October found me taking a week and a half off from work. Problem is, I didn’t have much of a plan for what to do. Sure, there was some work that needed doing around the house (there’s always work to be done around a house), but “staycation” always seems like a missed opportunity.

There’s a joke that for the majority of adventure bikes, the place they visit most frequently is Starbucks. I wouldn’t know — I don’t like coffee.

That left me with no other choice: I would have to go on an adventure.

Since 2010, Thomas Dambo has been working with local volunteers to create sculptures of giant trolls. At present, there are nearly 200 such trolls scattered across the world. Turns out the nearest troll is one called “Big Rusty,” located a few hours away in Hainesport, New Jersey.

So, time for a motorcycle trip.

Riding underwater

The first challenge on my quest involved crossing the Baltimore Harbor. This was my first time riding north through Baltimore and rather than going the long way around on the west side via I-695, I opted to ride underwater.

The Harbor Tunnel isn’t nearly as scenic as the (obviously) AI-generated image above, and is also sadly lacking in both Ionic columns and mermaids, but it did a capital job of getting me to the other side of the harbor. Interestingly, some of the warmest temperatures I experienced on the trip were while I was in the lowest part of that tunnel — not at all what I expected.

I’ve ridden on a few gravel roads and crossed covered bridges, but this was my first time riding through a tunnel. So I’m counting that as a fun addition to the trip.

In which I am quite rude

Aside from fueling up, the first stop on the journey was the “Maryland House” rest stop on I-95, a short ways north of the Baltimore beltway. As I was dismounting, a couple returned to their car in an adjacent spot, at which point the husband told me, “You know, it’s very rude of you to be out on a motorcycle on such a nice day when I’m not on mine.”

They both agreed when I laughingly replied that this seemed like rather poor planning on his part.

After further pleasantries, we all concluded that a sightseeing trip to see the troll sculpture was a wonderful use of such a nice day.

No word on whether the husband found time to take his own motorcycle out for a ride.

Overheated

There was quite a lot of heavy traffic going north on I-95. Friday getaway traffic is a normal enough thing, but I would have thought the heavy traffic would have been later in the day. Instead, it was almost constant from the moment I left the house. The stretch of I-895 leading to the Harbor Tunnel was relatively free of traffic, but that changed once I got closer to the tunnel; I’m not sure I ever had to put a foot down, but it was definitely not “interstate speed.”

With light traffic, the trip to Hainesport should take close to three hours. Getting to the Delaware Memorial Bridge (crossing the Delaware River into New Jersey) should take slightly less than two hours.

Due to a later-than-intended start (10:30 AM instead of 9) and the heavier-than-expected traffic, it took more than four hours to reach the Delaware Memorial Bridge. And as I approached the bridge, yet another set of construction barrels slowed things further. There was a period of perhaps 45 minutes where walking would have been considerably faster.

The R1200 is new to me and this was only my third or fourth long trip with it. What I learned is that this motorcycle doesn’t like to walk — it wants to RUN! After going so slowly for such a long time, there was a flash of red on the instrument cluster, so brief that I wasn’t certain I’d seen it. A minute or so later, it flashed again. A minute after that, it returned and this time, it stayed: a red light in the shape of a thermometer. The bike was overheating.

I was in the middle of five lanes of traffic, with no sign that traffic was going to start moving anytime soon, so I shut it down. I was able to walk it another 20 feet or so, but the road was starting to slope up, so I turned on the hazard lights and tried restarting it; no luck, the bike seemed to be in a state of thermal shutdown. So I did the only thing I could and walked it, forcing my way across two lanes of traffic to the left shoulder.

I’ve never had a vehicle overheat on me before; I’ve run out of gas and had dead batteries, but this was a personal first. So once I was safely out of the travel lanes, I gave The Teal Kestrel a call to ask for advice and double-check that I was interpreting the instruments correctly. She got me in touch with Dave in the service department at Bob’s Motorcycles in Jessup, MD and he was able to reassure me that all I needed to do was give the bike some time to cool and it should be good to go.

In all, I spent a bit more than an hour admiring Delaware’s lovely highway median. But Dave was right; after letting it cool for a while, the bike started right up. I took a nearby exit that would take me in the general direction I wanted to go, leaving it to the GPS to get me back on course.

While I was waiting for the engine to cool down, something like a dozen people slowed to make sure I was OK. I’ve rarely felt so seen.
Personal note to Klaatu and Gort: It’s possible there’s hope for this planet after all.

How do you lose part of a motorcycle?

Once I got the bike to the side of the road, I took off my helmet and jacket. Almost immediately, I noticed something was wrong with the bike (and not just that it was overheated).

Do you see what’s missing?

When I arrived at the Maryland House rest stop, the first order of business was to get some water. Before leaving the house, I had put two water bottles in the right-hand side case. But when I dismounted at Maryland House, I opened the left-hand one by mistake. I thought I had latched it afterward, but … the lid for my left case is likely lying along the side of the road, somewhere between Maryland House and the Delaware Memorial Bridge.

The bike’s cover was the only thing in the left case; fortunately it hadn’t blown out. The camera and power packs for recharging the phone were on the other side. Replacing that lid is going to be annoying, and quite possibly expensive to boot, but at least nothing else was lost.

Big Rusty

I arrived in Hainesport shortly before 5:30 PM. Neither the troll nor Creek’s Turn Park, where it’s located, is visible from the road, but the GPS was able to guide me to it. From New Jersey Route 38, you turn onto an unmarked gravel road. There are two conflicting signs: one says “Road Closed”; the other says that Creek’s Turn Park is open by order of the local municipality. You go straight back, past both of those signs. You go past the law office (the sign literally says “Law Office” without naming the attorney) and past several houses; all of these have signs saying “Private Road,” “No Trespassing,” and similar (no doubt they get a lot of unwanted visitors and people who are “just turning around”).

This is the sight that greeted me upon my arrival. From what I’ve read online, the building is a former pottery shop. The parking area is a sea of concrete pads in various states of decay (the adventure motorcycle was definitely the correct vehicle for this if nothing else).

The building is similarly in ruins, built on concrete pads (no basement to fall into), but seemed sturdy enough that I felt safe walking inside as did several other visitors. The troll is the big draw, but the graffiti is colorful and bright; it definitely adds to the scenery. (The graffiti is so colorful, it’s possible I took more photos of that than of the troll! 😂)

I’m just gonna stop here and share some photos, because I know that’s what my hypothetical readers are actually looking for. 🙂

Heading home

The trip home was thankfully uneventful. I did have the unique experience of pumping my own gas at a station in New Jersey where that’s normally not allowed. (The automatic cutoff on modern pumps makes it difficult to fill the tank on a motorcycle. My brief interaction with the attendant leads me to believe he thought it would be better for me to do it myself.)

I stopped at Maryland House again on the way south to buy a sweatshirt (it was starting to get chilly) and took the opportunity to head north again in hopes of finding the missing side case lid. (No luck finding it that night, nor the next day when my wife and I retraced my route in the car.)

The troll definitely made for a memorable start to my vacation.