Awesome history, wonderful descriptions, and beautiful photos, OsteKuste! And I love China, the Dino. I may steal that idea and start bringing a little friend/mascot on our trips in the future. Looking forward to more photos and commentary from your Plan B trip. And thanks for your positive comments about my Sturgis trip write up...I appreciate it!
The mascot idea is fun. Taking pictures and posting from their point of view is silly but life is short, you need some silly sometimes. I can’t claim the idea as original, Ive seen everything from a traveling Barbie and Ken doll in the Carribean to a Lego Batman vacationing on a cruise
Peeps I do send my heartfelt thoughts to all our brothers and sisters affected by this stupid hurricane. It must be soul destroying. I just thank God we don't have such weather. Beats me the money they can spend on wars or going into space. And they can't even protect their own people yet. Sorry I'm just ranting. Looks a fantastic trip by the way. Ride Safe & Enjoy Joe.
As much fun as I am having, I am constantly checking on this monster storms progress. The news out of the Bahamas is horrible.
Day two, or three. Not sure at this moment since I’ve had a few gin and tonics. We left our last camp and headed north to Waynsboro, Virginia. This is where the northern beginning of the Blue Ridge Parkway is located. Very soon after climbing the mountain we were greeted with this view. This is Afton Overlook. The valley is at 800ft above sea level, we are at 1895ft above at this point.
I don’t have much signal at all, so I will try to update more tomorrow as I have some really good pics to share so far. Thanks for following along so far. It’s fun to share a trip like this and hopefully inspire others to do the same.
I'm definitely going to figure out a good moto-trip mascot, OsteKuste. I'll try to have one lined up before we head to Las Vegas in about a month. Who knows where he / she / it will turn up?! It is Vegas, after all!
Wednesday and Thursday have been really good days. I have such good pictures to share, but I barely have signal to post at all. I think I will just wait and finish when I get home Tuesday. I will post a couple days at a time so I don’t overload anyone. Please check in then and you won’t be disappointed!
So now that I am somewhere I can get on the interwebz, I’ll try to start catching up. Once we got onto the Blue Ridge Parkway we were in the northern section known as the Ridgeline. It followed a very narrow section with spectacular views to either side.
We came off the ridgeline onto the lowest elevation on the Parkway, the James River Valley. It is just over 600ft above sea level. The James river was an important transportation corridor between Richmond and Lynchburg. Before the Civil War, investors built a 20 mile canal with locks to bypass some of the rougher parts of the river. You can still see one of the original locks. Those stone walls are about 4ft thick, to give you some scale. This is a footbridge you cross to see the canal and lock. It suspends from the main bridge. The James River More to come tomorrow, which will show where we stopped at the end of this evening.
By the end of the evening we landed at a place called Peaks of Otter Lodge, named after the thee surrounding mountains. It has a man made lake right out from:the buildings. It has welcomed guests since 1964, and is wonderfully maintained. The restaurant is excellent! This is a view of the lodge from across the lake. We met a couple who had ridden from Canada, and were on their way to Louisiana from here. They were riding a BMW Gs, and a 1200 Scrambler. They estimated aboot 5k so far. The next day will see us crossing into North Carolina and arriving in the town of Boone, where we will take an extra day to rest.
Great photos and write up, OsteKuste! The photo of the footbridge and the view from across the lake are especially cool. Looking forward to more of your pics and report! Looks like you are having a grand time and that the weather is excellent.
Our next leg of the trip had us leaving the Virginia highlands and going down onto the plateau region. The plateau region took us into more rolling farmland and forest, and we could see smaller communities from the road. This was a nice easy drive for most of the day.
The next highlight of the day was the Mabry Mill area accessed right off the Parkway. The mill is water powered, and supplied power to a sawmill, wheelwright, and blacksmith, as well as the local gristmill. It was built by Ed and Lizzy Mabry over a century ago and is still in working order. It is one of the most photographed scenes on the Parkway and yes, I did take these pictures. For you foodies the mill area also has the Mabry Mill Restaurant and gift shop. We had some amazing bbq there!
Our stop for the evening was Boone, North Carolina. They were working on the road surface for a 45 mile stretch going into NC which included some unfinished miles which were only crush and tar surface. Would not have been much fun except on an ADV bike!
