May 22 - Toyota Tour - Georgetown KY to Ashland KY (Stone Throw from WV)

The hotel last night was sooo nice, they throw a guest party on Weds night with free beer and nibbly things and trivia. The woman running it was of course over the top getting perfect strangers to participate, but, like all those talented folks who do that stuff, she had us all wracking our brains to remember who the kid in Lost In Space was and who played the part (my brother knew, smarty pants). It was touch and go with the plant tour. We did so much bobbing and weaving yesterday that we got into town too late for the tour, and then found out you need reservations. (Can anyone say poor planning). But we just rode up there anyway and another barrier appeared as we hit the parking. The dreaded tour bus full of blue hairs just unloading and pouring into the tour center like rats into Columbus' ship. So we pretended to be on the tour and shuffled in with the poly clad masses. Being Ellwyn's boys we of course couldn't lie so told the nice lady we were just smelly motorcyclists from Vermont hoping to get a tour. We were wait listed, behind the geezers, but lo and behold a gregarious guy with Toyota attire got us on the last shuttle, and he was great.
Toyota does what is called Lean Manufacturing and they are the kings. And this plant has been doing it since 1988. Bottom line is they make a car in 54 seconds. If any tiny thing is wrong with materials or workmanship, any employee can stop the line so they can determine what caused the problem. This makes problems, even little ones, get fixed really early and quickly.
Today they were making 484 cars on one line per shift (2 shifts per day) and about that many on the other line. So 2000+ cars per day. There is never more than 4 hours worth of materials in the building, which means 700-1000 trucks per day show up and deliver stuff. They start from rolls of steel and truckloads of raw plastic, and end up with cars at the other end. They stamp weld and paint everything and mold almost all the plastic parts right there. Teams of 4 employees and a team leader work at any given station for 2 hours, then switch to another task for 2 hours, then lunch then 2 more 2 hour stints at other tasks. So they do not get bored and the are cross trained on multiple jobs. They play basketball, pool, foozball, etc during breaks to keep them selves moving. Amazing!! And they treat visitors like gold. Everyone waves to the visitors and the culture there is positive and excited. The employees can submit suggestions for improving things and they get payed if the idea gets used. From $20 to $25,000! We asked what idea got the $25K and were told that one guy went home, got a seat out of his boat, welded up a gantry thing so he could rotate in and out of the cars to install the console the whole time sitting down. He got $25K and we saw those seat thingies all over the plant. One employee told us his wife got $10K the first year she worked there for a number of good ideas she had. Awesome culture and great people, all on the same team. Go Toyota.
  So after that we rode back roads through horse country. This area has huge horse farms with giant fenced in estates. These people are also genetically bred to mow their lawns. The whole state loves mowing, Yards, roadsides, whole fields, herringbone patterns, the works. Dave set his GPS to "anything goes, shortest distance" and it got ugly fast. I have not seen darker hollers' or tougher neighborhoods. Single lane paved roads looked like interstates compared to some of the gravel jobs it tried to send us down. The locals in their old  trucks stared at us as they passed us on the way to their Dentu Cream auditions. We finally had to just ignore most of the suggestions and made it to West Virginia at 5:30 or so.

We rode up the east side of the river past the Ashland refinery (the size of a city!), now run by Marathon, past coal stocks being dropped of and shipped to who knows where by endless trains and river barges. Decided to call it a day in Ashland at a motel near the train tracks (had to sign a disclosure saying we knew the trains would make noise all night), got some mexican salads in town, showers and bed.
Great day!!