October 2--The Shenandoah Valley

We woke up to an absolutely gorgeous day! The tent was dried out, hardly any signs of the previous day’s rain. Our destination today is Natural Bridges, Virginia via the Shenandoah National Park Skyline Drive and then the Blue Ridge Parkway.

It was just an absolutely lovely drive, 25 to 45 mph along the ridge line with about 20 curves to the mile on absolutely pristine blacktop. We stopped at the first visitor center, and learned that the park has the highest population of black bear on the North American continent. So, I kept my eyes peeled all day for bear, but all I saw were a few deer on the side of the road.

We also met a couple from NC on a Beemer motorcycle (R1200RT for all you gear heads) headed home from visiting grandchildren in NY state. We ran into them at a couple of the stops, and ended up sitting by them Skyland Lodge when we stopped for a small bite and ended up with a great late breakfast! They had been to Big Bend National Park in Texas, one of our proposed waypoints for this trip, and raved about how wonderful it was. They also recommended staying at the Lodge in the park, so I think that is our new revised plan when we get that far. We had been toying with skipping it and coming back another year, but after talking to them, we decided we should go on this trip. Heck, it’s only a thousand or so miles off the direct route!

Well, all day long we thought of our riding buddies, Kevin and Julia Smith, Norm LeFevre, and my son Jon. We talked about how much they each would have enjoyed the ride today. We ran into a number of motorcyclists throughout the day. Three guys touring down from Montreal, a couple guys from NYC ‘burbs, and lots of folks that we just waved at.

We had gotten a nice little milepost magazine from the Virginia Tourist Information people yesterday, so we followed it today as we toured. We ended up stopping at quite a few pullovers listed in the milepost magazine, all of them scenic and beautiful.

Today we figured out what good RV campers are for. If you are following them in the fall when the leaves are turning and falling, they leave behind them a trail of leaves floating in the sunlight, dancing behind them. It is almost like a swarm of yellow butterflies following them. . . and greeting us.

After leaving the Skyline Trail and entering the Blue Ridge Parkway, we came on Humpback Rock Visitor Center which sits on 800 acres of national park. They have built a small farm on it (actually, relocated all the buildings from somewhere else) and tried to replicate what life was like in the late 1890’s in the Shenandoah Valley. It was complete with a garden, chickens, tobacco drying, and a cabin. We met Ranger Melissa there, who grew up in the Valley and loved learning about all the different skills a pioneer had to have to live on the land. So she began her Federal career dressed in period costume. What a nice lady!

We finally turned off the Blue Ridge Parkway 62 miles into it, and headed west to our night’s campsite. Tonight we are camped at a Jellistone Campground that has wi-fi so that we can watch the Palin-Biden debate. Go Joe!!!!

Tomorrow, we head for Asheville, NC to see the sights.

October 1--Traveling!

Well, we got up to lots of water in the form of fog. We packed up our wet tent and listened to the wolves as we ate breakfast. Then we headed out to our destination for the night, Mt. Holly, PA. I got some great pics of a beautiful 2 lane we were on early in the morning, riding through the fog.

After we had been on the road for a couple of hours, we decided that we should pick a different destination for the night, since we would be at camp by noon at the rate we were going. So we reprogrammed the GPS for Front Royal, Virginia, the northern entrance to the Skyline Drive in the Shenandoah National Park, and then we kept to the freeways and made time and miles.

We got stuck in an awful traffic jam just after Harrisburg, PA for about a hour. They were doing construction repair work on the highway, and merged it down to one lane. Unfortunately, the work was being done right after an intersection of two major highways, so you actually had six lanes merging into 1 lane. Yuck! We just got through that mess, and then it started to rain! So we called it lunchtime, and got off the freeway to let Steve’s throttle hand take a rest, and hope the rain slowed.

After lunch we got back on the interstate and headed to Front Royal. So we traveled today through NJ, PA, MD, WV, and finally ended up in a campground right outside Front Royal, about 2 miles from the entrance to the Park.

Tomorrow is supposed to be a beautiful day, and we’ll head south on Skyline Drive and see how far we get. We’ve talked to folks this evening in camp who said that 25 mph is a good speed since there are lots of turns and deer!

September 30--Farewell to Jon and Family

Well, this morning we left Jon and Lori’s place. It was foggy, but only a little rain was actually falling. A herd of wild turkeys paraded across his drive right before we left, which was interesting! Kait said she had only seen them a couple of times, but Kodi said that he had seen them a lot. Jon had left for work early and we saw him off and then the kids off to school, and then got on the road about 8 a.m. On Jon’s advice, we took I-91 south through NH to Brattleburg and then across Route 9 West to Bennington, Vermont.

It was a good thing that the day was cloudy because it would have been too brilliant to drive by if the sun were shining. We finally and truly found ‘fall foliage’! The tree colors on Route 9 were absolutely spectacular. There were more colors of red than we’ve ever seen. The road was also a terrific road, with frequent passing lanes (we were being passed, not doing the passing). And of course, Bennington is the home of “New England cute”. Then we turned south and took a beautiful drive to Troy and Albany, New York, and then down the NY turnpike headed south. We actually made it to within 15 miles of NYC and had some talk of going to the Oyster Bar at Grand Central Station in Manhattan. Steve didn’t think it was a very good idea to haul a trailer through the streets with a motorcycle. Oh well, I guess he just doesn’t like the challenge of playing demolition derby with the cabbies!

So we took I-287 to I-80 which was very, very busy. Thank goodness it wasn’t rush hour. There was a dump truck taking up 2 lanes of traffic that we were a little nervous about, and got around him the first chance we could. He was clearly either drunk or tired, but definitely not staying in his own lane.

We headed to the turn off for Columbia, NJ and to the Camp Taylor Campgrounds (mile 6,099 of our trip), home of the Lakota Wolf Preserve and just on the border of NJ and PA. We missed the 4:00 p.m. tour, so we took our own tour and saw the timber wolves and fox, and saw (and smelled!) the lynx. I happened to see a letter posted on the Lakota Wolf Preserve board about Sarah Palin and her support of wolf aerial hunting in Alaska. I’m posting the html to the letter to the blog so you can read it yourself. I did a fact check on the information in the letter, and it is true, but of course, there is more of a story than is told in the letter.

During the evening we listened to frogs, some kind of noisy night bird, and the wolves howling. . .and the pitter patter of a very heavy rain storm. It was quite a pleasant evening.

I’m happy to report that Steve did not listen to NPR today, only music. This was the day after House of Representatives voted down the Revitalization Act and the market dived 777 points. We thought that one more day of listening to the giant sucking sound of the financial markets going down the drain might be a distraction to preserving our lives on the Goldwing!

We talked with Ann and Jamie and Jon this evening. All are well, and Sophie was headed to the groomers at Petco, and then to the vet for an exam. Jamie got her truck fixed and was pleased with the service and the results. The deer she hit probably is not as pleased. Tomorrow we are headed towards the Blue Ridge Parkway.