A day in the rain..

We bid goodbye this morning to the Amish buggies clop-clop-clopping by the hotel, packed up the bikes in a light drizzle and headed west toward Lancaster. Gotta watch those horse droppings after it rains. They can be slick! Time to get the old noggin out of the Amish world and get back to the real world, grudgingly.

It rained pretty much all day but both Dave and I had these great motorcycle suits that makes rain a no-brainer. We both used the heated grips and I diverted the hot air from my oil cooler onto my hands (thank you BMW engineers!!). I do not have waterproof gloves so my hands were a bit damp. Dave, being Dave the son of Ellwyn, suggested stealing plastic bags from a couple newspaper boxes. I maintained my dignity and rode on with wet hands. Dad would have been proud though.

The most exciting thing for me today is that Dave's bike finally looks as dirty as mine!! We rode through Lancaster and crossed the Susquehanna river. The entire ride today was through suburbs built on the edge of farmland, and mid-sized towns with row-houses and some kind of industrial plant presumably feeding the families in those houses. Most of these towns seem to be on the upswing economically with some street and building restorations going on. We rode through the usual strip malls with Lowes, Wendys, KFC and McDonalds, sometimes not exactly in that order, just to make it a little more interesting (a little cynicism here?). It is definitely getting more lush when we do encounter large open lands so we are definitely getting further south. There are far fewer active farms here as there were in PA, more fields grazed by beef cows, horses or Toro lawnmowers.

We crossed the Potomac into Virginia, then a half mile later crossed the Shenandoah river into West Virginia, then shortly after that crossed into Virginia again (I am still confused??).

We found a truck-stop and had breakfast for lunch. I learned the secret of what truckers do after oil changes. They sell the used oil to this place to use for coffee. Hands down one of the worst cups of coffee ever. Good old take the enamel off your teeth coffee.

We had the ever-present chat with one of the drivers in the parking lot, a nice guy with a thick southern accent, and things were as usual very cordial until he asked what we thought of Muslims putting a mosque at Ground Zero and Obama cutting off drugs to old people.

We continued south until we got to Front Royal where the Skyline Drive begins. We found the park entrance, bought the passes (good for 7 days) and rode up onto the drive to the visitor center. It was a bit cool up there (48) and overcast but the rain stopped. We went back down to Front Royal, found a hotel (2 star all the way) and walked next door to a bar posing as a steak house. They did a great job with the burgers and the beer was cold.

So it was sort of a travel day in the rain but tomorrow the weather is supposed to be great to ride the Parkway. Can't wait..