The promise of a sunny and relatively warm weekend after a long stretch of wintery weather … some high-point, limited-time bonuses to be scored in the Big Money Rally … a clear schedule between Friday evening and Saturday night. It must be time to ride! And so began another weekend motorcycle adventure of graupel, stars, sun, gravel, water, snow, and praises for the wonder of paved roads with more than one lane.
As I headed south to Jeff’s house after work on Friday, a squall blew in, plastering my car in snow, rain, sleet, and graupel. (That's a real word; it's on the hood of the car!) The outdoor temperature (as read by my car) plummet from 52 degrees several minutes into the storm to about 40 degrees, at the rate of about a degree a minute. Fortunately, the squall passed as fast as it came in, leaving a chillier but beautifully clear night in its wake.
We waited for rush hour to subside, mounted Jeff’s BMW R1200GSA, and then headed into Southern Virginia. A few hours later, the clear evening yielded a canopy of dazzling bright stars and a nearly full moon (the remainder of a supermoon from two nights earlier.)
Our weekend had two primary goals. For about 25 points, we needed to be Asheboro, NC at 11:00 a.m. eastern time at a motorcycle museum; and sometime on Saturday we needed to photograph a particular sign for Upshur County, WV for about 18 points. In BMR terms, these are very high points. And we needed to be back in Northern Virginia on Saturday night so Jeff could catch an early morning flight to Hawaii on Sunday. It wasn’t the first time that we had crossed through parts of Virginia, North Carolina, and West Virginia in less than 24 hours. It’s not an ideal way to experience these beautiful states, but doable.
We made a couple of quick stops on the way south Friday for geocaches and a BMR bonus, but for the most part headed straight to South Hill VA our stopping point for Friday night. Jeff had made a reservation that morning, snagging what appeared to be the last room in the only hotel that wasn’t already sold out in this rural community. That's how we ended up at a Comfort Inn. A fishing tournament had filled every hotel, and the parking lots were crammed with boats.
I generally nix anything in the Comfort Inn and Quality Inn line since my few experiences haven’t been good. This time, the hotel looked pretty new, the desk clerk was very welcoming and efficient, and so we got our key, rode the elevator to the third floor, and walked into the bottom of a really nasty ashtray. At least that’s what our room smelled like. We headed back to the lobby.
The desk clerk had disappeared, so I had plenty of time to peruse the signs advertising the hotel as 100% smoke-free and threatening anyone who smoked in a guest room with a $250 fee for deep-cleaning the room. Jeff went out to cover the bike and found the clerk – having a cigarette in the parking lot. She came back in, advised me they were sold out, and fished out a can of room freshener ("fresh linen" scent) as the solution to our problem. I didn’t know that stuff cost $250 a squirt!
The room freshener provided temporary respite, but by morning the room stank again and my sinuses were completely congested. But, at least, the shower had hot water, the breakfast was adequate, and by 8 a.m. we were on our way, with “no Comfort Inns” re-etched in our travel ethos.
The 8 a.m. start gave us time for a quick stop at Bennett Place, a historic farmhouse where General Johnston surrendered to General Sherman on April 26, 1865, 17 days after Appomattox and shortly after President Lincoln was assassinated. Johnston surrendered over 89,000 troops in Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas, which was the largest surrender of the war and thus the one that truly ended it, notwithstanding the far better PR that gives the surrender at Appomattox Court House that credit.
Then onward to Asheboro N.C. for American Classic Motorcycle Co. This was a BMR bonus worth about 25 points (the highest number of points for a bonus in this competition). All we needed was an exterior photo of the place taken between 11 a.m. and noon, but we arrived a bit early, so I went inside. The downstairs is a restaurant with a parts and service counter at the back of one side. Upstairs there’s a Harley museum. It has a great collection of old bikes, ads, and other paraphernalia that underscores how Harley became such an American icon. There were even Harley Barbie and Ken dolls!
The next highlight was Greensboro NC to photograph the Woolworth’s where the lunch counter sit-ins to protest segregation began. February 1, 1960. We planned to stop at this site on our summer 2019 vacation, but we moved the stop to this trip so we could use it as the focal point for our Rock n’ Ride intro photo (Sweet Honey in the Rock’s rendition of "Ballad of the Sit-Ins" is stunning.) We wanted to tour the civil rights museum as part of our visit, but this trip had to be scaled down from a full weekend, so the touring got scrapped. The other high-pointer for the Big Money Rally was a sign for Upshur County West Virginia, over 300 miles away, which also needed to be done on Saturday, so off we went. But Greensboro looked like a historic town that we'd like to come back to for a real visit.
Between us and Upshur County were opportunities to pick up numerous other bonuses and geocaches, and we did indulge a bit. The trip also required that we retrace routes we had taken before, including through the Big Walker Mountain tunnel (Tour of Honor, 2018; MD 2020, 2018) and across the New River bridge (multiple times in 2018, in part due to bad GPS directions). On this trip, our search for Nicholas County (a BMR word match) took us to Summersville, WV. Summersville is a rather out of the way location and has no particularly notable attractions, yet this was our third visit to Summersville in less than a year. Our first trip was April 1, 2018 when we attempted to complete all seven West Virginia Tour of Honor locations in one day, vying for recognition as one of the top three riders or teams to do so. We might have succeeded if only we had photographed the right monument in front of the Nicholas County courthouse! The second trip amended that error, allowing us to complete WV, but long after the bragging rights to a top three spot had been lost. We were back in front of that same courthouse again, this time to photograph the phrase “Nicholas County,” and we still hadn’t stopped at Fran’s coffee house across the street. (On our first trip, I was severely under-caffeinated, but we were on rally time. So I could only stare longingly at the "cappuccino" sign -- so close and yet out of reach.)
After we completed Nicholas and several other county word-match bonuses, we headed for Upshur County. The GPS routed us off of Interstate 79 near Flatwoods. It seemed an odd route. While, it did appear to be a shorter way than the interstates to get across the mountains, at least as the crow flies, there were no main roads on the map. But the GPS had a plan. (This might be an appropriate place to note that neither cell phones nor GPS work well in WV. The cell phones don’t get reception and the GPS relies on data that is just poorly coded and mapped. We know that. But sometimes we are forgetful. Or overly optimistic. Or inexplicably gullible.)
We missed the first turn, which looked more like a private access road than a public by-way, but Jeff recognized the error immediately. It took a while to find somewhere safe enough and wide enough to turn around, but he did and we found our road. The new road was a narrow and occasionally gravelly and patched road that took us up the mountain sides, around blind corners, and soaring into deep valleys. We only encountered two or three on-coming vehicles, which was fortunate, since it was a tight squeeze even for one vehicle and a motorcycle. There were pipeline operations with heavy equipment and a number of homes, including mobile homes, on the steep hillsides on either side of the road. Although it seemed difficult to imagine moving anything as large as a mobile home, lumber, or earthmoving equipment along that road, it had apparently been done many times before. But, the quality of the road kept degrading and I think we were both looking forward to the end of it. Jeff mentioned that he had located the sign we were searching for on street view, and the road with the sign was well paved.
Eventually we came to a T-intersection with a little gazebo and a sign touting WV by-ways. The GPS pointed us to the road on the right, but it looked far worse than the road we were on. To our right the road was a rocky, gravely track that had been eroded into a washboard. To the left, the road was narrower than the one we had been on, and more patched and with more loose gravel, but it was more or less paved and had a sign describing it as a “parkway.” Jeff said that either road would work, according to the GPS, and opted for the one to our left. He noted that although that way would be a few miles longer, it seemed like the better of two not-so-great options.
The promise that this would be an OK road deteriorated rapidly. It was a narrow one-lane track, hard-packed dirt and gravel with lots of rocks and ruts. At one spot we got chased by a loose dog while his two companions strained at their chains. Every time we came to what looked like it might be a cross-road or intersecting road, I hoped we had found the spot where the mountain track would reconnect us to civilization. There had to be one. After all, the people who lived back here (and there were quite a few) must have to get to a grocery store once in a while! Plus, it was getting late in the day and this road wouldn’t look better at dusk or at night.
When we came to a steep descent on a curve in the road where the dirt had been fortified with large loose gravel, I thought we were going to lose it. This was really nasty terrain. I held on tight, anticipating a skid at any moment. Even at the snails’ pace we were traveling it would have hurt to lay the bike down in that gravel, and there was a steep drop off the side of the road.
Thanks to Jeff’s care and patience we stayed upright, but after that stretch in particular, there were only three good things I could say about this road: (1) the scenery was gorgeous; (2) it can’t get any worse; and (3) at least we won’t have to come back this way.
Only one of those proved to be correct.
On the way back, I walked up the hill where the gravel pit was and again, Jeff managed to keep the bike upright. The dog chased us again, while his companions barked their approval of his vigilance and, again, he didn’t catch us. Eventually we reached the point where we had made the fateful turn to the left and opted for the other route.
This road was equally as narrow and rough as the last, but flatter and straighter than the other, so the lousy road conditions were not quite as terrifying. We learned we were on Bogg’s Mill Road from a sign posted right across the water from where we had been standing just a short while ago. We emerged somewhere near Cleveland (unincorporated, WV) where we extolled the wonders of pavement and two-lane roads, where an on-coming vehicle can pass without threatening the other with going over the side of a cliff. We also found we had many other things to appreciate: the bike stayed upright; the Enduro mode feature on the GSA really works; we got through the mountains before dark; we didn’t run out of gas; and we really would NOT have to go back that way.
We found our Upshur County sign. It was a nondescript county line sign. The historic marker on the other side of the road describing Upshur County on one side and Webster County on the other was more interesting, and could have been a somewhat more challenging bonus, but Jeff photographed the one we needed while I examined the others. Then we rode up Route 20, a quick and easy ride, into Buckhannon for the word-of-the-day.
Although our word of the day bonus was only half a block from C.J. Maggies, which has possibly the best pizza I’ve ever eaten, it was dark by then and we were still four hours from home and less than 12 hours from the time Jeff’s plane would take off in the morning. So, no pizza for us.
Instead, we had a long, and very cold ride home. Temperatures dipped to about 30, and as we crossed the mountains, the road was covered in hard packed snow. Given where we had been earlier in the afternoon, Jeff took it with ease. The heat in my left glove had stopped working earlier, and I hadn’t worn heated pants, but it was the cold seeping around my helmet and freezing my face that was most uncomfortable. The stars, however, were amazing and the moon was the same huge orb that we had seen the night before.
And so ended another adventure.
As I headed south to Jeff’s house after work on Friday, a squall blew in, plastering my car in snow, rain, sleet, and graupel. (That's a real word; it's on the hood of the car!) The outdoor temperature (as read by my car) plummet from 52 degrees several minutes into the storm to about 40 degrees, at the rate of about a degree a minute. Fortunately, the squall passed as fast as it came in, leaving a chillier but beautifully clear night in its wake.
We waited for rush hour to subside, mounted Jeff’s BMW R1200GSA, and then headed into Southern Virginia. A few hours later, the clear evening yielded a canopy of dazzling bright stars and a nearly full moon (the remainder of a supermoon from two nights earlier.)Our weekend had two primary goals. For about 25 points, we needed to be Asheboro, NC at 11:00 a.m. eastern time at a motorcycle museum; and sometime on Saturday we needed to photograph a particular sign for Upshur County, WV for about 18 points. In BMR terms, these are very high points. And we needed to be back in Northern Virginia on Saturday night so Jeff could catch an early morning flight to Hawaii on Sunday. It wasn’t the first time that we had crossed through parts of Virginia, North Carolina, and West Virginia in less than 24 hours. It’s not an ideal way to experience these beautiful states, but doable.
We made a couple of quick stops on the way south Friday for geocaches and a BMR bonus, but for the most part headed straight to South Hill VA our stopping point for Friday night. Jeff had made a reservation that morning, snagging what appeared to be the last room in the only hotel that wasn’t already sold out in this rural community. That's how we ended up at a Comfort Inn. A fishing tournament had filled every hotel, and the parking lots were crammed with boats.
I generally nix anything in the Comfort Inn and Quality Inn line since my few experiences haven’t been good. This time, the hotel looked pretty new, the desk clerk was very welcoming and efficient, and so we got our key, rode the elevator to the third floor, and walked into the bottom of a really nasty ashtray. At least that’s what our room smelled like. We headed back to the lobby.
The desk clerk had disappeared, so I had plenty of time to peruse the signs advertising the hotel as 100% smoke-free and threatening anyone who smoked in a guest room with a $250 fee for deep-cleaning the room. Jeff went out to cover the bike and found the clerk – having a cigarette in the parking lot. She came back in, advised me they were sold out, and fished out a can of room freshener ("fresh linen" scent) as the solution to our problem. I didn’t know that stuff cost $250 a squirt!The room freshener provided temporary respite, but by morning the room stank again and my sinuses were completely congested. But, at least, the shower had hot water, the breakfast was adequate, and by 8 a.m. we were on our way, with “no Comfort Inns” re-etched in our travel ethos.
The 8 a.m. start gave us time for a quick stop at Bennett Place, a historic farmhouse where General Johnston surrendered to General Sherman on April 26, 1865, 17 days after Appomattox and shortly after President Lincoln was assassinated. Johnston surrendered over 89,000 troops in Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas, which was the largest surrender of the war and thus the one that truly ended it, notwithstanding the far better PR that gives the surrender at Appomattox Court House that credit.
Then onward to Asheboro N.C. for American Classic Motorcycle Co. This was a BMR bonus worth about 25 points (the highest number of points for a bonus in this competition). All we needed was an exterior photo of the place taken between 11 a.m. and noon, but we arrived a bit early, so I went inside. The downstairs is a restaurant with a parts and service counter at the back of one side. Upstairs there’s a Harley museum. It has a great collection of old bikes, ads, and other paraphernalia that underscores how Harley became such an American icon. There were even Harley Barbie and Ken dolls!
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| Barbie & Ken Harley dolls! |
The next highlight was Greensboro NC to photograph the Woolworth’s where the lunch counter sit-ins to protest segregation began. February 1, 1960. We planned to stop at this site on our summer 2019 vacation, but we moved the stop to this trip so we could use it as the focal point for our Rock n’ Ride intro photo (Sweet Honey in the Rock’s rendition of "Ballad of the Sit-Ins" is stunning.) We wanted to tour the civil rights museum as part of our visit, but this trip had to be scaled down from a full weekend, so the touring got scrapped. The other high-pointer for the Big Money Rally was a sign for Upshur County West Virginia, over 300 miles away, which also needed to be done on Saturday, so off we went. But Greensboro looked like a historic town that we'd like to come back to for a real visit.
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| It was a glorious day to be out on a motorcycle! |
After we completed Nicholas and several other county word-match bonuses, we headed for Upshur County. The GPS routed us off of Interstate 79 near Flatwoods. It seemed an odd route. While, it did appear to be a shorter way than the interstates to get across the mountains, at least as the crow flies, there were no main roads on the map. But the GPS had a plan. (This might be an appropriate place to note that neither cell phones nor GPS work well in WV. The cell phones don’t get reception and the GPS relies on data that is just poorly coded and mapped. We know that. But sometimes we are forgetful. Or overly optimistic. Or inexplicably gullible.)
We missed the first turn, which looked more like a private access road than a public by-way, but Jeff recognized the error immediately. It took a while to find somewhere safe enough and wide enough to turn around, but he did and we found our road. The new road was a narrow and occasionally gravelly and patched road that took us up the mountain sides, around blind corners, and soaring into deep valleys. We only encountered two or three on-coming vehicles, which was fortunate, since it was a tight squeeze even for one vehicle and a motorcycle. There were pipeline operations with heavy equipment and a number of homes, including mobile homes, on the steep hillsides on either side of the road. Although it seemed difficult to imagine moving anything as large as a mobile home, lumber, or earthmoving equipment along that road, it had apparently been done many times before. But, the quality of the road kept degrading and I think we were both looking forward to the end of it. Jeff mentioned that he had located the sign we were searching for on street view, and the road with the sign was well paved.
Eventually we came to a T-intersection with a little gazebo and a sign touting WV by-ways. The GPS pointed us to the road on the right, but it looked far worse than the road we were on. To our right the road was a rocky, gravely track that had been eroded into a washboard. To the left, the road was narrower than the one we had been on, and more patched and with more loose gravel, but it was more or less paved and had a sign describing it as a “parkway.” Jeff said that either road would work, according to the GPS, and opted for the one to our left. He noted that although that way would be a few miles longer, it seemed like the better of two not-so-great options.
The promise that this would be an OK road deteriorated rapidly. It was a narrow one-lane track, hard-packed dirt and gravel with lots of rocks and ruts. At one spot we got chased by a loose dog while his two companions strained at their chains. Every time we came to what looked like it might be a cross-road or intersecting road, I hoped we had found the spot where the mountain track would reconnect us to civilization. There had to be one. After all, the people who lived back here (and there were quite a few) must have to get to a grocery store once in a while! Plus, it was getting late in the day and this road wouldn’t look better at dusk or at night.
When we came to a steep descent on a curve in the road where the dirt had been fortified with large loose gravel, I thought we were going to lose it. This was really nasty terrain. I held on tight, anticipating a skid at any moment. Even at the snails’ pace we were traveling it would have hurt to lay the bike down in that gravel, and there was a steep drop off the side of the road.
 |
| Part of the road, just above the really nasty part |
Only one of those proved to be correct.
This road was equally as narrow and rough as the last, but flatter and straighter than the other, so the lousy road conditions were not quite as terrifying. We learned we were on Bogg’s Mill Road from a sign posted right across the water from where we had been standing just a short while ago. We emerged somewhere near Cleveland (unincorporated, WV) where we extolled the wonders of pavement and two-lane roads, where an on-coming vehicle can pass without threatening the other with going over the side of a cliff. We also found we had many other things to appreciate: the bike stayed upright; the Enduro mode feature on the GSA really works; we got through the mountains before dark; we didn’t run out of gas; and we really would NOT have to go back that way.
Instead, we had a long, and very cold ride home. Temperatures dipped to about 30, and as we crossed the mountains, the road was covered in hard packed snow. Given where we had been earlier in the afternoon, Jeff took it with ease. The heat in my left glove had stopped working earlier, and I hadn’t worn heated pants, but it was the cold seeping around my helmet and freezing my face that was most uncomfortable. The stars, however, were amazing and the moon was the same huge orb that we had seen the night before.
And so ended another adventure.
