trip counter: 993
todays mileage: 341 miles

Woke up in Boone. Grabbed breakfast at the hotel. Packed
up. Had to throw out the bag I bought at walmart with the
intent of keeping stuff dry, since it was just too bulky.

Loaded up the bike for the ride and checked out. Last
night I had decided that since I was only 10 miles or
so from the TN border, I would run down 321 across the
border and back to Boone. Which I did.

About the time I got stopped at a gas station in TN,
it looked like it was about to rain again. Since I’ve
had my fair share of rain, I stopped and put on the
new walmart rain suit. Going on the theory that if
I’m actually prepared, I will not hit any rain.

At this point, I was riding without any gloves. Since
my gloves were soaked the previous night, and didn’t
seem to be drying out, I had a brilliant idea. I’ll
try putting one in the microwave. Needless to say,
this was a bad idea, and the glove kind of shrank
up and deformed before I realized it, rendering it
pretty much useless. So I just tossed them.

Since riding in the inevitable rain without any
gloves seemed a little pointless, I stopped at the
Super K-Mart in Boone and bought some rawhide work
gloves and some duct tape. Just in case.

Decided to head towards the Blue Ridge Parkway
towards Virginia. I ended up getting on the
parkway at Blowing Rock, and heading north.

It was very foggy for a while, but so far
no rain. I didn’t make many stops, aside from
one or two overlooks. Rode pretty leisurely.

After one of the stops, a Park Service truck
pulled out behind me and stay about 6 feet behind
me for about 25 miles, where I finally pulled over
at The Bluffs? to get some water.

The person driving the truck got out and warned me
that they could of called the ranger on me for speeding.
I’m pretty sure I never got over about 48 tops, and if
so, only briefly. But I supposed if I was speeding, they
would know since they were about to run over me for half
an hour.

Talked with another guy on a motorcycle. By the way, if it
wasn’t obvious, the mountains/parkway is absolutely covered
in motorcycles. The little “hey look, it’s someone else
on a motorcycle” wave gets a little tedious after passing
a few hundred bikes.

This guy was on some mid 80’s Yamaha touring bike. Aside from
the usual touring features, he had also fitted a full size cooler
hanging off the rear fender. Apparently, they were riding up
from Huntsville, Al and were heading to Maine.

There were a ton of big BMW’s at this stop as well. I’m not
exactly sure how they do it, but those bikes were absolutely
spotless. At this point, my bike is a mess, with water spots,
mud, bugs, and other mess.

Got back on the parkway heading north to Virginia. The parkway
at this point starts to get a little boring, as you are coming
out of the mountains. It also starts to look a lot more
like a normal road, as there are a lot more intersections with
normal roads, and you can see houses and businesses from the
parkway.

Once i-77 crosses the parkway, I decided to get off and get
some gas. After filling up, I took a look at the map and
decided that West Virginia wasn’t that far away. So I took
off up I-77.

Pretty uneventful ride up I-77. It gets a bit windy coming
out of some of those tunnels. It’s also very quiet riding
though the tunnels and it can be a bit disorienting. Kind of
like riding 55mph indoors.

Made it to WV, and started looking for an exit to
turn around. Oddly, the first exit is about 10
miles inside of WV. So stopped there, topped off gas
and headed back south. Figured I’d just come down
I-77 to Statesville and stop at my parents.

At this point, it still hasn’t rained any. It wasn’t
until about a mile from my parents house that I ran into
any way. Figures.