Head West, Young Man

May 26, 2016

We are sitting in London, Kentucky and planning our route West. We've had an awesome month.  We rode to the Outer Banks and made our way back to Tennessee via the Blue Ridge Parkway - kind of. We had to bounce off and on the parkway due to fog and rain, but we still had a great time.

We've put 6,500 miles on the pickup since leaving Washington, and just over 5,000 on the bikes. Two oil changes in the pickup, tires and oil change on Jim's bike, and a rear tire and oil change on my bike.  We'll change my front tire when we get back to Oregon. 

MAY

On May 11 we left Tellico Plains on the bikes for a ride to the Outer Banks.

http://www.outerbanks.org/

We stayed one night (May 12) with friends from the SabMag list - Tony and Georgette. They fed us awesome food, had a few drinks, and lots of great conversation. From there we made our way to the Swan Quarter, NC ferry.

http://www.outerbanks.com/ferry-system.html

We rode across Ocracoke Island, rode another ferry to Hatteras Island, and stayed in Buxton for three nights (May 13 - 15).

While in Buxton we visited a couple of light houses and played in the Atlantic - which is considerably warmer than the Pacific.

http://www.outerbanks.com/lighthouses.html

After leaving Buxton, we stayed a couple of nights in Kill Devil Hills (May 16-17) and visited the Wright Brothers Memorial

https://www.nps.gov/wrbr/index.htm

and took a tour to Corolla to see the wild horses.

http://corollawildhorsetours.com/

From there we rode to Floyd, VA to hit the Blue Ridge Parkway (May 18).

http://www.woodberryinn.com/

The plan was to ride the BRP back to Hunts Lodge.  Another friend from the SabMag list, Phil Ross, rode down to have breakfast with us and show us around the area. We rode at a lower elevation because every time we climbed up toward the BRP we hit fog and rain.  Phil showed us a few local roads, took us to a DELICIOUS BBQ place, and gave us some pointers on which way to go next. We would not have ridden some of the awesome roads we were on had it not been for Phil. That night we stayed in Blowing Rock, NC (May 19) where we went to another BBQ place and stumbled on some local bluegrass players.

http://www.woodlandsbbq.com/

The next day we made it to Asheville, NC where Jim surprised me with new gear for my birthday. Yeah Jim!! (May 20)

The following day we hit a break in the weather and were finally able to ride the Blue Ridge Parkway.

We ended the day back at Hunt's Lodge. (May 21 - 26)

http://www.huntslodge.com/

Hunt's Lodge is owned by some more friends we met due to the SabMag list. Of all the campgrounds and RV parks we've stayed at along the way, Hunt's Lodge has been the nicest.  They cater to motorcyclists and have taken care of all the small details that mean a lot to riders. The whole place is clean and the showers are huge. They supply ice chests and ice, lots of hooks everywhere for hanging gear, free laundry, boot dryers, showers......you ask for it, they have it.

During our stay there we met several other riders. Great stories were told, lots of laughs were had, and friendships were made.