Sept 19, 2016 - Athens, GA to Gainesville home

We had a nice visit with our nephew Connor last night for dinner, picture below.  Nice to see him doing so well.  Today was another 350 mile day to get us home around 4:30pm.  Pretty uneventful until the last 10 miles when we got good and wet.

This was a great trip for Sooz and me.  We rode 2,060 miles in total over 9 days.  Sooz and I both felt this trip was a little different than others.  Part of the difference was that all of our visit in West Virginia was new with great exploring of roads and the local area.  One thing I forgot to mention when we were in Lewisburg I had a pretty long conversation with the greeter in the visitor center about the floods they had there in early summer.  They lost 23 people and are still recovering.  She was glad to have us there representing tourists.  She told stories of local people being very generous to people in need.  It was obvious that the floods had a major impact in the area but she focused on the positive nature of the response.

Sept 18, 2016 - Wytheville, VA to Athens, GA

Pretty long day, around 350 miles from Wytheville to Athens.  Took 21 south out of Wytheville to Twin Oaks, picked up 221 south to 321 south at Blowing Rock and then picked up I-85 south at Gastonia and took that to exit 149/441 south to Athens.  Had a lot of traffic in the North Carolina area.  We went from clouds, 3400 feet elevation and mid 60's in Blowing Rocks to 800 feet elevation, mid 80's about 1/2 hour later as we headed south.

We met and had dinner with our nephew Connor Skehan who will soon be graduating from U of Georgia and then heading either to Montreal, Quebec, Hawaii or stay at UG for a PhD in physics.  He's doing really well and it was great to see him.

Sept 17, 2016 - Lewisburg, WV to Wytheville, VA

I am going to try to capture the route we took today from Lewisburg to Wytheville.  As I'm writing this in our room in the Bolling Wilson Hotel in Wytheville the window is open, the breeze is cool and I can hear a train horn in the distance.  We are on Main St. but there is no noise to speak of; an actual quiet small town.  We had a great dinner at the Log Cabin 1776, which was of course built in the year 1776.  The food was good and the waitress was a hoot; young and when I kidded her about using a slide rule to figure out our bill she said she didn't know what a slide rule was!  So I had to look it up on Google and show her.  We got a kick out of that.  When I asked her about the stew on the menu she said it was "cute", so I ordered it and a picture is below, I think.

The route we took today was something special.  All local roads except for the last 5 miles or so.  Here it is: Left Lewisburg on US 19 south to, US 460 south at Rich Creek and crossed the New River to pick up Main Street/SR 100 at Narrows, took that south past Staffordsville and picked up SR 42 (Walkers Creek Valley Rd.) following Walker Creek, turned south on 670 (Mt. Zion Rd.), turned left (south) on 738 (Robinson Tract Rd.), turned right (south) on 601 (Little Creek Rd.) which followed Little Walker Creek to I-77 South to exit #41 (Pepper Ferry Rd.) to Wytheville.

738 (Robinson Tract Rd.) was beautiful, about 10 feet wide, a series of true 180 degree switchbacks with so little traffic that there were leaves covering the road at spots.  A couple of pictures below.

Sept 16, 2016 - Lewisburg, WV

Susie and I took a beautiful ride from Lewisburg to Tamarack, a local artist facility where we also had lunch.  There was a wide variety of artwork represented from painting, sculpture, wood works and pottery.  Sooz met and had a great conversation with a watercolor painter.  Lunch was rainbow trout, kale and green fried tomatoes.

We took US 60 north to Ravenseye where we picked up SR 41 south to Tamarack.  It was in the 60's and low 70's and very twisty roads.  A beautiful ride.  The GPS didn't pick up our morning route to Tamarack for some reason, maybe clouds and tree cover.  Not sure.

 

Sept 15, 2016 - Lewisburg, WV

Sooz and I had a nice trip to visit the New River Gorge bridge and national park.  The weather was beautiful starting the lower 60's and rising to mid 80's by the time we got home. Only blip today was Susie "losing" one of her gloves.  We walked/rode around looking for it, got divided by a passing train and then found it attached to the velcro on the back of my riding vest.  Lunch was in Fayetteville, WV at the Secret Sandwich Societ which was good; fresh salad and eggplant sandwich.

Sept 14, 2016 - Lewisburg, WV

Susie and I rode from Staunton, VA to Lewisburg, WV taking back roads and it was beautiful.  The weather was great, roads good and we stopped in Hillsboro, WV for lunch at My Daughter's Attic.  Food was adequate and the nic nacs were interesting and old.  The ride through George Washington and Jefferson National Forest on SR 629 and 39 was really impressive.  Canopied roads and close in trees and streams.  Just gorgeous.  Susie's knee is doing better.  We will do some riding tomorrow.  We decided to check out of this hotel (Quality Inn) and move into a Holiday Inn Express and Suites here in Lewisburg.

Introduction

Sooz and I ride pillion (2-up) on a 2008 BMW R1200GS motorcycle.  The picture above is from our trip to the Alps in June/July 2016.  We had a blast.

Tomorrow, September 11, 2016 we leave for a one week trip to West Virginia.  We are going to try blogging to see how we do.

You can follow our trip at:
https://spotwalla.com/tripViewer.php?id=123dc57d46d1eb9ebc