No Plans to Mile Zero, Day 5

Short Ride to Together

Tue, Apr 17, 2012

Copyright(c) 2012, Jim Beachy

Once more I sleep in, as  I have only 380 miles for today’s ride.  I check the Weather Channel and see that a large weather front is approaching, now lying west of the Appalachians and advancing northeast.  I check Weatherbug on my BlackBerry and see that the forecast for home calls for rain by nightfall.  This trip has been completely rain-free and devoid of any stormy weather.  This is indeed a rarity:  Weather systems seem to seek out my trips just for old times’ sake, especially during the unsettled weather patterns of April.  But it appears my good fortune may continue.  At least if I don’t laze around too long this morning.

It is already hot and the sun is well into its daily arc as I work my way onto the northbound lanes of I-77 toward home.  Eventually my GPS icon slides over the line into Virginia and I begin the long climb across the Appalachian ridge.  The highway climbs from an elevation of about 1,000 feet to a high of 2,800 feet where it crosses beneath a bridge over which runs my old friend the Blue Ridge Parkway.  This is one of my favorite vistas, but is best viewed running southward.  The dizzying drop over the side of the mountain offsets the plain below, where you can see Mount Airy, the fictional town of Mayberry where the Andy Griffith Show was filmed.  Pilot Mountain, some 25 miles distant on US 52 in North Carolina, dominates the backdrop.

The old adage “You go where you look” is almost inviolable, especially on a bike where the center line of the vehicle coincides with the rider’s eyes and head.  During this trip, I’ve frequently amused myself as I often do by playing a little game, trying to ride the bike between the reflective markers as I move been Interstate lanes.  It’s hard to do because my natural instinct is to look at the very marker I’m trying to avoid.  And sure enough, my tendency is to ride right over the thing rather than between the markers.  The trick is to avoid looking at the marker (or the pothole or the object in the road) that you’re trying to miss, and look instead where you want to ride.  The psychological need to watch what you’re trying to avoid is almost overpowering.  I hope this little game helps keep me in practice for the moment when I really do need to avoid something in my path.  The same happens when turning your head:  Almost invariably, the bike will wonder in the same direction you turn your head.  Still, I risk a one-second head swivel over my right shoulder to see the scenic view as it lies behind me on this trip northward.

Along with the 1,800-foot climb over the Blue Ridge Mountains, I’ve been riding closer and closer to the weather front and the leading edge of dark clouds obscuring the sun.  The temperature has dropped by 20 degrees to 65 F.  Mile by mile I’ve been closing first my jacket flaps and then the fairing vents.  By the time I catch I-81 in Virginia not far from Wytheville and head northeast, the front has steadily moved closer and the temperature drops even more to 61 degrees.  By this time I’ve closed the fairing’s cooling vents and opened the heat vents along the bottom of the engine cowl, and switched the lower fairing vents to “heat” mode.  The warmth flowing over me is a welcome change.  Even so, there’s no apparent threat of rain as the cloud cover becomes ever thicker on my trek northward.

At Mile Marker 300 I hit I-66 and ride the last 60 miles home.  Now traveling east, I almost immediately run out from under the cloud cover and the temperature rises 10 degrees.  Home, where Kitty is waiting as I roll into the driveway.  Several years ago in Nova Scotia we’d discovered and stayed in a delightful bed-and-breakfast-restaurant-hardware-store establishment with a sign in the tiny dining room that became the name of that trip and has since become our mantra:  "Together is the best place to be."

It is good to be home.  Together.  I am fortunate that Kitty understands and occasionally even encourages Solo Guy, who emerges from time to time to drink in the Long Road, enjoy the Big Silence, and to collect a variety of insects on the fairing from very far-off and often unplanned places.

Normally I clean the bike at the end of every ride.  But today, in my transition to Regular Guy, Solo Guy asserts one last claim:  I leave the bugs on the bike until tomorrow.

GPS Statistics:

Overall speed 63.6 mph; Moving speed 69.0 mph
Overall time 5:58; Moving time 5:30
Distance 380 miles to home

GPS Track, Day 5

GPS Track, Entire Trip

No Plans to Mile Zero, Day 4

Change of Venue

Mon, Apr 16, 2012

The alarm sounds at 6:30 AM and I think “Why?”  What, Solo Guy has an important appointment this evening?  Someone waiting?  Someone who might care where or what time he stops riding?  Some designated place to be?

No, not one of these qualify.  I turn off the alarm fall into a deep sleep until after 8:00 AM.  Having ridden nearly 1,800 miles and having spent more than 27 hours in the saddle during the last three days, I feel a delicious laziness and move slowly through my breakfast and packing routine.  I even take time to find a pen and do the crossword puzzle in the USA Today magazine that was hanging on my doorknob.  I leave the newspaper for a couple at the table next to me.

“Any good news?” the man asks.

“Well, it’s tax day and IRS can’t answer its phones because of budget cuts,” I say, pointing to the front-page lead story.

I am wearing my second-favorite shirt today.  It’s a bright orange color with bold black lettering that proclaims “I have CDO / It’s like OCD except the letters are in order, as they should be.”  Another gift from Kitty.  She knows me so well.  In this, Solo Guy and I are not so different at all.

Striking out northward on US 301 through north-central Florida, I ride through miles of horse and cattle country.  While there are some large cattle ranches, the open expanses are dominated by miles of horse ranches with meticulously maintained wooden fences and well-manicured lanes leading to the large houses and buildings set far off the highway.  301 is a four lane highway with some small towns but it’s a nice ride, once again reminiscent of Texas except that in Texas, the speed limit would be 70 or 75 instead of 65.

I’m roughly planning to ride two-lane roads through Georgia and eventually make my way to Virginia, route undetermined.  For no particular reason, Solo Guy, without anything to prove and ridden quite a few of those Georgia two-lane roads, decides to route a faster way home.  The GPS takes me toward Jacksonville and a 230-mile stretch of I-95, after which I catch I-26 west near Savannah, Georgia.  I know this will eventually lead me to I-77 and I-81 as it traverses the western border of Virginia.  It’s several hundred miles farther, about 1,000 miles from here, and while I almost always avoid Interstate travel unless required for speedy travel, for some reason it fits the moment.  I am Solo Guy.  Sometimes I break my own rules.

I contemplate riding all the way home non-stop.  The GPS tells me I’d be home around midnight.  For now, it doesn’t matter – I’ll ride until I feel like stopping.  It’s rather warm today, with the temperature hovering near 88F the entire day.

I hit I-77 near Columbia, South Carolina and, while still contemplating whether to ride home.  But after a late start and another 500 mile-plus day, I decide on the spur of the moment to stop at about 7:00 PM near Lake Norman just north of Charlotte, North Carolina.

The next-door restaurant I’d seen on the GPS is closed, so the desk clerk helps me with the only other restaurant within walking distance.  It’s a Greek-Italian restaurant called Acropolis, so I walk up the hill and across the intersection.  I find my way to the bar where I can order a rack of lamb (which is amazing - seasoned and grilled to perfection!) and strike up a conversation with the bartender, Andrey.  He’s Ukrainian, having grown up in Odessa on the Black Sea.  He’s lived in countries and climates all over the world, from Ukraine to Russia to Morocco to South Africa to Australia to the mid-East and now, North Carolina.

“Why here?” I ask.

“I like it here,” is his simple response to why he has chosen Cornelius, North Carolina as his home.  He offers no further explanation.  None is needed.  I can identify with that.  He sounds a lot like Solo Guy.

GPS Statistics:

Overall speed 57.7 mph; Moving speed 66.4 mph
Overall time 8:47; Moving time 7:38
Distance 507 miles

GPS Track, Day 4

No Plans to Mile Zero, Day 3

Of Luggage, Panthers, and Relatives

Sun, Apr 15, 2012

Copyright (c) 2012, Jim Beachy

My BlackBerry has a “bedside” mode that turns off messaging notifications while displaying a digital nighttime clock.  At night, I set it into the charging cradle and use it as my bedside clock while traveling as well as at home.  The alarm I’ve been using starts out with a soothing rhythmic keyboard pad, out of which slowly emerges a more strident alarm that eventually morphs into a raucous BRAPPP!! BRAPPP!! BRAPPP!! that would strike terror into the heart of the most stalwart sleeper.

Said alarm has been sounding every morning at 6:00 AM but after my late-night walk on Duval Street last night, I’d decided to turn off the alarm and sleep in this morning.  So what’s this BRAPPP!! BRAPPP!! BRAPPP!! at 6:00 AM?  Apparently I’ve forgotten to turn it off!  I scramble out of bed and across the room to shut the thing off.  I fall back into a light and fitful half-sleep, dreaming of having left my luggage somewhere but only discovering it several days and thousands of miles later with no idea where I’d last seen it.

 Eventually, frustrated with trying to remember where I’d left my luggage, I get up and find my entire luggage intact, present, and accounted for.  I pack up - very carefully!  Today I’m wearing my favorite T-shirt:  “Temporarily out of service.”  Kitty gave it to me some years ago and it’s getting a little worn and faded with use but it’s still my favorite.

I walk to the next-door restaurant for breakfast and learn that it doesn’t open for an hour today, when a breakfast buffet is served.  Meanwhile, I’d wanted to get a few photos of the bike at several locations, an activity much more suited to Key West Sunday-morning sleepiness than Saturday-night Duval Street craziness.  So I decide to skip breakfast and get some shots before striking out for the day.  I’ll catch breakfast later.  I ride to the actual US Route 1 Mile Marker 0, shoot a few pictures, and then it’s off to the marker for the Southernmost Point in the US.  There’s very little traffic and I have no problem parking the bike in the street to get a few shots, except the Southernmost Point is already overrun with people posing for pictures, so I can’t get a shot where the lettering is actually visible behind the bike.

At a little before 10:00 AM I’m departing Key West without a real plan for the day.  I know I need to be home three days from now but a plan for the intervening ride hasn’t been formed.  Yesterday’s flag-tattering wind has departed to other climes and the morning is calm and pleasant for a T-shirt and jacket ride.  While the beautiful green and turquoise Gulf waters pass leisurely by on either side, I contemplate some riding options.  My niece and husband, whose son’s birthday party was the original impetus for getting the time off for this trip, live in Tampa.  My old friend Grumpy, who’s not grumpy at all, and his wife Happy, live in the lake country of central Florida.  Either or both of these might be candidates for a brief stop.

Solo Guy doesn’t actually need a plan to enjoy the day, so he rides from Key West without a plan except heading generally homeward, which is, generally speaking, northward. 

Solo Guy eats when he is hungry; so on Vaca Key, I stop for a fast-food breakfast break.  When I return to the bike, I’m startled to see a moderate puddle of water directly under the front of the engine.  What?!!  I test it with the tip of my forefinger, rub finger and thumb together, give it a sniff, and then a little taste.  It’s just water.  No antifreeze, no oil, just water.  It’s apparently someone’s idea of a little practical joke:  The water appeared to have been carefully poured to avoid splashing and to look like something that would have drained from the engine.  Oh, clever prankster, how you fill my heart with joy!

On my ride to and from Key West, I’ve observed many interpretations of motorcycle riding.  Some ride in flip-flops, shorts, and tank tops without helmets.  Some pay the price:  The guy who checked me into the Eden House observed my jacket, jeans, and boots, and gave a wry smile and a definite limp as he showed me his surgically-repaired foot, the casualty of a low-speed motorcycle accident while wearing flip-flops.  Some ride in full leather suits, colorful and protected regardless of the temperature, and full-face helmets.  Others, like myself, have minimum standards such as a helmet (mine has always been a full-face model), jeans, and boots, with varying degrees of acceptance for upper-body protection.  I normally wear a leather jacket if it’s not too hot, at least a long-sleeved shirt; but I never feel as content as when in my black leather jacket.

In one of the towns on the Keys, I come to an easy stop at a red light and study an advertisement for a radiology clinic.  “Broken foot?” the blue sign asks in giant white letters.  “Come in now – Walk-ins Welcome!”  Think about it.

Sometimes Solo Guy listens to music of whatever type he can find, or that suits his fancy of the moment.  On this trip, save for one radio weather report and the occasional CB conversation with a trucker, Solo Guy has enjoyed many hours of solitude and silence in the still-air cocoon of the Gold Wing’s fairing.  Silence – hours and hours of it - helps to sort out the voices in his head and clarifies the ones that really matter.  Only on the Wing and the Long Road would Solo Guy be content with such prolonged periods of silence.  Silence is golden.  But today he wants some music in his headset.

I find a gem of a radio station, 102.7 FM, call sign “Pirate Radio,” that accompanies me for the entire ride through the Keys and beyond.  It’s a kind of “acoustic Indie” station, playing off-track deep acoustic cuts that I’ve never heard before, and never knew existed.  There are acoustic cuts of classic tunes from the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, Stealer’s Wheel, even from contemporary artists like Kelly Clarkson.  The funky, laid-back acoustic rhythms fit my mood as I begin to envision what the rest of my remaining three days should look like.

At my noon-time fuel stop in Key Largo, I spontaneously decide to ride the Tamiami Trail (State Route 41) westward along the northern edge of the Everglades, hard along the ruler-straight Tamiami Canal, and through the Great National Cypress Preserve.  It will be my fourth trip along this road and will put me along the Gulf Coast of Florida and in position to see my niece or Grumpy.  Mostly, though, I have to admit that the primary reason for this choice is to see my favorite road sign:  “Panther Crossing.”  Solo Guy revels in small pleasures.

In Homestead I catch Rt. 997 and ride northward through Florida’s plant nursery.  The slow-speed highway is lined with coconut palms, large fields of brightly colored flowers, palm trees for export to more northern climates, and date palms filled with large, luscious black clusters that to my untrained eye appear nearly ready for harvest.  It almost makes up for the slow, one-lane traffic.

The Miami suburbs are about 15 miles away and loom dangerously close on the GPS screen as I turn west at the junction and am pleasantly surprised to find that the Tamiami Trail through the Everglades and the Cypress Preserve has been radically upgraded since my last trip here.  Then, it was bumpy and the speed limit as I recall was 50; now, except for construction during the eastern-most 10 miles or so, it is wide, smooth, plumbline-straight, and with a speed limit of 60.  I enjoy the miles of swamplands and sawgrass that eventually give way to cypress trees draped with Spanish moss.  At any moment I expect to see an alligator (“Cuidado - cocodrillo!” the Spanish-speaking attendant at Eden House had warned this morning) sliding out of the canal – I know they’re in there, I’ve seen them, but see none today and I don’t stop at the visitor’s center.

The “Panther Crossing” signs are still there to amuse me, and after riding for nearly four hours and 201 miles, a good bit of it at 45 m.p.h. or less, I’m ready for a break at my fuel stop near Punta Gorda.  It’s been the hottest day so far, with a temperature of about 85F.

I decide I’ll stop to see my niece in Tampa, and I call my friend Grumpy, to whom I’d sent a warning email, to tell him I won’t be able to stop there this trip – my arrival would be much too late for a self-professed “8:30 bedtime” retiree!  “It’s hard being retired,” he says.  “You never get a day off.”

I have only an address for Beth in my contact list, but I locate the address in my GPS and let it generate a route.  It takes me over the famous Sky Bridge, a breathtakingly beautiful bridge whose highway appears to end in mid-air at the top of the bridge.  It seems that a 200-foot plunge into the bay is in the immediate future for Solo Guy!  American Jill leads me right to Beth’s house, and after spending an hour visiting with the family, I’m on my way northward by about 6:30 PM.

A hundred yards after I scan the street and pull out, I see a flash of blue from behind a parked van and realize someone is backing a dark blue Honda Accord out of their driveway at a high rate of speed!  I’m not traveling fast, probably 20 m.p.h., but because of the van neither of us is able to see the other until the last millisecond.  I push the left handlebar sharply forward to countersteer the big bike to the left, and the dark blue bumper flashes by my right-side saddlebag with what looks like inches to spare but is probably several feet as the driver sees me just in time and jams on the brakes.  I continue to ride slowly up the street and swivel my head for a brief look back.  The driver is immobile, frozen motionless, and as I turn the corner at the next intersection, the car has not moved an inch.  It was a near thing.  Another reminder for constant vigilance – not all dangers lurk among big intersections or 70-m.p.h. freeways.

Solo Guy decides to ride until darkness, hunger, and the need for fuel coincide.  This happens sometime around 9:00 PM near Ocala, Florida, and I find a hotel with restaurants nearby.  It’s been another day of a little over 500 miles, much of it at slow street speeds.

I clean and cover the Wing, and after walking to a restaurant and finding a nice rack of ribs, I’m ready for a good night’s sleep.  I set the alarm for 6:30 AM.

GPS Statistics:

Overall speed 44.3 mph; Moving speed 56.8 mph
Overall time 11:26; Moving time 8:54
Distance 506 miles

GPS Track, Day 3

No Plans to Mile Zero, Day 2

The Last Mile Marker

Sat, Apr 14, 2012

Copyright (c) 2012, Jim Beachy

By 8:00 AM I’ve eaten breakfast and am rolling toward Key West on I-95.  Unlike yesterday’s 39-degree temperature, my Kriss Amp-U-Tron shows 68 degrees as I pass south of Daytona Beach.  It’s a great riding morning, with the day’s warmth creeping around the edges of a cool night under brilliant blue skies.  Only the strong crosswind coming off the ocean to the east, on my left, renders the day less than perfect.  On each of my antennas I have a small flag – a US flag on the right and a Wings On the Internet (WOTI) flag on the left.  The wind whips them into a frenzy, wrapping them both around the antennas so tightly they don’t even resemble flags.  I noticed last night that the US flag is getting rather worn and tattered; soon it will be time to retire it and place it carefully with my collection of other flags with the remembered stories of where we’ve been together.  I buy my flags from The Flag People in Ocala, Florida.

Several hours and a fuel stop later, the onshore east wind (how does it happen that the wind off the sea is from the east when the weather moves west to east?) has driven a rain front over the Atlantic coast of Florida.  Enough rain drops splatter on the big Tulsa windshield so they begin to describe graceful curved exit lines as they are blown off the surface.  It always reminds me of a palm’s elegant fronds, or maybe a peacock’s tail in full display, these lines on the windshield drawn by moving water droplets on an aerodynamic surface.  It’s a little mystical.  Solo Guy finds many small things to occupy his attention.

In some ways, Florida reminds me of Texas – there’s a favorable people-per-square-mile ratio that leads to wide open spaces.  It also leads to long, straight Interstates, one of which I am traveling today.   To many it could become boring - but Solo Guy absorbs the moment, becomes part of the landscape.  He takes what the environment offers.  His needs are simple; his wants, few.  A few white ibises with their long orange beaks grace the swamplands on my right, and a nesting bald eagle perches high atop his aerie, each of us perhaps marveling at the other.

Nearing Miami, American Jill instructs me to take an exit that appears to simply loop around to the right and rejoin I-95.  “Curious!  Must be a mapping anomaly,” I think, and ignore the routing instructions.  About three minutes later I realize Jill was smarter than I – I’d missed the exit to Florida’s Turnpike, which parallels I-95 so closely for several miles that it appears to be the same road on the GPS.  Undeterred, I take the next exit and make my way several miles west to recapture Florida’s Turnpike.  This road runs north-and-south, west of the city, and through expanses of marshes and palmettos – a far preferable ride to I-95 through Miami.  As I dig my toll fee out of my pocket at the last toll booth, the attendant explains that I’ll soon hit the Sawgrass Parkway, where no cash is accepted:  It’s either SunPass or “Toll by Plate.”  In Toll by Plate, a camera takes a picture of your license plate when you enter, another picture when you exit, and the friendly state of Florida will mail your toll to you.  For an extra fee, of course, compared to SunPass.  But it’s a painless way to travel a toll road.

At the town of Homestead I ride past the Homestead-Miami Speedway and catch US Route 1 for the final segment to Key West.  The wind is still whipping my flags as I ride south across the narrow gateway to Key Largo, past the “Crocodile Crossing” sign (yes, there are crocodiles as well as alligators here), and around the right turn where the road turns west toward the Keys.

I’ve routed the GPS to a fuel stop here, for which I need to make a U-turn in the special U-turn intersection and head back to the west several hundred yards.  It’s a tight, technical turn on a banked surface; I prepare mentally for a throttle-and-brake ride through the corner, while at the same time studying a white Toyota ready to pull out of a side street to the left.  I’m trying to decide whether he will come straight into the intersection, in which case I can make the turn without stopping, or whether he will turn back into my lane of traffic and I will need to bring the bike to a full stop.  He pulls out of his intersection straight ahead, leaving my turn clear, and I start to make my tight turn when suddenly I realize this isn’t a red light - it’s a blinking yellow light and I haven’t checked for oncoming traffic!  I bring the big bike to a stop before entering the oncoming lanes, just as the flash of a westbound vehicle crosses my vision where I would have been had I not stopped.  It’s a very sobering moment.  I’ve narrowly missed hitting a huge buck that jumped across my fairing just a mile from home; in California I’ve stared into the eyes of a doe standing on a bank as my helmet passed not five feet from her face; in a remote stretch of land way down on the Louisiana-Texas border, Kitty and I were rear-ended by a drug-crazed kid in a stolen truck (it destroyed our trailer, which absorbed the impact and probably saved both our lives).  I’ve ridden close to half a million miles on motorcycles without an accident except that rear-end incident.  But to my knowledge I’ve never come this close to a miscue of my own making.  I cannot explain how or why this could happen except that I was overly focused on the rather technical turn I would need to make while trying to decide if I needed to stop or could power through the curve; and when the Toyota crossed the oncoming lanes of traffic, subconsciously I must have presumed those lanes were clear.  Whatever, it’s a heart-stopping lesson never to take myself, my experience, or my presumed skills too seriously.

The 106 miles from Key Largo to Key West are much slower riding than one would think – much of the speed limit is 45 m.p.h. and every time I’ve been here there’s been traffic to slow things down even more.  Only after passing through the first 30 miles or so of strip malls, boat shops, hotels, and condominiums are the first breathtaking vistas of the turquoise waters of the Gulf of Mexico visible.  And those views are spectacular, where outlying islands appear to float on a mottled green sea.  Pelicans and cormorants abound on the older retired bridge spans or sitting on the guardrails of the Seven-Mile Bridge.  I am always fascinated with pelicans as they dive or skim the water for fish: I’ve never seen one come up empty.  The wind is now roughly at my back, so it’s smooth riding.  Once again clouds threaten; all day I’ve been riding highways with evidence of recent rain, but only a few drops have splattered on the windshield and the pavement has been dry.

 

And so to Key West, the last mile marker, Mile Marker 0, where Solo guy has made an exception to his hotel reservation rule.  Since this is a destination where I actually plan to stay for a night, yesterday I booked a room at Eden House, where Kitty and I have stayed before. (http://www.edenhouse.com)    It’s a small quaint inn in the quiet part of Old Town Key West, within easy walking distance of Mallory Square and Duval Street.  I park the bike in a space only a bike could love and smile in amusement as I walk in and see the clock in the office.  It’s something Kitty and I had noticed on our last trip here together.  The clock runs backward, and all the numerals are correspondingly positioned.  Key West time, I suppose.

 

It’s about 82F, and after cleaning and covering the bike I’m feeling a little grungy from the day’s 9 hour ride, so I take a quick shower and get into clean clothes.  I haven’t brought walking shorts and I ask the desk attendant if it’s legal to wear long pants in Key West.

I join hundreds of other people walking toward Mallory Square, where sunset is scheduled for 7:40 tonight.  Unfortunately there is significant cloud cover so there’s no visible sunset, which allows all the inherent Key West craziness to have full sway, undistracted by a beautiful sunset.  Some of the performers are the same as several years before when Kitty and I were here – the tightrope walker, the juggler, the motionless guy painted silver (this time there were two), the troupe doing amazingly long somersault leaps over bicycles and other objects.  Kitty and I were here together on the last trip to Key West, and I’m missing her as I think of the spectacular sunsets we witnessed here. 

Just off Mallory Square is the Cuban restaurant El Meson de Pepe, jam-packed and rocking with a top-notch Mariachi band.  The hostess finds the very last table and I order an excellent dinner – Combinacion de Mariscos - while I sit for an hour listening to the mariachi band.  The couple at the table next to me hears me joking with the waiter, who turns out to be the owner (“What, you’re Pepe!?” I said) and eventually we strike up a conversation.  They’re from Long Island but without the New York accent.  We talk about vacationing and winter homes in Florida and motorcycling and Solo Guy and how it works for Kitty to stay home while Solo Guy roams around the country.  Eventually we get around to this blog and I give them the blog address, telling them I haven’t blogged this trip yet but I will.  So if you are reading this, my new friends from Long Island, it was great chatting during our chance encounter!

I close out my evening with a slow 90-minute stroll among the revelry and the shops of Duval Street where Key West insanity is always in plentiful supply, the doors are open, the bands are good, and the music is very loud.

GPS Statistics:

Overall speed 55.7 mph; Moving speed 62.5 mph
Overall time 8:57; Moving time 7:58
Distance 499 miles

GPS Track, Day 2

No Plans to Mile Zero, Day 1

Plans… or Not

Fri, Apr 13, 2012
Copyright (c) 2012, Jim Beachy

It is 7:27 am and I back my Gold Wing out of the driveway, wave a quick good-bye to Kitty standing in doorway, and engage the clutch to start a trip I know less about than any I have ever taken.  The temperature is 37F, and my concession to the temperature is that I’m wearing my winter riding suit over a T-shirt, long-sleeved shirt, and a sweater.  No electric heated clothing this trip.  I expect I’ll be heading south, but my plans are so unformed that I’m not even sure, so I should be prepared for any contingency.

My brother-in-law and I had planned a ride to Tampa, Florida for his grandson’s third birthday party but he had to cancel.  I’d already cleared my work schedule for a Friday-through-Tuesday time off, but with the Tampa trip cancelled, I thought maybe I’d just take off Friday and ride to the Smokies to enjoy some of the famous motorcycle rides like Deal’s Gap and the Cherohala Skyway.  But when I was talking to my boss about why someone would simply ride for the joy of riding, where the destination is often secondary, she said “I think you should go for it!  Take the days off.” 

Thus inspired, I have contemplated for the past several days where I might ride.  Key West is always in the periphery of my thoughts when I think of a 5-day solo ride, but as I roll out of our development I don’t have a plan except Step 1:  I’ve made arrangements to see my good friend Ray for lunch in North Carolina.  Ray and I have ridden more miles together than the combination of all the other people we’ve ridden with; due to medical issues he has mostly retired from riding and I haven’t seen him a while.  We’ve arranged a meeting place.  It’s enough of a plan for now.  Enough plans for Solo Guy.

So I ride, stealthy in a silent cocoon of still air behind the bike’s big fairing, and I watch my Gold Wing devour the magic carpet sliding effortlessly beneath me.  I opt for no radio, no tapes, no iPod, no CB radio..  Only the silent cocoon and the occasional sound of American Jill, my GPS voice, as she issues a trip routing instruction.  Solo Guy is comfortable with extraordinarily long periods of silence, and it just seems right at the moment.

The North Carolina state line slides into view on my Garmin GPS, and soon the icon that represents my vehicle slides into North Carolina.  We’d set the lunch meeting for noon, and after a ride of 250 miles, I arrive 30 minutes early, which coincidentally is the same time Ray arrives.  By now it’s warmed into the 60’s and my winter suit is far too warm, so I stow it and revert to my normal leather jacket.  We learn that Ray’s wife, who’d planned to join us, won’t be able to leave work.

Ray and I fill up the next hour and a half with easy conversation and then I’m ready to head out.  But to where?  Key West keeps forcing its way to the front of the candidate pool and in that moment I decide:  Key West it will be.  A quick GPS check shows it’s a few miles less than 1,000 miles from where we are to Key West.  The last segment from Key Largo to Key West is often interminably slow and traffic-filled, so I would like to ride about half that distance today, or around 500 miles in addition to the 250 miles I’ve ridden so far.  That would put me around Jacksonville, Florida for the night.

This loosely-formed plan is good enough for Solo Guy as he rides through the pines of South Carolina.  Solo Guy first emerged in 2002 while I was on a winter’s ride to Key West on my Gold Wing.  That ride was fraught with timing and location issues related to snowy weather fronts.  Because of unexpectedly deteriorating weather conditions farther north where I needed to be within two days or risk being snowed out for an extended time, that trip featured a nerve-wracking ride eastward across the Keys with quartering 50-mph winds gusting from the rear, threatening to blow my big bike and its Tulsa after-market windshield off the highway and into the angry green froth of the Gulf of Mexico.  It was the only time I have ever been nervous on my motorcycle.  Since then, Solo Guy has re-emerged from time to time but hasn’t been seen for a while.

Although confused by some with Lonely Guy, Solo Guy is never lonely.  His friends are with him always, they just aren’t in evidence.  He cares little for convention, has little regard for societal norms except that he always tries to make sure that human interactions, should they become necessary or desirable, are filled with politeness and good manners.  And unlike the Cheers sitcom jingle, which asserts that “Sometimes you want to go / Where everybody knows your name”, Solo Guy prefers a locale where nobody knows his name.  When he is hungry, he eats.  If he wants to ride until 3:00 AM for no reason, he does so.  When he is tired, he rests.  When sleepy, he sleeps.  With rare exceptions, he does not make hotel reservations because he believes “If it’s full, there’s always another city.”  If Solo Guy attempted to compete with the Dos Equis “most interesting man in the world” he would fail.  But of course he doesn’t care.  He is Solo Guy.

About 18 miles north of the Georgia state line, a tractor-trailer lies on its side in the median.  For no apparent reason, there commences a traffic backup on the northbound side of the highway that runs for 35 miles, across the state line and into Georgia.  I turn on the CB and listen to northbound truckers argue that a backup couldn’t possibly last for 35 miles.

At a fuel stop, I use the GPS to search for several hotels in Daytona Beach, Florida to check room availability.  There’s no car race this weekend, but for some reason every hotel I call is fully booked.  I decide to make my destination Jacksonville, without reservations.  After all, there’s always another city.

In Jacksonville, I decide to take the downtown route in lieu of one of its beltways, primarily for the opportunity to see that beautiful blue bridge that bisects the cityscape.  It has fascinated me during various trips through Jacksonville.  It’s nearly 8:00 PM, not quite dark, and the blue lights aren’t as dramatic as they will be later tonight, but it’s a lovely sight nevertheless.

Using the GPS, I’ve searched out a hotel south of the city with restaurants within walking distance.  I find the place and after checking in, clean and cover the bike.  I do it every evening.  Solo Guy doesn’t typically interact with others except as necessary, but he does stay in communication with Kitty.  Having traded several text messages throughout the day, I call her and we chat while walking to a nearby Chili’s restaurant for dinner.

For the day, I’ve ridden 732 miles with a 90-minute lunch stop; the GPS statistics feature a moving average of 70.2 m.p.h.  You don’t have to move fast to make a lot of miles; you just have to keep moving!

GPS Statistics:

Overall speed 57.7 mph; Moving speed 70.2 mph

Overall time 12:39; Moving time 10:24

Distance 732

GPS Track, Day 1

Key West or Bust, Day 15

Mile Marker: Home
Sunday May 25, 2008

We do our well-honed morning pack-up routine for the last time on this trip. In each of our canvas carrying bags we always use a plastic garbage bag to hold our dirty laundry and keep it separated from clean laundry on a long trip. Today, I laugh as I notice that the dirty laundry now takes up the entire space of my bag, leaving only a handkerchief and one clean pair of socks as the clean laundry. Tonight, we’ll do laundry at home.

“I’ve chosen every route and every mile so far on this trip,” I tell Kitty. “Today it’s up to you.” We discuss the options and she chooses to ride Skyline Drive to the US 211 cutoff at Panorama and then take 211 and 29 home, which, in a twist of fate, is exactly the route I’ve already pre-loaded into the GPS.

At about 9:15 AM we retrace the four miles of I-64 to the entrance of the Shenandoah National Park. At the entrance station, the Harley Davidson Electra-Glide in front of me suddenly begins backing up. Its rider apparently has not heard my quiet Gold Wing come up behind him, and apparently hasn’t checked his mirrors either. Maybe there’s something to that old biker saying “Loud pipes save lives!” I’m not worried about damage to the bike, since he would just impact my front tire, but he’s kicking it backward pretty good, and I’m afraid he’ll hit my front wheel at an angle and dump us over. I sound two long blasts on my horn (I think it’s the first time this trip) and fortunately he stops just before making contact with my front wheel. Trouble can come from the least expected sources on a motorcycle trip, even when at a dead stop! “Good job on the horn!” the park ranger says as we pay the $10.00 motorcycle fee.

The day is crystal clear, with temperatures on the Drive in the mid-fifties. Skyline Drive is a 105-mile ride with a 35 mph speed limit throughout the park. Compared to the Blue Ridge Parkway, the curves are sharper and generally more frequent, and from the overlooks you can often see settlements in the valleys nearly 3,000 feet below. On this pristine Sunday morning, there is little traffic on the road but the trailhead parking lots are jammed to capacity with cars. Apparently Memorial Day hiking is a big thing here.

From about Milepost 85 to 82, we see the fire-ravaged forest to our left, residuals of fires last year that closed the Drive for some time. Some of the blackened trees, in a struggle to survive, have pushed out green buds along the upper tree branches, persevering in the face of apparent disaster.

Unlike the Blue Ridge Parkway, which no longer has any fuel services, the Drive has services and we fuel at Loft Mountain, located around Milepost 80. "And there we go," Kitty says for the last time on this trip. She is no longer croaking as she did when we started. She sounds strong and confident.

“They are just starting our second church service at home,” Kitty says in my headset. “God, bless ‘em good!”

At about Milepost 32, the location of the now-closed Panorama visitor center, we catch US 211 eastward and ease around the serpentine downhill curves. At the bottom of the steep curvy road, running into the village of Sperryville, I notice a sign on a white panel truck parked at a crafts shop: “Antique tables made daily,” it announces boldly. I think about this for a minute. Somehow the words “antique” and “made daily” just don’t seem to play that well together in the same sentence. Something about this would make me scratch my head if it weren’t inside a helmet, and now that I think of it, I do have an itch inside my helmet.

We ride the remaining 35 or so miles home, sedately observing the speed limit. Kitty is in Full Going-Home Grandmother Mode. We’ve been in the seat now for upwards of two and a half hours, and she says she doesn’t want a break, doesn’t want to stop for anything. “If the trip has to be over, let’s get on home!” she says.

And so, after a short 136 miles on a beautiful, crystal clear day that more than makes up for the pounding we took on the first day out, Jill says "In 0.3 miles turn right on Blueridge View Drive, then arrive at Jim Home." And thus we arrive at Mile Marker: Home! Kitty's health started out pretty shaky but on antibiotics she improved every day, although we never got into the power walking routine we'd planned. By now, she's hardly coughing into my headset at all and she says she feels great. We’ve had great weather except for the first day out. We circumvented the fires in Florida without a problem. The bike and trailer performed flawlessly. (The only casualty was a burned-out bulb in one of the light bars on the bike, but it’s the lower center bar on back, which is hard to change on the road and invisible from the rear when pulling the trailer, so I opted to wait until I get home to replace it.)

Some of you may remember Kitty's Kardinal Rules for a trip: No snakes, no cities, no traffic. Well, this trip was a guarded experiment venturing into forbidden territory.

We visited Savannah, which immediately violates two of the three rules in that it's a city and there was heavy traffic getting into the historic downtown section where we stayed. Savannah, I would say, was not a failure but not a highlight either. We just don't do cities that well. We did enjoy the Cajun restaurant we stumbled into.

Key West was an experiment in "destinational travel." I loved it, Kitty loved some of it but felt there were far too many people too close together. Although the 70 miles nearest Key West are a spectacular ride, next time, maybe we'll fly there.

Walt Disney World was another experiment, and we both enjoyed that a lot. I'm fascinated as much with the technological infrastructure as with the actual venues themselves.

But as we talk about it, we realize that returning to our "riding roots," two-lane roads far from the city, is what we do best on the bike. Kitty and I maybe aren't so good at "doing" things or finding things to do. But we are pretty good at just "being." The 1,000 miles or so from Key West through the flatlands of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina before running into the Smokies and Blue Ridge Mountains, although not spectacular in the "Rocky-Mountain-cool" kind of way, was a great time for us just to "be" together and enjoy what the countryside could reveal as we travelled through vastly different ecological regions.

We’ve ridden 3,099 miles according to the GPS, 3,125 miles per the odometer. I believe the GPS. Kitty and I laughed many times during this trip about the low number of miles we're traveling. I'm not sure, but I believe this is by far the lowest 15-day total we've ever accumulated. According to the hours logged by the GPS, we’ve spent about 63 hours in the saddle. Several years ago I stopped keeping a gasoline log on trips (I know I get 39.8 mpg one-up, 35.4 mpg two-up with the trailer). And with today’s gasoline prices, who wants to know how much you’ve used anyway? We did note the highest price for regular grade gasoline was in Key West at $4.099, until that price was matched today on Skyline Drive. The lowest price we found was somewhere in rural Georgia, $3.749.

It’s good to be on the road; we cherish and fiercely protect our time together. But Mile Marker: Home is where we’ve made our lives together, and where every journey ends. In a sense, although we’ve ridden the far-flung reaches of the North American continent, all our roads eventually lead to Mile Marker: Home.

It’s good to be home!

Key West or Bust, Day 14

Mile Marker 0, Two
Saturday May 24, 2008

During the night, our motel apparently lost power, or at least the clock in the room is blinking a nonsensical time when I wake up. I don’t bother to check the time as pull aside the drapes to the motel room and check the weather. As predicted, it’s raining. The Internet Weather Channel predicted rain moving out by 10:00 AM.

So in the morning we take our time, uncover the bike and hang the wet towels out to dry. (We use towels to protect the bike and trailer at the points of stress where the cover would rub the paint, and he seams bike and trailer covers are not waterproof.) We generally laze around until the weather clears and I think the roads will be mostly dry. Generally, wherever we travel, when people see we’re a couple on a motorcycle, they want to talk about the bike and our travels. This morning a very large dude asks “Where are you riding to?” How does he know we’re riding? Oh… maybe the long jeans and motorcycle boots are a clue, or the Deal’s Gap T-shirt I’m wearing.

As usual, people with the best of intentions tell us of destinations we should visit and things we should do there. We try our best to help them understand we're in it for the ride, not for the destination. We make polite noises and say innocuous things like “Oh, thanks — maybe we’ll have to check that out.” You know, whatever you say when you have no intention of doing any such thing. But inside I’m thinking “I DON’T CARE, PEOPLE!! I JUST WANT TO RIDE MY MOTORCYCLE!! IT’S ALL ABOUT THE RIDE!” Ok, I feel quite a bit better now, thank you.

The weather clears at about 10:00 AM as predicted and we stow the still-wet towels in the trailer and pull out to head northward from Fancy Gap (Milepost 199) on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Behind the weather front, the sky is clear and the temperature is a cool 62F. Jacket weather. Traffic is very light this morning, and we see only one other vehicle traveling north.

In less than 25 miles we stop at Mabry Mill (Milepost 176), one of the major attractions on the Parkway. It features a working gristmill driven by a water wheel and from time to time has numerous activities depicting life in a bygone era. We’ve been here many times and this morning stop just to get a few digital photographs and to give Kitty a chance to wander around through the gift shop.

After we leave Mabry Mill, we are both quiet. I’m reflecting on the trip and thinking about whether we should ride home tonight instead of staying in Waynesboro, Virginia as planned. This is easy, swoopy riding, and I find myself using higher gears and lower RPMs than usual when running curvy roads. The bike feels steady but a bit sluggish without the power curve I usually maintain in curves. Kitty notices this and says “You’re in a mellow yellow mood this morning, aren’t you? Going-home syndrome?”

Going-home syndrome is what we call those last couple days when the trip isn’t over but most of the highlights have been registered and we start turning our minds toward home and what to expect as we ease back into work and our usually routine. I guess we both have going-home syndrome today, because mostly we don’t talk and are each lost in our thoughts as we ride the graceful curves and hills of the BRP.

At about 2:00 PM we reach Milepost 86, the Peaks of Otter Lodge, and decide to stop here for lunch since we’ve run out of picnic lunch food. Or, if we decide to ride all the way home, we’ll eat some protein bars and keep traveling. We discuss this for a little while before getting off the bike and finally decide to keep the reservations in Waynesboro. The ride home from there would make for a very long day.

As we are eating lunch, an elderly couple walks in and I notice the man’s ball cap. It’s a Navy hat with “PT 104” inscribed on the side. It reminds me that it’s Memorial Day weekend. As we pay our bill and leave, I get up and walk over to the guy. “I just want to shake your hand and say ‘Thank you’,” I say. He’s hard of hearing and I have to repeat it. A grateful look comes into his eyes and says “Well, I just did my job as best I could.”

Continuing our ride northward, we talk about the vegetation. There’s some flowering laurel, but the rhododendron are still at least a month from flowering; in late May they aren’t even pushing buds yet. The higher elevations feature budding maples trees that give entire mountainsides a reddish-brown hue, and flame azaleas with their pastel tangerine color grace the roadside from time to time.

Two days ago, we stopped between Cherokee and Asheville at the highest point of the Blue Ridge Parkway (6,053 feet). Today, after a precipitous drop from the highest Parkway elevation in Virginia at about 4,000 feet, we reach the lowest point at the James River Locks (Milepost 62), at about 650 feet.

Sometime later, we swoop around a bend to find several people in road flagging down passing vehicles. We slow to a stop, and a woman comes running up waving an empty bottle. "We're Appalachian hikers and the water supply is dry. Do you have any water?" The spring they were depending on for water is dry and they have over 10 miles of hiking to the next known water source. On March 12, they started hiking from the southernmost point of the Appalachian trail in Georgia and have hiked 800 miles so far; at their current rate of 10 to 12 miles per day, they expect to get to Mount Katahdin in Maine by mid September.

We give them all our bottled water and they take some pictures of their "motorcycle trail angels." Where we're going, we can easily get more.

And then, once again, we are at Mile Marker 0. This one is different from Key West, because it isn't the end of the road. But we’ve decided that for us today, it’s the end of the line.

“We’re getting on the Interstate!?” Kitty asks in alarm as I navigate the entrance ramp to I-64 west.

“Well, yeah, for four miles,” I respond. “Otherwise, we’d have to ride all the way through Waynesboro to get to our hotel. She concedes that it’s ok to ride four miles of Interstate if necessary.

We check in, I clean and cover the bike one last time, and we walk across the parking lot to the South River Grill for dinner. The waitress describes a dessert with melted Reeses Peanut Butter Cup and ice cream over a brownie. Kitty lights up. She would walk hot coals for peanut butter!

But when it comes out, it is huge! “That dessert will probably cost us $10.00!” Kitty mutters.

“It’s our last night. How much more damage could one more meal do?” I ask. “And how many calories could one dessert add?"

Thus we end dinner with Kitty scraping up every bit of peanut butter from the dessert plate. In a little less formal setting, I get the feeling she would even lick the plate. This woman loves peanut butter!

“I’m going to the exercise room,” she announces, back at the motel.

“Good,” I say. “I’ll join you. If they have wireless Internet access so I can post my blog.”

They do. I’m writing, Kitty is running on the treadmill. Something seems slightly off about this arrangement but for tonight, I can live with it.

Key West or Bust, Day 13

Don’t Worry, Be… Flexible!
Friday May 23, 2008

We have ridden the Blue Ridge Parkway southward over a dozen times. I once counted the curves on the BRP, and by my count there are 2,159 southbound curves. I imagine the number going north would be the same, but having never traveled the length of it in the northbound direction, I don’t know. We are traveling northward, but today is not a day for counting curves.

The morning sky is clear and the temperature is 67F as we roll northward on the BRP after a leisurely breakfast. We have just over 200 miles to cover today, all on the BRP. About 25 miles or so into the Parkway, before the road starts climbing into the serious mountains, we are surprised by a detour sign. Ok, we're flexible, we’ll follow the detour. The detour signs put us on I-40 westbound, followed by a single sign that says “Use Exit 86 for Parkway Detour.” Exit 86?! We’re at Exit 59. That’s almost 30 miles of Interstate, bypassing the most scenic part of the Parkway! I inspect the BRP custom waypoints I’ve downloaded to the GPS, and see that this puts us past Mount Mitchell, which at 6,684 feet of elevation is the highest peak east of the Rockies.

So I’m kicking myself for not checking the BRP road closures. I always check the BRP road closures before striking out on a BRP ride. Except not this time. The detour is a complete surprise! But not to worry… we’re flexible! We can cope.

After following the detour signs to Exit 86, where we pick up Rt. 226, we stop for fuel near Marion, South Carolina. Three bikers are standing around talking. But not to each other. They’re on their Blackberries and Treos. One guy finishes his conversation and I ask him about the detour. “Oh yeah, I saw it on the Grandfather Mountain website, www.grandfather.com.” I pull up the website on my own Treo and see that the Blue Ridge Parkway is closed from Milepost 355 southward to Milepost 375. For the entire year. The most scenic part of the Parkway is off limits in 2008. Mount Mitchell, which is one of our goals, is accessible only from the north.

The detour takes us up a very twisty Rt. 226 to rejoin the Parkway. At one point, hitting a steep left-hand curve a little too hot, my track wonders a little farther toward the edge of the road than I’d planned. “Yikes!” says Kitty in my headset. Well, yeah, my track didn’t quite work out as planned, but I didn’t think it warranted a “Yikes” even though, two feet from my bike’s tires, there was a narrow grassy shoulder and then a steep mountainside drop-off. But that’s because I’m the rider and the bike talks to me: I’ve locked in to the tactile sense of the handlebars in my hands and my brain, I can feel the bike’s angle, I know the reserves I have to play with until I run out of room or have to change something to survive the curve. The passenger has none of those benefits. I was on the back of a Gold Wing once as a passenger. That was often enough. It was very scary for me, because all the sensory input I’m used to getting from the bike was completely missing. So, Baby, it’s ok to say “Yikes.” I’m flexible. I’ll try not to do that again! And it does cause me reflect on how such a small difference could make such a big difference. On most of these roads, tracking two feet one way or the other could spell the difference in a fantastic ride or a fantastic disaster.

Ok, we are flexible. We’ll reach Mount Mitchell from the north. Which, as it turns out, means backtracking southward for 23 miles before riding the narrow 25-mph road up to the mountain. It’s a clear day and I’m looking forward to the view from the observation deck. Clear days on Mount Mitchell are pretty rare. We ride to the top, chat with another biker couple who talk about the same “upside-down” way of travel that I feel, where the destination is secondary to the ride required to get there.

When we walk to the observation deck, we learn that it is closed for the season. Well, we are flexible, so instead of going to the observation deck, we ask the ranger about the road closure. He says there was a major road failure near Craggy Gardens and the entire road in that section has to be rebuilt. It will take at least this season and maybe part of next year to complete the work.

We ride down from the mountain top and backtrack 23 miles northward to our original entry point. The BRP is always a nice slow-down ride, and after a while I wonder why anyone would ever want to ride faster than 45 mph. From the overlooks we can see mountain ranges behind mountain ranges, lapping up into the blue hazy distance like waves on a misty beach. Although we missed what I think is the most spectacular part of the Parkway, it’s a rewarding ride.

Kitty is exceptionally quiet today, and I sense she’s tired. I finally pry out of her that, inexplicably, she only slept a couple hours last night. This has happened to both of us from time to time; no known reason, just unable to sleep well.

Our detour and backtracking will add probably 50 miles to the day’s ride, so I slide out of “poke-around” mode into “riding” mode. We do stop several times, once for a little lunch of peanut butter, carrots and apples that we always carry in the Escapade trailer’s cooler, and we invite another biker over to share an apple and a drink. Steve turns out to be a railroad engineer, and he has tales of the railroad to keep us entertained until it’s time to roll northward. He’s heading south, back to his home in Charlotte.

We swoop through the afternoon. There are two more small detours but these are both pleasant rides through the countryside before rejoining the BRP. We’d planned to ride about 200 miles. By now it’s nearing 6:00 PM and we’ve ridden over 260 miles, mostly on the Parkway, to Fancy Gap, at Milepost 199 in Virginia, where I-77 crosses the Parkway. But it’s ok, because we’re flexible.

Normally we check in to our hotel or motel, shower and change, and then find a restaurant within walking distance. Tonight, though, because we are flexible, we decide to eat at the tiny Lakeside Restaurant just off the Parkway and then ride to the motel I’d booked last night while in Asheville.

And so a day of flexibility once more ends well for us!

Key West or Bust, Day 12

Contrasts
Thursday May 22, 2008

My wrist watch alarm technology continues to improve and not only have I now figured out how to silence it when we don’t want it, but also how to activate it when we do. This morning it sounds at 6:30 AM.

Yesterday, defying all odds, we made our originally planned destination, really without trying. It just happened. Today, well, I’m not so sure: I originally scripted a 370-mile day, all on two-lane or non-Interstate roads, including the last 85 miles on the Blue Ridge Parkway with its 45-mph speed limit. Normally that’s a nice day’s ride on two-lanes, but on the back of a very tiring day with Mickey and a long day yesterday, it might be too much. If it’s a hot day, that might be too many hours in the saddle, even for a super-biker-chick.

Nevertheless, undaunted by reality, by a little after 8:00 AM we roll northward from Vidalia on Rt. 297, a continuation of our two-lane journey through remote areas. We’ve ridden for days now in the same direction, and I’m suddenly struck that there’s a lot of “country” in our country, and it’s filled with incredible variety coast to coast, border to border. No two areas are the same. As well, I’m amazed how we, the human race, have been able to uncover the unique attributes of each area and discover what works, be it gathering seafood, planting crops, harvesting natural resources from above and below the earth, and a host of other ingenious commodities.

Logging, wheat, and peanuts (who are just now poking innocent green shoots through the soil) seem to be the primary industries here.

This day is a gift after the past days of hot weather. We start out at 67F under pristine and cloudless skies, and as we roll northward on Rt. 297 until we intersect US 1 near Swainsboro, the heat never comes into the day. These mostly two-lane roads are just perfect for our mood this morning. Not spectacular in the normal sense, but it just makes us feel good to be on our motorcycle on roads like this, far from the Interstate, mostly far from anyone else, just enjoying the day together. It remains deliciously cool and crisp. We hold US 1 until the town of Wrens, where we pick up Rt. 17.

The elevation here is only 400 feet above sea level, but there’s been a definite change in topography. Gone are the flatlands with their large expansive fields, gone are the pine trees that line the roads. The land here is more rolling and with more hardwoods, and the roads no longer feature miles of straight-line travel. Now, it pays to be sharp for every hilly curve.

We stop in Elberton, the self-proclaimed “Granite Capital of the World.” I wasn’t actually aware that Georgia is one of the world’s premier supplies of very high quality granite. A little research shows that Elberton sits on a layer of granite left by a dome of molten volcanic lava, 35 miles long, 6 miles wide, and estimated at two to three miles deep. That’s enough to fill the Rose Bowl 2 million times. But who’s counting?

I have a secret US tour sketched out: “Centreville, USA”. My goal would simply be to visit at least one town named “Centreville” (spelling does not matter) in every state that contains such a town, and get a picture of the bike with something that identifies the city. So far I’ve got only three. Without checking, I think there might be 34 states that have such a town, Georgia included. So at Elberton, we pick up Rt. 77, as I have added Centerville, Georgia to our itinerary for this trip.

As we near the waypoint, I think, “Wow, this is going to be a small town!” And as we crest the hill and Jill announces “Arriving at Centerville,” we see… nothing but a tin metal shed on the left. There is no Centerville, Georgia! Perhaps in time past there was, but no evidence exists now. As we turn around and retrace our ride, we do see a signpost for “Centerville Road” but it just disappears behind the shed. We concede an ignominious defeat and re-join our regularly scheduled route, already in progress.

Winding northward through Georgia in a complicated route only a GPS could understand or remember (I would never try these two-lane roads without a GPS!), we make our way through Toccoa and finally join US 23 and US 441 northward. By this time the elevation is 1500 feet above sea level and we are definitely in the Smoky Mountain zone. The heavy forests are mostly hardwood, and even the pine trees are different. I don’t have good pine tree technology to know which pines are which, but these pines appear hardier, have thicker trunks, and the branches grow much closer to the ground.

We take a picnic lunch break at Tallulah Point, from which the Tallulah Gorge is visible. This gorge was at one time the premier vacation destination of the Southeast, and was made somewhat famous in 1970 when the high-wire artist Karl Wallenda tightrope-walked the gorge without a net. It’s only 1,000 feet to the bottom. Kitty and I talked about how he dealt with the wind, which is formidable today.

By this time it’s almost 2:30 PM and prior to this stop, we’ve ridden about 220 miles and been off the bike for a total of 35 minutes (the GPS keeps track of these things). “It’s about 150 miles to Asheville,” I tell Kitty. “And remember, the last 85 miles is on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Do you want to bail out and stop now, or skip the Blue Ridge Parkway section?”

She doesn’t hesitate. “No, I don’t want to bail out. I feel good. Let’s do the whole trip.” So I call a Quality Inn near Asheville where I’ve stayed a number of times and book the last available room.

So we follow US 441 through Cherokee and just before 4:00 PM we catch the Blue Ridge Parkway at its extreme southern terminus. At first, I try on the curves like a toddler trying on a new pair of shoes. Having ridden for over a week in the flatlands and straight roads of the South, carving corners is almost foreign to me. I always try to find and hold the perfect line for a curve, but today I’m probably hitting only one in four. The rest of the time I have to make speed or lean angle adjustments. Kitty notices it and thinks I’m going too fast because of the way the bike changes around the curves. But 85 miles later, by the time we reach Asheville, North Carolina, my lines are smooth and I’ve regained my corner-carving confidence.

“You’re going slower now than you did at first,” Kitty says. I smile because I’m actually going 10 mph faster on the same type of curve. It just feels slower because it feels right: Slow down before the curve, pick the right lean angle, keep the eyes level with the horizon as the bike leans into the turn, hold the line, watch the road as far in front of the bike as possible, accelerate coming out of the turn.

Once again today, without really trying, we’ve ridden 370 non-Interstate miles. God smiled on us with clear skies and temperatures in the 70’s (F). One of the things I enjoy most on a ride is to see how the country in our country changes, and do that you have to ride some miles in a compressed time format, and you have to be up close and personal. In two days we've ridden 700 miles from the sunny expanses of central Florida to the rugged mountains of North Carolina. These have been two of those special days.

Oh, yeah, I think I’m going to enjoy the next two days on the BRP.