The Start of a Cross Country Motorcycle Adventure!

Dear Family & Friends,
It’s been a while since I have sent out my travel blog… I not sure if you consider that good or bad, but due to Covid I haven’t been motorcycle traveling much.
Well that has changed! My good friend Brian and myself just started a four week ride across the USA by motorcycle..
Our plan is to ride south for a few days exploring the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia, the Wheels Through Time Museum, and the Blue Ridge Parkway. From there we ride to Nashville Tn. to visit my daughter that lives there and then on to Georgia for the three day Barbor Vintage Motorcycle Festival. The equivalent of the Monterey Historics or Goodwood Revival except for vintage motorcycles. It takes place at the Barbor Motorsport Park which features a giant car and motorcycle museum, a terrific race track with vintage motorcycle racing all weekend, a swap meet, and motorcycle show. By the way if I haven’t mentioned it I have one terrific wife! I told her about the swap meet and said I will behave myself because I am on a motorcycle and can’t carry much in the way or parts or motorcycles and her answer was “There is always shipping!” She is always thinking about me. I appreciate her…
After Georgia we will wander our way across the USA all on back roads. We have some ideas where but until we get the current weather reports routes and plans will change..
By the way I am traveling with a good friend, Brian Louw. We have  known each other for about ten years and I really appreciate his friend ship. We have done many big motorcycle trips together and you have to really like each other to get along on a long trip! He is also an excellent rider. In fact I am sure after following him for ten of thousands of miles it has made me a better rider. He also seems to appreciate my slightly demented humor and a good gin & tonic!…. So here we go.
We shipped our motorcycles to Harrisburg, PA. And yesterday we flew to Harrisburg. This morning bright and early we picked up our bikes. In fact due to the time zone difference  getting up at 7:30am felt like 4:30am and I was so groggy I accidentally brushed my teeth with some anti itch cream I brought with me! The down side was it doesn’t taste very good but the up side was my teeth didn’t itch all day!
So our first day out on the bikes we needed to cover about 250 miles. We headed south and in less than three hours we crossed  four states, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, and Virginia.. The states are very small here on the east coast. Since we need to cover some ground today we stayed on the big highways but the countryside was still beautiful. Lush and green and the reason it is so green is it rains a lot here. Most of the afternoon it was a steady light rain. Luckily with modern riding gear and electric jackets I stayed nice and dry and warm.
I haven’t spent much time on the east coast so one thing I noticed was wherever we went the cities and sights were straight out my American History books. This is definitely where it all started.
Our first night on the road we went to a steak house next to our hotel. We were tired and it was raining hard to it was very convenient. The food was good and the prices were unbelievably low. If you retired in Virginia with a California retirement you could live like a king. Everything here is way cheaper than California.
Well that’s it for the first night. Tomorrow we ride the Blue Ridge mountains. Hopefully the rain lets up but either way we will have fun!

Jason

Picking up our motorcycles at the shipping depot in Harrisburg.

There are some fundamental tools you need on a long motorcycle trip, and this a very important one! We definitely plan to explore BBQ!

The shipping company removed our windshields to fit the bikes into the transport. When I went to install mine I found that they had lost the lower mounting bracket. Luckily with my Mechanical Engineering Degree I was able to fabric a new lower mount with no tools and only three Zip Ties! :)

Read it and weep. We are really getting ripped off in my home town who's gas prices are the highest in the state of California let alone the entire USA!

The end of a fun first day of riding.

This the is the city of Roanoke, VA where we are stying tonight at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Tomorrow we ride up into these beautiful rolling hills. A nice twisty back roads.
Unfortunately the weather report for tomorrow is lots of rain so electric riding gear and slow careful riding.

Our first road trip dinner. A decent steak dinner and an incredible price!

WOW!

Not only a reasonably good steak dinner at a terrific price but a great salad bar and a very homy atmosphere.

Can't beat the prices.