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Why We Are Here

Inevitably when we tell people we built a house in West Virginia, they ask, “Why?”

Our response? Because West Virginia has a LOT of great motorcycle roads.

We usually leave it at that because, unless we’re talking to motorcyclists, folks just don’t get it. Most people think a road is a road. They understand how we might like to get away from traffic and congestion, but they don’t really appreciate the difference between a road through the suburbs and country roads. Mountainous country roads at that.

I’ve shared some pictures here and there, but today I decided to do something different. I’m going to share a bunch of pictures, many of which I took with my little point and shoot camera while we were riding.

First, a map of the route.

The route was something like 190 miles.

Hubby planned this ride. He and I take turns. We both try not to do too many repeat roads. It’s amazing how, after FIVE years here we are still discovering new roads.

Remember, to get a larger view, click on any of the images on the page.

Hubby gassing up the bikes at the 7-Eleven in Romney.
This was the first really clear day we've had in a long time. And temps were in the low 70s.
Intersection in Petersburg, West Virginia.
Pendleton County Courthouse in Franklin, WV.
Hubby found us a nice little picnic table on the courthouse lawn for our snack break.
Since I was busy documenting the trip, he got our snack set up.
Gas station in Franklin, WV that advertised 52-inch pizzas.
Heading back north (roughly) toward Romney.
The road alternates between running alongside pastures and through woods.
It also alternates between straight and curvy.
Sometimes the roads are flat, but more often they are quite hilly.
I like the colors in this image. We were probably traveling at least 45 mph when this was taken.
The views are almost always pretty.
When the roads are hilly AND curvy is when they're the most fun.
Dodging vultures.

If you click on the image above, you’ll see that Hubby has veered into the wrong lane to avoid a flock of vultures that was busily munching on a deer carcass. Even though he was in the opposite lane, he still spooked them. Vultures are big and slow. I think about three took off as he approached. Had he not ducked AND veered slightly more to the left, his head would’ve hit one. There was one left on the shoulder of the road as I passed. Wouldn’t you know the stupid thing would take off right as I passed and almost hit me in the side of the head!

Not only are the roads amazing, there was hardly any traffic.
Notice the rocks looming above the road?
Skirting around a rock outcropping.

So now when Hubby and/or I start droning on about how fabulous the motorcycle roads are here in West Virginia, you’ll have a better idea as to what exactly we mean.

I hope you enjoyed your virtual journey.

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Milestone

There are a couple of things I really enjoying doing in my spare time. Ok, maybe a few things.

Exploring in nature, riding my motorcycle and taking pictures. So it was really quite odd where a certain milestone occurred last weekend.

Before setting out from the WV place, I notice the odometer on my bike read 9,900. That meant I’d hit 10,000 miles somewhere during the ride home. As I rode, watching the miles roll by, I thought how cool it would be if that 10,000 occurred at some place worth photographing. I doubted that it would, but it was fun to consider.

Imagine my surprise when it did actually happen at an oddly coincidental spot.

One of the things I fantasize about is hiking on the Appalachian Trail (AT). Not the whole 2,000+ miles. That would be crazy. But at least pieces of it.

So how weird is it that my bike hit 10,000 at the exact spot on South Mountain outside of Boonsboro, Maryland where Alt-40 crosses the AT?

South Mountain AT Crossing

Here’s my bike by the AT sign.

My bike hit 10,000 miles on the Appalachian Trail.

Not super-exciting, I admit. But interesting.

Here are two more interesting shots to finish out this post…

Another happy coincidence.
Our own personal pot of gold.
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We Reached a High Point

Yesterday was a picture-perfect day for motorcycling. And we were thrilled to be able to take advantage of it.

We left the house around 11:00 and rode just over 190 miles from our WV place north through Maryland and into Pennsylvania. Then we headed west into West Virginia and south, skirting the far western edge of Maryland. We stopped briefly in Rowlesburg, West Virginia before heading east again into Maryland and then back into West Virginia.

Confused? This map should make it easier, depending who you are. Map-reading is one of those skills technology (GPS) seems to be making obsolete.

Today's ride map.

I love maps. Planning our rides is fun for me. Once I have the ride all mapped out, I write the route on a piece of paper and stick it in my tank bag, which has a special, see-through spot for that exact purpose.

It really was a great ride. Temperatures in the mountains were near-perfect. There were some repeat roads, but there were a few new ones, too. Some of the roads were a bit rough, but the scenery was so pretty, it was worth it. At one point, I was 95% sure I’d turned onto the wrong road and gotten us lost. But the road we were on was so pretty, I just didn’t care. One is never REALLY lost as long as one has a map.

I’ll show you a few pics from the ride shortly. But first, look what I saw in our backyard right before we left.

Mama and her baby just a few feet from the back patio.

Yes, I’ve seen plenty of deer before. But I have never, since January 2005, seen them this close to our house. It was cool seeing them that close, but it wasn’t the high point this post’s title refers to.

In Rowlesburg, West Virginia.

We got to Rowlesburg via CR-51 Salt Lick Road from Terra Alta. We’d been to Rowlesburg before, but had never arrived by this route. CR-51 is a pretty narrow, winding road. It may not be the quickest or most picturesque way to get from point A to point B, but it’s fun putting along roads like this seeing how folks live. The picturesque route would have been to take SR-7 west from Terra Alta then SR-72 south at Kingwood. This route, which we’ve ridden a couple of times previously, parallels the Cheat River.

Small park in Rowlesburg, which was perfect for a drink break.

Rowlesburg is a cute little town in a very pretty location, but it has seen better days. It’s one of those railroad towns of which there are plenty in the Appalachian Mountains that thrived in a different era, but struggles to hang on today. It’s doing better than most, however, so if you are in the area, be sure to stop by for a visit.

Hubby waiting for me to finish documenting the trip. He's a great sport.

Here’s a bit of Rowlesburg’s history if you are interested. Nice place, but still not aforementioned the high point.

After that, we continued to US-50 and headed east. I’d always wanted to visit Cathedral State Park, which is where we stopped for lunch.

Hubby posed with our little picnic spread of bread, cheeses, pepperoni and olives. YUM.

We found a nice little shady spot to eat our lunch, which we’d picked up much earlier in the day at the huge Martin’s grocery store in Lavale, MD.

The trail through the hemlock forest.

I want to go back to Cathedral State Park one day for a hike. Doesn’t it look like a nice place for a stroll?

Hubby waiting patiently. Again.

The picnic was awesome. But it’s still not the high point. Want to know what the high point was?

At 3,213 feet, Mt. Davis is the highest point of elevation in Pennsylvania.

It was a literal high point. If you’d like, you can check out this map of state high points.

Altogether, we were gone for about 6 hours. The girls were happy to have us back.

Meg and K smiling at Mama.

Do you think I could get all three of them to sit still for one photo? Of course not. So here’s a sort of good one of Belle.

K and Belle.

That was our day.

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Back to Civilization

I knew yesterday’s trip back to Maryland would be a hot one, so I set out early. Not super early, but early enough that I didn’t eat breakfast.

The Bon Matin Bakery in Berryville, Virginia

Driving the same old routes all of the time gets boring. So I decided to detour through Berryville, Virginia. We often drive past Berryville on our way to or from the WV place, but we never drive through the downtown business district. I knew we’d been there at least once during a day trip, but I couldn’t remember what it was like.

I was hoping to find a little cafe or bakery where I could get breakfast. But imagine my delight when I discovered not just any bakery, but a FRENCH bakery. Woo hoo! I was thrilled. I parked immediately and practically ran inside.

First, I ordered a blueberry and cream cheese-filled croissant. I also got a plain croissant to eat later. And then I saw these unlabeled mystery pastries.

Hmmm... what the heck are those?

“Um, what are those things?” I asked the guy behind the counter.

“They’re pretzels,” he replied. Seeing the look of confusion on my face, he said, “They’re not in the traditional pretzel shape because we use them to make sandwiches.”

When we were in Europe recently, one of the things we ate a lot (as often as possible) were pretzels. Soft pretzels made in bakeries are sort of similar to those you can get here in the US, but way better. Anyway, I had to have a couple of pretzels, too.

Here are a few shots of the cute little downtown area in Berryville…

Downtown Berryville looking west, showing the bench where I'd perched to eat my breakfast.
Looking east from the bench.
The Berryville Gallery, a couple blocks east of the bakery.

My croissant was quite tasty. I’ll definitely have to go back to that place. They offered a nice variety of sandwiches, too.

I didn’t dally too long. Remember, I was trying to beat the heat. (It didn’t work, by the way.)

During the rest of trip, with those fresh-baked pretzels snug in my saddlebag, I pondered what delectable sandwich I could make. AND what I could make to go with them.

The myriad produce stands I passed along the way inspired me.

Here’s what we had for dinner…

Caprese Salad

Shannon introduced me to this tasty treat over a year ago. It’s simply sliced fresh tomatoes, topped with fresh, soft mozzarella cheese, drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar then topped with salt, pepper and basil. YUM.

Corn on the Cob

What summer meal is complete without fresh corn on the cob?

And for the entree, I decided on Crab Melts.

Crab Melts

Essentially, this is the same stuff they use to make the traditional pretzel-shaped crab pretzels. Since these don’t LOOK like pretzels, I’m calling them Crab Melts. It’s just a mix of cream cheese, mayo, Old Bay seasoning and crab meat, all mixed together and spread on a pretzel, bread or, in this case, a roll-shaped pretzel. It’s all topped with shredded cheese. You bake it until the cheese melts and, voila… Crab Melts. (These are also good on English Muffins.)

Double YUM.

Dinner was definitely a success.

Now, if only this darn heat wave would break…

Oh yeah, I should also report how BORED the girls were without me. Don’t they look sad?

K, Belle and Meg dreaming of Mama's return.

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The Cushwa Basin

Saturday, I rode my motorcycle home from West Virginia. I had sort of high hopes of getting some riding time in this week. That has yet to happen. The weather hasn’t been cooperating. Sunday afternoon was nice, but I had to stay home for the World Cup final. Monday and Tuesday afternoons were either wet or rainy. It’s looking like Wednesday is going to be rainy, too.

So, I’ll just tell you a bit more about my ride home on Saturday. Hubby told me about this cool route he’d ridden recently that took him through Shanghai, West Virginia and across the mountains into Martinsburg. The road across the mountain is Boyd’s Gap Road and he said there’d be a nice place to stop for pictures. I’m all about pictures and nice roads, so off I went. Unfortunately, I missed the Boyd’s Gap Road turn-off.

I couldn’t figure out how I did it until I came home and saw the Google map, where that road has FOUR different names… Hampshire Grade / Boyd’s Gap / CR-18 / Tub Run Hollow Road. No telling what the sign actually said, but I’m thinking it wasn’t Boyd’s Gap.

Once I hit WV-9, I knew I’d missed the turn. So I just headed east on WV-9. There’s was an accident on WV-9 just past I-81, so I detoured up I-81 north to the next exit, which took me to US-11. I then headed north once again.

By then I’d been riding for awhile, and it was kind of hot. My head was hot and itchy, so after crossing the Potomac River into Williamsport, Maryland, I turned into the C & O Canal visitor center parking lot for a break. I’m glad I did, too, because I finally got to see the C & O Canal’s Cushwa Basin. I’d probably seen it as a kid, but don’t remember.

It was actually a picturesque but crowded spot. I managed to rest a bit AND get a few cool pictures.

C & O Canal Visitor Center at the Cushwa Basin

The Cushwa Basin is one of the few places on the canal wide enough for the 90-foot canal boats to turn around. That was important as not all cargo was meant to travel the entire length of the canal.

C & O Canal Visitor Center at the Cushwa Basin

These images were all captured with my little Nikon point-and-shoot camera.

An old railroad lift near the C & O Canal's Cushwa Basin

As I said before, it was a nice place to stop, but there were people everywhere. And it was still hot. But once my head cooled off a bit, I hopped back on the bike and headed home. I already told you about my “excitement” during the last leg of my journey.

I am still kind of hopeful that Friday will be a good riding day. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

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On Beeing Weird

After two weeks, I decided I’d had enough of the West Virginia place.

Um, maybe that’s not entirely true. I love life in the country. I’m just trying to convince myself that I’d had enough, hoping it would make being back in this crazy, crowded, metropolitan Hell more tolerable. Really I had to come home to do chores and stuff.

Anyway, why I came home isn’t important. The ride home is what I’m talking about here. We hadn’t, as we’d hoped, had many opportunities to ride our motorcycles in West Virginia. Not only was it horribly hot, I was way too busy with work stuff to get away. So I decided I’d ride my bike home. If I can’t do any riding in Maryland during the week, at least I’ll have the rides to and from under my belt.

Although cloudy and rainy most of the morning here in Maryland, sunny, blue skies were supposed to prevail by afternoon. All was pretty much fine weather-wise. I did get rained on a little bit. But what was not fine was this weird thing that happened while I was on I-70.  Before I describe said weird thing, you need to look at a picture of my helmet.

Red arrow = air intake; blue arrow = air vent.

I wear a full-face helmet. With the visor/face-shield down, there’s not a lot of circulation and sometimes, just like a car window, the visor can fog up. That’s why many helmets are designed with some sort of ventilation. The red arrow shows the vent on my helmet. That air is directed upward so that it blows out of those holes indicated by the blue arrow onto the inside of the face-shield, reducing the chances of fogging. My face-shield is up in this picture. When it’s down, those vents are on the inside with my head, about three inches from my nose.

While cruising along on I-70, to my complete surprise, a large bumblebee hit my leg and then flew up and hit my helmet. It was stuck right in front of my face. From what I could see, it was stuck, holding on for dear life right near that vent. I couldn’t look too closely because I had to watch the road. I turned my head to the left and to the right several times thinking the bee would just blow away.

It didn’t.

Even though the bee was only three inches from my nose, it didn’t seem to be moving, so I wasn’t too freaked out. Yes, I was a little weirded out. But not enough to risk my life stopping on the shoulder of an interstate highway. Besides, I knew I was almost at my destination. And how much harm could a bee do while clinging to the outside of my helmet?

Once I did stop, I was quite surprised to realize the bee was on the inside. It had ridden there, mere inches from my nose for about fifteen minutes!

The Bee

What are the chances of a bee hitting my leg, bouncing off and getting sucked into that tiny little air vent? Fortunately for me, either the collision, being sucked into the vent, or a grisly combination of both killed the bee. Can you imagine having a bee fly into and around inside your helmet? There’s not that much extra space in there, trust me. (In case you are wondering about the big, black thing inside my helmet, that’s my backrest. I usually stick my helmet there when I get off of the bike.)

Other than that, the ride was pretty much uneventful. And you know what? It’s actually kind of nice to be home.