Left our motel in Irvington and headed to Union to pick up our hire car for the next month. We have a red ford focus for our travels. After attaching our GPS we set the destination for West Point Military Academy.

Our drive took us along the Garden State Parkway and Pallisades Interstate Parkway. We travelled through beautiful pine forests and under arched stone bridges, on the bike the smells would have been magic.


West Point is in New York State only about an hour from our motel in New Jersey. We arrived 15 minutes before a 90 minute tour was to begin. After paying our money and showing our passports we lined up for the bus where we had to show our passports again, yes, security is high!

United States Military Academy West Point is the main training facility for the Army. It is located beside the Hudson River, considered to be a strategic defensive location when it was constructed. Each year 15 000 young men and women meet the qualifying standard for entry to attend West Point but only 1 200 are selected. Of these, approximately 1 000 graduate as 2nd Lieutenants at the end of 4 years. Some of the most famous graduates that you may recognise are General George Patton Jnr, Macarthur. Eisenhower, Stormin Norman Schwarzkopf and Robert E Lee (check your history books, or ask Greg if you need more information).

Our tour showed us the classrooms, living quarters, gym and one of the several churches of the academy. We were able to visit the inside of the largest church. The stained glass windows were magnificent and were donated by graduating classes. The organ is the largest church organ in the world and we were lucky enough to hear a practice session while in the church.

The grounds of the Academy contain many statues of past graduates as well as cannons dating back to the Civil War. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and answered all of Greg's questions as he compared his own military training with that offered at West Point.


We returned to our car and headed off for our visit to Orange County Choppers, only about 20 km away at Newburg, who could resist a visit when we were so close. First order of business was lunch in the OCC Cafe after the required photo in front of the building.

After lunch we wandered happily, admiring these beautiful bikes. We decided they looked great and were well designed but couldn't see any that we thought would be comfortable to ride. We also checked out the 911 Memorial Wall where badges were displayed from many emergency services that were involved in the rescue and clean up operation. We even found a Queensland Police badge that we had left there in 2009.

We also had a look at the photo gallery of Paul Senior with many of the celebrities that he has built bikes for. We checked out the indoor bowling alley - named after some renowned visitors. We weren't the only visitors, we spoke to a large group of riders who were on their annual ride together from Toronto, Canada.

After we had satisfied our need for a bike related activity, it was back in the car and off to Newport for our overnight accommodation. We had to drive through some heavy traffic in Hartford and wished we were on the bike so we could lane split. We didn't arrive at our hotel until almost 8 pm, much later than we had anticipated. An early night for the driver - I think he is a bit jet lagged and was asleep 2 minutes after his head hit the pillow.