Road Trips

The older I get it seems the more of a scaredy cat I become in terms of traveling. Where there was once unbridled willingness to go first, ask questions later there is now... Hmm, is that safe? Will I have time? Will I be tired? Will the weather be bad? ...

This weekend, I did not ride my motorcycle at all. But I did run some upcoming trip related errands. Kenny and I made our way over to the AAA office and picked up our International Driving Permits. The IDP doesn't give you a license to drive anywhere. It simply interprets your US license ...

When push comes to shove I can be a fairly light packer when it comes to traveling on the motorcycle. Even so, I *still* take more stuff than I need. By stuff, I usually mean clothes. Invariably I shove a few "I might need an extra..." items in my bag ...

At some point you just come to terms with your shortcomings. I will never be a confident dirt rider. There is something about the looseness of it that I cannot give myself over to. That and the fact that I don't do it nearly enough to become good at it ...

In 2010, Kenny and I flew to Italy to meet up with our friend Pimmie and do some riding in the Alps. Our travels took us through the mountains of Italy, Switzerland and Austria. That trip still looms large in my mind as one of the most personally meaningful adventures ...

"I think we should make a left at Chamoni...zZzz... ZzZzz..." ...

Last week I read a blog post called Wanderlust is More Than Just a Bucket List on The Wanderlusters that really struck a chord with me. It was about how the idea of a bucket list reaches far beyond the "things" on it. How many times have I jotted something ...

A few years ago, before we'd taken our first riding trip to Italy I had a page torn out of an American Express travel pamphlet. It was the town of Corvara, Italy nestled in the bosom of the Dolomites. From the first time that I thumbed through that magazine, that ...

The new year is nearly a month old and I haven't done any riding. There is no clever excuse, just the basic truth that I've been doing other recreational stuff with my free time. However - that doesn't mean that I don't think about motorcycles all the time. In 2013 I ...

Back in February, I posted about some of the roadside treasures that I was hoping to visit this year. Surprisingly enough, I did actually manage to visit some of them. Can you believe it? Me neither. All this time I thought the purpose of To Do Lists was just making ...

For some, writing things down on a travel To Do List is a blow to the spontaneity of what riding a motorcycle should be about. And I get that. Being able to flitter hither and thither to wherever the winds takes you is all a part of the romance of ...

My awesome KTM-loving  friend Chip snapped a pic of me in my Wonder Woman t-shirt this past weekend at the 2-day Berkshire Big Adventure ride. Thanks, Chip! I was tickled pink to find out that it would fit over my pressure suit. Between the already huge, distracting knockers, the plastic ...

With photo bonus rallies being in the forefront of my riding-mind lately, I thought I would offer up some of the resources that I use to find interesting locations to ride to and places to see. Blogs, Websites & Books There are so many corners of the internet that can ...

In the days leading up to my departure to Allentown for the Void Rally 7, I’d managed work myself up into a bit of a lather. One might say the biggest thing that I came away with from this experience was confirmation that I am indeed a neurotic freak. But, ...

At first glance -  you see this picture of my (lovely if I do say so myself) Tiger and think Okay, it another picture of her (lovely if you do say so yourself) Tiger. But look closer, my darling. Closer... Closer... That is the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope at ...

I finally spotted one of the 666 routes. This one was in Virginia: I have this other photo of the route sign that I wasn't originally going to post. I kinda sorta realized that the way I shot the pic makes it look like it's pointing at Kenny like Kenny ...

If you've been playing along at home then you may recall that I've noted that Kenny isn't the most observant guy in the world, what with that whole failure to notice goats on the roof incident and all. As it turns out, he seems to have a teensy weensy problem ...

Aside from the memories and photos that I take home from any trip, along the way I pick up postcards, brochures, stickers and name-specific "junk" and shove it in my bag as I go. My friend Ally recently asked her blog readers if they were sentimental about objects. And I ...

While doing our pre-ride once over, we found that my plugged tire had dropped nearly 10 pounds of pressure overnight. We gave the mushroom plug one last tug to try to pull the seal a little tighter and went about re-filling the tire. Our morning began with a conversation with ...

With only a single bar left on the gas gauges, Kenny and I hopped off of the Blue Ridge Parkway in search of gas. After a few stabs at the screen, we followed the GPS over hill and dale to what seemed like the middle of nowhere. We popped out ...

When Kenny and I rolled away from Backbone Rock, we hooked a right in the town of Damascus, Virginia and followed route 58 into the mountains. There were several times throughout the 9 days we were on the road that I needed to flip on my heated grips as the ...

Though I had jotted Backbone Rock down on my list of things to see when we left home, sometimes the wind takes you elsewhere. In the days and miles that had already passed it had slipped my mind until we were headed west away from Shady Valley. That was when ...

Could there possibly be a better fast food chain facade than the one used by Pal's? Nahhh, I don't think so. Can you even handle the greatness of the big hot dog... the soda...? The FRIES, oh... the fries.  :weeps tears of joy: And to top it all off, one ...

Some great motorcycle roads take on a life of their own in the collective consciousness of the motorcycle world. When you talk about The Dragon, The Crest, or Stelvio, curve lovers nod their head with a sort of reverence. Or maybe something more like, "damn I wish I was there ...

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While we are on the road, my habit of waking up at 0'dark-thirty doesn't take a vacation. Instead it is during those quiet hours when I am the only one who is awake that I spend time figuring out where the heck we'll be going for the day. I think ...

At this point, I think Kenny is just messing with me. When I followed the GPS and turned on Ridge Rd to head into the town of Helen, right there on the corner in front of us was... "Goats on the Roof." When we pulled into a gas station, I ...

North Carolina 209 has been dubbed "The Rattler" by locals. Now, if the image of a wiggly snake doesn't get your motorcycle heart pumpin' well, I just don't know what would. I'd first read about NC 209 on Wayne's websites- Smoky Mountain Rider and America Rides Maps. Before we left home ...

On Monday night, after we'd rolled into a hotel in Franklin, North Carolina not an hour passed before the skies went dark and we watched the rain pelt our motorcycles parked outside of our window. It was another tick in the "lucky" column for us. A girl could really get ...

Okay, I know. I know, I know, I know. Every time that I see an amazing art car I go bananas and get all, "this is the greatest car in the universe!" But,... Muffler... CAR!  ::faints:: We actually saw the muffler car when we pulled into the town of Franklin, ...

Kenny and I made a quick stop in Cherokee, NC to snap a photo of a gent we'd passed many moons ago but never stopped for. The Cherokee Muffler Man: Handsome, right? And look - he has nipples! This was the first time I was ever consciously aware of an ...

Wheels Through Time The Museum that Runs Just a hop, skip and a jump off of the Blue Ridge Parkway in Maggie Valley, NC is an American treasure - the Wheels Through Time museum. It is home to hundreds of American-made motorcycles, tons of ephemera and historical photographs. Built by ...

The Blue Ridge Parkway's highest elevation sign is found at the Richard Balsam Overlook, Milepost 431. When we stopped to snap a quick photo, it occurred to me that we didn't have many miles left before our trip down the BRP would be complete. We were just a short hop ...

When I approached the Mount Mitchell State Park sign, it was like the wheels of my bike turned in to the entrance on their own. The past few times we've been on the southern end of the Blue Ridge Parkway, Mount Mitchell had been closed or it was too foggy ...

The Blue Ridge Parkway from around Little Switzerland to about Asheville is one of my favorite sections of the whole stretch. Aside from being a great ride, it offers some really beautiful views of the valleys below. The 50 or so miles seemed to go by in a blink as ...

Some would say that putting the words "grandfather" and "mile high club" in the same sentence is the stuff that nightmares are made of. Normally, I would agree. But, not this time, Johnny! After hopping off of the Blue Ridge Parkway for the day, Kenny and I headed to Grandfather ...

Some time around midday I pulled us off of the BRP around Roanoke, Virginia. When we finally stopped at the first traffic light we'd seen all day, Kenny looked at me quizzically and slowly said, "um,... wherrrrre are we going?" Foolish boy. After all this time, he still has to ...

Don't you love that feeling of waking up in a place where you don't live? That feeling of freedom, of being loose, of being able to wander? When I got up and looked out the window at our bikes in the hotel parking lot, I got a tickley feeling in ...

During the night I’d been awakened by rain pouring down the gutter drainpipe outside. It sounded like a steam train was chugging by our bedroom window with big whooshes of wind tearing through the trees. Of COURSE there was a monsoon in the wee hours of the morning we were ...

Last Saturday, Kenny and I rolled our Tigers out of the driveway and headed below the Mason-Dixon line without much of a plan. We had 2 definite items on the plate: I wanted to visit Helen, Georgia to see what that was about and we had to be in West ...

On Friday, we packed up the Ridgeline with our bikes, the kid and the dog and headed north to Massachusetts for a weekend of friends, food and riding. Our home away from home was a cute little cabin in the woods. As soon as the captain turned on the weekend sign, we settled ...

While sorting through GoPro pictures that were snapped during the 2012 Berkshire Big Adventure over the weekend I found another "Is This Thing On" self-portrait: I have mastered the ability to not know whether my camera is running. It is always a bummer to find out that I missed capturing ...

I feel like Kenny and I haven't gone anywhere or done any riding in the longest time. Of course, it was winter. Sort of. But, it's time; time for us to think about hitting the road. The next few weeks are set to be busy ones with things like getting ...

When we got up from our cozy slumber in Lake Tahoe it felt so good to look out the sliding door to find that the storm that had dogged us the day before had moved on. Kenny, Ed and I had breakfast and took a walk around back of our hotel ...

If at any point we thought the rain we'd run into on the Sonora Pass was going to be the toughest part of our day, we had another thing coming. We watched the lightning striking and listened to the rumble of thunder echo between the peaks of the hills towards ...

I think this may be the smallest post office I have seen yet. I guess there isn't much of a building needed to support the 50 resident town of Topaz, California. Isn't it sweet? ...

Hot, cold, hot, cold... that summed up the weather on our trip up to this point. As we rode higher up into the mountains on CA 108, heading towards the beautiful Sonora Pass we would finally press our luck with the rain. View Larger Map I pulled over on a ...

Okay, I'm just going to apologize up front. You're probably going to get a teensy-weensy bit of drool on your keyboard. A quick dab with a napkin oughta do it. It'll be our little secret. Sometimes what you don't see on a road can set your imagination on fire. Two ...

As we climbed up into the mountains of Sequoia National Park, the temperature dropped sharply. We rode from Porterville and it's scorched earth up into the park where the roads were wet and the air was cool. It seemed that we'd once again skirted what must have been a soaking ...

The weather in California proved to be unpredictable. We went through cycles of sweating bullets to freezing cold over and over again. The hottest weather we experienced was along the aptly named Hot Springs Drive around Porterville. The grassy hills were fried to a golden crisp with a garnish of ...