May 23-Ashland KY to Elkins WV

Not many folks in the motel last night, I am guessing because of the train noise but we both slept great. Our farm growing up had a train track nearby and it actually brought some nice memories back. Plus my hearing is not so great, so all in all a good nights sleep, and the price was right. The continental breakfast was more a territorial breakfast and Dave noticed one of the egg omelet things had a bite out of it, so it was a pretty light breakfast. We decided to cross the river into West Virginia and follow Rt 2 up, but somehow we ended up and hour later in Ohio. So GPS to the rescue and it took us cross-lots across West Virginia. We pretty much followed Rt 33 all the way, which makes it real easy. The roads were in good shape but I bet my tires are triangle shaped tonight from all the turning. You have to be on your toes, or rather brakes, because some of the turns are not labelled and quite honestly, there were so many, you stop looking at the turn signs which tell you the turn is a 25, 35, 45 MPH turn. But beautiful sunny cooler day, perfect for doing this. We had lunch at a real local place and then more twisting and turning all afternoon. We called ahead to Elkin WV for a motel and the first 2 were full. We realized that it is Memorial Day weekend so we tried another that suspiciously had plenty of rooms. It turns out, this place is a pretty nice motel but some shady dealings got into the local papers so they are not too popular. We will report back in the morning (we hope). Pretty tired tonight from turn, turn, turning all day. Good stuff!!

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!!

May 21 - Lancaster OH to Lexington Ky

We grudgingly left our luxury accommodations in Lancaster after the continental breakfast thing, loaded the bikes and headed toward Georgetown KY where Toyota has a plant that makes Camry cars. They have a tour which I am very interested in and so that was the goal. As it turns out, they we were too late to get the tour today, and we may or may not get to go tomorrow, depending on how many other people sign up. But goals are good, so we told Daves GPS we wanted Georgetown, and it obediently got us here. Because the GPS is set for shortest distance, it finds some of the most interesting back roads and side streets, and today it treated us with some really really out of the way, back roads, all of them at least 70% paved. This corner of Ohio gets more rolling as you go east or south since we are heading back toward the Appalachian Mts. Everything is green, the corn is planted (they do no-till planting, which means no plowing, but seeding right over last years corn stubble. Took us a day or two to figure that out but we saw the tiny new corn sprouting between last years rows. There were some roads that you could swear were in Vermont. I have to say, I enjoy the flatter, slightly rolling country we are leaving. The towns are small and self contained and seem healthy and happy. The other thing that became obvious is that over a period of just a few hours, the accents went from good old northern Yankee / Ohio to down south thick y-all accents. Amazing. By the time we crossed into Kentucky, the accents were thick. The other thing we picked up today were horses. This part of Kentucky is rife with big old horse farms with beautiful big estates and fences everywhere.We are just down the road from where the Kentucky Derby is held in Louisville and you can tell that this is big business here. 

We called ahead for a room and the buzz is the big hail storm they had last Wednesday and the one that is just hitting tonight, like right now!!. Should be a stormy night. Tomorrow we have to call to see if we can get a spot at the Toyota plant for the tour.
We are not sure where to go from here on out. I need to be back by next Weds so maybe we will start swinging back northeast. Maybe West Virginia, maybe north back to Ohio. Right now, we are going to watch this storm come in. Big excitement in Ky.

May 20 - Canton OH to Lancaster OH

Actually got a good nights sleep. My head is swollen from out-moteling the master. I promised that tonight we stay in a real chain type hotel. I think we saved enough to stay in the Ritz. So we worked on a "when to not stay somewhere" clue list. Chevy on blocks in the motel parking lot is a bad sign. "No refunds after 5 minutes"is a bad sign. Grey towels is a bad sign. Full sized refrigerator in the room is a bad sign. RotoRooter magnets on above refrigerator is a bad sign. Cars with no plates in the parking lot is a bad sign. Vans with "GO AHEAD AND HIT MY TRUCK SO I CAN TRY OUT MY NEW GUN" stickers is a bad sign. Broken concrete flower pots in front of the lobby is a clue.
Today we asked and found the place where locals get breakfast. Pete's was great. The goal was to find out long lost ancestor who moved from Dummerston in 1814 to Ohio. We started in Millersburg OH and checked the town offices. They very nicely pointed us to the genealogy canter at the Millersburg library. The lovely women there helped us find some basic stuff, but something was not adding up. It turns out there is a "Miller Township" in the next county (Knox) just south of Mt Vernon. They gave us the address of the library over there, which we found, and after an hour of pouring over the obituaries, town history and census books, we hit paydirt with an Ohio Cemetery book. We found a small cemetery listed with James Miller, his wife Sarah and a Henry Miller who was born in "Dunerstin VT" We got the address, punched it into Dave's GPS and half an hour later found a tiny old cemetery in the middle of a field on Miller Road.

The stones were old and hard to read but we found James (the flat one falling over), his wife and one of his children (Dana Miller). But no other Millers. The library had an excerpt saying that the Millers disappeared after 2 generations. So maybe they kept going west, or gold rush, or?? Anyway, we can understand why they moved here. Not a rock anywhere and lots of open farmland. I bet the letters home to Vermont were rubbing in how long the season was and how easy it was to farm.
So we did maybe 150 miles with all the library hopping but it was a neat day. Beautiful weather and bright green rolling farmlands on lost 2 lane paved roads. Stopped early in Lancaster for a "real" hotel. We agreed we could do this for a long long time.

May 19 Towanda PA to Canton OH (365 miles)

Slept late and had coffee and light continental at the motel. A lot of places around here have pickups and there is so much gas drilling (fracking) going on that we assume field guys are staying at these small (cheap) motels. This place was actually pretty nice.
We had perfect weather today, cool enough to warrant a couple layers but never too cold. We found and followed Rt 6 across Pennsylvania, a really wide state and although the official map said it was "scenic", we saw a lot more scenic stuff getting lost on small side roads. Dave put "closest distance" into his GPS and that sucker shoved us down every goat path it could find. Today's goat paths were nicely paved with no traffic. Where is really wigs out is when you go through a medium sized town and it takes you down side alleys and through backyards if it thinks it is 50 feet shorter. Yesterdays goat paths were closer to real goat paths with rough and dirt roads. Our goal was Millersburg OH where some of our ancestors moved back in the early 1800's but we only got to Canton, a half hour short. Found what even Dave thought were the worst motels we had seen and picked the one that did not have the room door stoved in. Only catch is there is no refund after 5 minutes so you have to check the room out quick! No roaches so we found a salad/bbq place and ate something green for a change. Insanely bad wifi so this may or may not post.

May 18 - Vernon VT to Towanda PA

We left Rene's B&B complete with steak dinner, cold beer and breakfast thrown in. Nice chance to catch up and hear about how great retirement is. I am the last brother to yet retire and these guys are making my life miserable. We  went west and south down into western Mass, into New York and crossed the Hudson  in Catskill. Route 23 goes just over the Catskill Park and then caught 30 down through the rolling hills and valleys. The north east part of Pennsylvania is, I hate to say it, almost, but not quite, as pretty as Vermont. They have Maples so we saw a lot of sap lines and old milk bulk tanks in the woods and beside the road. Dave pointed out the local Penndot Indian tribe that instead of operating casinos, does all the road maintenance. He is always quick with this kind of info. Hmmm.
We ended up in Towanda PA at a local motel with a Mexican restaurant attached. So good first day and west to Ohio tomorrow.

I Need a Little Vacation

I need some vacation!!

So my poor brother has had me calling him over and over and hearing, "I can't go next week, how about June", then "Nope good for next week", then, "Nope, not next week". So  things settled in and here I am at my brother Dave's, picking the strawberry seeds from my teeth from Irene's awesome strawberry rhubarb crisp after a couple cold ones on the sunny deck. It is time for some vacation.
My boy came home from New Mexico and we had a chance to catch up before headed south on the beemer and he headed to Maine to see friends in Portland and also visit his sister (and probably return home with a dump truck load worth of her stuff from college). The original plan was to go down last night (Friday) but it poured so we pushed it back a day. I loaded my little bad with a couple days worth of spare clothes, electronical stuff, and the usual rains gear and warm gear. This is so easy now having done this a few times, and as my brother says, "you can buy anything you forget".
Over the mountain to Jonesville, down Rt 2 (potholes with short interruptions of stone (BMW RT's do not like stone), and the interstate to Putney. I stopped at the cemetery Dummerston where we buried my sister Martha a few weeks ago to see if all was well. The grass is coming in and the stone looks good. I'll miss your stories Sis..
The to Vernon on a lovely sunny warm afternoon (VERMONT IS BEAUTIFUL!!). Dave was getting the intercom technology working and after pushing every combination of buttons we could come up with, we got the Bluetooth working so we can chat. "Chicken and Biscuit place at 2 o'clock".
Rough plan is to head to PA and then to Ohio. Off to bed and start the trip in the morning.