Sunday, 7/9 – Carlisle, PA to Blakeslee, PA

As you can tell from the title, we ran into some heavy rain today. We had an easy time packing up. The cooler temperature allowed the process to go more quickly. The first one hundred miles going north on I-81 went quickly as well. We passed through the beautiful mountains of central Pennsylvania.

We stopped for gas just below I-80.

We consulted our radar apps several times. It looked like the rain was headed northeast and would cover the section of I-81 up to Scranton. It looked like the area to the east would be clear, so we altered the route to go up to I-80 and turn east. Once we got on I-80, the rain did not diminish, but got heavier. When I refreshed the radar, the picture changed entirely. There was rain all around us and more headed our way.

We got off at a rest area to wait it out.

Mike and Lynne invited us into the RV for lunch. Mike made some really great sandwiches.

The rain lessened a bit, so we got back on the bikes.

We quickly caught up to the heavy rain and decided to stop for the night. Mike and Lynne went to a Harvest Host and we checked into the Best Western. Fortunately the hotel manager let us park under the canopy.

As I recall, we ran into heavy rain in this area in 2015 on our way to the Motor Maids convention in Moncton, NB. Here’s an excerpt from that day’s post.

Day 3 of our trip to Moncton also had a variety of adventures. It was raining as we left. Our route took us east on I-80 and north on I-81. As we climbed the road to Scranton we ran into cold fog as well as the heavy rain. The rain continued on I-84 to the New Jersey border. It was the most miserable couple of hours of riding we ever experienced. It took a lot of mental effort to keep moving ahead safely. Naturally it was too wet to take pictures.

We’ll regroup in the morning and continue. It’s only 200 miles to Springfield from here.