Day 2: Smooth Sailing on the Blue Ridge Parkway
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 my stomach. It was exciting to think that we’d soon be heading down the Blue Ridge Parkway. The sun was shining and the cool morning road was calling. With the mastery of a traveling circus, we packed our bags in jig-time and hit the road.
There were several times during the trip I found myself amazed when looking around our hotel room. It often seemed like a motorcycle gear and clothing bomb had gone off. And yet, every morning the ritual of putting everything back into a single bag took place – making everything once again as neat as a pin.
We entered the BRP at Milepost 0 – Waynesboro, Virginia.
The Blue Ridge Parkway rambles along through the mountains, is a generally smooth road surface and with few intersecting roads – it’s just the most relaxing cruise. I find it to be a great ‘thinking’ road. As a matter of fact, I thought/wrote the most amazing blog posts while riding that morning. Tales of excitement, intrigue… adventure. Unfortunately as soon as I turned the key off on my bike, they evaporated into the ether.
Different sections of the Parkway seem to have different personalities. The upper-most portion of the road is pretty laid back and easy going with gentle turns, valleys and long stretches through deep green trees.
We were blessed with almost no other traffic on the road all day long. Considering it was Sunday, I thought for sure we’d run into a lot of other drivers and riders. While we did see a handful of other motorcycles, if we saw 30 cars all day, I would say that would be a lot. Not too shabby for 300 miles of traveling.
The skies were beautiful and the weather was quite cool at elevation. I actually had to use my heated grips for a little while as the wind whistled through the perforations of my summer gloves.
Between Mileposts 36 and 37 is one of my favorite road signs – Sudden Curve Ahead with a motorcycle rider flying off the bike.
While at a stop at one of the roadside exhibit buildings, we found stickers that had the “aaahhhhhhh!” motorcycle man. It was too good to resist. I promptly stuck one on my Givi box. Yay!
We rode the BRP into the late afternoon. Our final stop on the parkway itself was at Milepost 304, the Linn Cove Viaduct. It is probably one of the most photographed stretches of the entire roadway.
I finally made a note to stop before the viaduct so that we could take a picture. I usually end up riding right over it and kicking myself because I missed it again. This time I set a point on my GPS to remind me.
I suppose that devil machine is good for something afterall 🙂
While we walked along a path towards the bridge, Kenny bent down and picked up a small piece of black rubber, a piece of a shoe sole and handed it to me. You just can’t make this stuff up…
Our time on the parkway for the day ended at Milepost 305, where we exited and headed for Grandfather Mountain and on to the next adventure.
nice this is the kind of america we never see… beautiful. And scarry worm brought back all sorts of childhood memories 🙂
I like that phrase “with the mastery of a traveling circus” well said.
Great pictures. It sounds like you lucked out with little traffic.
I saw a heart out in nature the other day and thought of you. Now i am kicking myself for not taking a picture.
“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?”
This rings so so true for us and though we don’t HAVE to be Moto mounted it is a personal preference. Returned from a BRP Adventure a couple of weeks ago so refreshed.