My son and I are wrapping up our last big ride of the season this week. We left home last Friday to take a tour of western VA, MD and PA. I have done variations of this ride the last 3 years but this was my son's first bike ride up to this area. This was us making final preparations before leaving the house. Master Mountainpharm made the trip on an 883 Low so he gets props for that alone, even though we only rode a max of 250 miles a day.





I, on the other hand, rode my Glide so it became a freaking pack mule as I had to haul stuff for the both of us. This would be my boy's longest ride to date, so we'll see where the odometer ends up when we get home. I'm guessing it will be between 1400 and 1500 miles total.







One of the stipulations we decided for this trip is we had to eat at local restaurants -- no chains allowed. Not even my beloved Dairy Queen for a Blizzard even though they are on sale right now!! Such the tragedy, but we've had fun with picking places to eat. When we left last Friday, we started our trip with a breakfast at a place we know well since it's only a mile or so from our house: Shatley Springs. It was a bit foggy when we left but it cleared up once we got away from the New River a bit.






The other stipulation we had was to avoid the superslab, a rule we would have to later suspend due to weather. We left Shatley Springs and headed north on Hwy 16 to Mouth of Wilson, VA. We picked up 58 East to Independence and 21 North to Wytheville. From there we took Hwy 11 which essentially runs parallel to I-81, but is much more scenic and has many nice little towns. It was much more enjoyable than running 75 mph on I-81 all day, which is what I've done every other time I've made this trip. From now on, I'll do 11. Here are a couple of shots from Pulaski.







We kept on trucking to Roanoke. By this time, it was getting fairly warm and the humidity was unbelievable ahead of the cold front moving through from the west. We decided to stop for lunch around Roanoke before riding on to Natural Bridge. Our first gamble on the local-only food policy was Hollywood's Restaurant.







Hollywood's was a success; food was great as was the service. I wanted to get a few pictures of the paintings they had in the back room, but I didn't. We instead opted to jump back on the bikes and head to our first stop: Natural Bridge.





I have driven by Natural Bridge a gazillion times on I-81 but I had never taken the time to stop. This trip was to be different and I'm glad it was. Admission was a bit pricey at $19/person but worth it for at least one visit. The ticket also included a butterfly garden.











Now on to the main attraction...

 

Subscribed!

Drive safe and enjoy the trip with your son.

 

The walk down to the bridge consists of about 135 steps but is a pretty one with the old trees and stream running down the rocks beside the stairs. There is also a shuttle available if the stairs aren't an option. I certainly didn't know this prior to my visit, but Thomas Jefferson owned Natural Bridge at one time.







For some reason, I wasn't expecting it to be as big as it was. It was really quite an impressive sight. Interestingly enough, another president left his mark on the bridge when he surveyed the area in 1750. Maybe you can make out the "GW" carved into the wall of the bridge.





And there's also the Buddha of the Bridge:





We left the bridge and pointed the bikes up Hwy 11 once again. It wasn't far until we passed the Pink Cadillac Cafe. I had wanted this to be our lunch stop, but maybe we can make that happen on the way back home.





We got to Staunton and saw an interesting sight across the intersection. There was a fellow rider sitting at the light. Actually there were two riders across the way. One happened to be a canine, complete with white helmet.





We got to the hotel in Harrisonburg, unpacked and decided what to do about supper. The desk clerk didn't make any recommendations that we cared for, so we decided to roll the dice on our own. Friday night is Mexican night at home, so we decided to keep with tradition and let Yahoo tell us what our best option was in the area. Dona Rosa appeared to have the best reviews so we chose that. It was only 4 miles away so it was a seemingly perfect plan.




More to come...

 

Nice. I go to Roanoke every January on business. I'm looking forward to seeing more pics from this trip.

Ride safe!

 

Great write-up and pics..........keep'em coming!

 

Looking good.
.
Ride on.
.
.

 

You're getting close to me. Some good roads if you can skip the interstate as much as possible.

 

We pulled into the parking lot and immediately noticed something rather strange. On the side of this Mexican restaurant were signs advertising pizza specials. Hmm. We debated whether or not to abandon in favor of the Mexican place across the road but decided to trust Yahoo. We walked in the front door and saw shrimp quesadilla was the daily special. That made us feel a little better, but equally disturbing: the place was vacant. The waiter brought us some menus over and took our drink orders, and then we perused the selections. Hmm, all the menu had was pizza; no Mexican to be found. The waiter came back to take our order so I asked him what he recommended. He asked if we wanted pizza or Mexican. We responded that we were really in the mood for Mexican, to which he responded, "Oh, let me go get those menus." He returned with half of a 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper that had been copied about 300 times that had about 5 or 6 options total. We went with the chicken quesadilla. Any chance of chips and salsa in the meantime? Not a chance. He returns with our entrees a short time later and we discover the quesadilla was made with....


wait for it....


mozzarella cheese.





We returned to the room, somewhat wanting for more. Thankfully the Holiday Inn had some fresh cookies in the lobby so that made up for an otherwise lackluster dinner. Our main concern, however, was the cold front moving in from the west and the storms associated with it. I checked the radar when I got back to the room and there was a solid line of storms from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. Our plan was to take 340 up to Maryland and back roads over to Route 1 where I have family, stopping at Luray Caverns in the process. We agreed to get up early and check the forecast the next morning and decide how best to proceed. As it turns out, the storms were making a steady march eastward and were predicted to start hitting our riding area sometime between 12 noon and 2pm. Therefore, we opted to leave at daybreak and take I-81 to Winchester in the hopes of getting to our destination before bad weather struck. The sunrise gave no indication of what was to come. We checked out, loaded up and hit the slab around 7:15.











One of my favorite spots on this ride is always Harpers Ferry, but we were on a mission to avoid bad weather so we didn't stop for pics on the way up. I snapped what I could as we rode through the area. You can see that our beautiful sunrise has given way to more clouds, leading us to believe the rainsuits would make their first appearance shortly.






However, the increased clouds turned out to be temporary as we entered Maryland and took I-70 to Route 27 in Mount Airy to begin our travel of the back roads. At this point the topography was changing a bit from the mountains to rolling hills -- we were entering farm country.









We weaved our way through Westminster, Hunt Valley and Jarrettsville to finally pick up Route 1 in Hickory. We only had about 12 miles to go and the skies hadn't yet darkened -- a definite stroke of luck in our favor. An added bonus appeared in the last few miles. We passed a 9/11 tribute ride that had over 100 bikes -- very cool to see.





We were feeling lucky so we ran up to Chesapeake HD before seeking shelter from the impending storms. Thankfully we knew when our luck was wearing thin and we made to our destination about 20 minutes before business picked up as you can see in the second pic.







Stay tuned......

 

I think you meant MD Rt 27, not 23.

You rode right past my house.

 

Much obliged -- I posted that last night from the hotel room in somewhat of a stupor from riding all day. Error corrected.