage from the rumble seat. Showered to warm up and put on some dry clothes. The Denver Roadster winter jacket was soaked clear through, including the leather sleeves. Hung it over a chair in front of the air conditioner/heater while I went to eat. Still raining. After eating I returned to the motel and put the top down and buttoned down the tonneau for the night. With it on, no water gets into the driving compartment of the roadster. Pretty neat.

Sat in the motel and roughly planned a route. I'd run I-84 into MA (Massachusetts) and pickup I-95. Then across the southeast tip of NH and into ME (Maine). There's a ferry from Bar Harbor, ME to Nova Scotia. I've taken it before and it's a good 6 hour trip. The time I had taken it before was during the fall. Reservations had to be made nearly two months ahead. Probably their busiest time of the year because of the fall colors and the ferry is completely booked each day. Anyway, I didn't want to take the chance on not getting on the ferry run. Instead, I planned on going into New Brunswick, Canada to St. Johns. There's a ferry from there to Nova Scotia. It's about an hour trip. Then I'd tour Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island before crossing back onto the mainland. Then go northwest across New Brunswick and into Quebec, Canada. Then turn south across Quebec and New Brunswick to Maine. It would be quite a trip. Estimated it was about 2500 miles and would take a week of pretty steady driving.

The evening weather report called for continued rain. My jacket was dry by morning, but the weather wasn't. I woke up about 4 AM. It was still raining as hard as when I went to bed.

Clicked on the TV to the weather channel. Forecast towards, and for, Nova Scotia for the next 5 days was heavy rain with low level flooding. Can you believe I was tired of rain? And I sure wasn't looking forward to rowing the '34 through constant rain and flooding. I checked my medications. Sure tough to plan an extended trip when they won't give you prescription drugs for more than about a month. Can you imagine the problem to get prescriptions filled on the road and have them bill Medicare! Shudder. Anyway, I didn't have enough to make both the Nova Scotia loop and see forum members on the way home. I had to make a choice. Even if I made the Nova Scotia loop I'd have to run long days to make it home before I ran out of meds (as it was, I made it home with meds for one meal!). The weather forecast, if I turned towards home, was only slightly drier. Finally decided the sensible thing was to call it quits and turn towards home. Besides, I didn't have any need to go up through Nova Scotia. I just like the people and the scenery in Canada. No big deal if I didn't do it. I'd been sure I had more than enough meds when I left home, but I was seeing more a lot more forum members than I had originally planned on. And the rain was slowing me down some. I figured I had cost me about 4 to 5 days delay. So I packed things up and loaded up the soggy roadster. Put the top up in the moderate rain. Got out 5 towels to swab up water and fired the flathead. This was about 5:30 AM Monday morning. My next stop would be Dresher, PA to see Bob Carlson. It was quite a distance away. Retraced my steps back across CN, NY, and into PA. In and out of rain most of the way. As usual, rain poured in the roadster. Lots of fun trying to read a soaked road Atlas. Sigh! Most of the days, I called it quits early afternoon to dry out the car as best I could. I still put everything inside plastic trash bags to keep things reasonably dry. Worked pretty well except for trapping the high humidity. So everything felt damp and soggy---- rumble seat
Now, onto Part 8