It’s our end-of-the-2010-riding-season road trip to…
– cue drum roll, please –
Kentucky.
Motorcycle traveling is unlike regular travel. With regular travel, be it by car, bus, train, plane or camel, one typically identifies some cool places to visit and then finds the fastest, most-convenient way to get there. Two-wheeled travel is often more about the ride than the destination. We hardly ever take the most-direct route. We pretty much always prefer rural routes over interstate highways. Especially if said rural routes wind through the mountains.
Why Kentucky?
Well, Hell. Why not? According to Wikipedia, Kentucky is “home to the highest per capita number of deer and turkey in the United States, the largest free-ranging elk herd east of Montana, AND the nation’s most productive coalfield.” Plus, it’s known for thoroughbred horses, horse racing, bourbon distilleries, bluegrass music, automobile manufacturing, tobacco and college basketball.
Need I say more?
Okay, how about this for a really compelling reason.
I chose Kentucky because it’s a state I haven’t been to. Plus, it’s the heart of Appalachia. And we’ll get to see the real Cumberland Gap. Real as opposed to Cumberland, Maryland, which I used to think of as the Cumberland Gap, but which is really the Cumberland Narrows.
As if those aren’t enough reasons, there’s also this… I’ve been wanting to explore southern West Virginia a bit more. We’ve ridden through before. But this time we’ll be spending a little more time poking around.
I’ve spent quite a bit of time plotting a route that should have us traversing a lot of roads that look like this…
Roads like that are what make this so much fun.
We’ll get to add another national park to our list of places visited. AND a cool Kentucky state park. We’ll be doing some other fun stuff, too. But I can’t give it all away here.
There’s one place I’m hoping will really tickle Hubby. I’m the trip planner, remember? I don’t always share the details in advance. Usually because he doesn’t really want to know.
I’ll be sure to take lots of pictures to share here, okay? I may even be able to do some posts from the road.
For now, though, I have a ton of WORK to get done. So, TTFN!