Summer 2020 Trail Ride

Saturday, August 8, 2020

Today was our first outing of the year and the MTA Summer Trail Ride today was an awesome ride, which started promptly at 9 am with breakfast provided by the MTA at the Allamuchy General and Cafe.   Eyes were wide open with the mammoth sized breakfast portions.    Dean the owner and his staff truly appreciated our business as they were shut down for a few days because of this week's storm and power outages.  

We had 12 members and family and 10 vehicles in total including 7 WWII Jeeps, M38A1, M151A2 the topper of all ... Rob Cassin's immaculately restored 1941 German Zundapp motorcycle with sidecar!

We departed as planned precisely at 10 a.m. with bellies ladened with pancakes, eggs and bacon and of course New Jersey's favorite.... Taylor Ham;)

Proceeded onwards to the Four Sisters Winery at a slow pace to accommodate the Zundapp and Nick Morello's Jeep which developed the infamous death wobble at speeds over 30.

We reached the Four Sisters Winery about 45 minutes later and corralled our vehicles at the far side of the parking lot for pictures.   The owner and her staff did not know we were coming and we're excited to see all the MVs, they took videos and photos for their website.   We shopped the wine store and the team walked away with many bottles of locally vinted wines.

We formed up the convoy again, the morning clouds gave way to a strong sunshine and it was starting to get hot.   We made several stops to keep the convoy tight and arrived at our final destination Johnny's Hot Dogs about noon.  

Fortunately today the crowds at Johnny's were not overwhelming and we were easily able to park together in the main parking lot.... I found a spot and squeezed in next to a State Police SUV, they were loading upon hot dogs for the troopers back at the barracks.

After that huge breakfast believe it or not most of us found room to still down a few of Johnny's famous hot dogs!

A half mile before Johnny's we passed the Butzville Flea Market.  Yes,  that's the name of the town... Butzville NJ, bet you didn't know we had a Butzville in New Jersey!

After quickly downing the hot dogs the team wanted to go rummaging back at the flea market for a while looking for hidden militaria under piles of mostly junk. ;)

The group rallied back up into our convoy line and we reversed our path which mostly traveled scenic route 519 back towards the cafe and the Allamuchy Elementary School where most of the team's tow vehicles were parked.  

We arrived back at the elementary school around 2:30pm having traveled about 42 miles round trip.   

Everyone truly enjoyed the day, we had a lot of thumbs up for a most enjoyable start to the day, fun and laughs as the convoy rolled along. Most importantly everything was safe, most members wore their masks when appropriate and there were no travel incidents.  I heard many requests to repeat the trail ride again, particularly the morning breakfast gathering at the cafe!

Stand by for our next MTA event, September 19th, for the MTA picnic and trail rides along the canals at Rockaway Fireman's Field.

Submitted by Gary Schultz