The Bleu Ridge Parkway

The sky was clear and at 20-21 celsius along the Parkwaay the temperature was much more comfortable than in the valleys.


Wow!! The views are incredible. The Parkway runs on the crest of a range of mountains so that at different times the overlooks provide a view to the west, like the one on tthe left, and to the east.

This is a small stretch of reconstructed narrow gauge railway such as was built by lumber companies in the early 20th century to transport the lumber that was being harvested in the Blue Ridge mountains. This small section that crosses a beautiful small stream of what was a 50 mile railway is at a stop along the Parkway.

An interessting formation of rocks at one of the numerous outlooks.

Wahoo! who'd had thunk that a staple of Bonairian cuisine could be featured at a restaurant in Lynchburg VA.

I had a fantastic hamburger made from locally raised beef served on a fresh bun with grainy Dijon mustard, with fries and ice tea for lunch at Mangia. A delicious slice of home made tiramisu was included in the $8.99 lunch special.





Riding on the Parkway is a lot of fun; the pace is slow, the traffic is light and the views are ever-changing and one more breathtaking than the other.

Tonight I'm in Ronoake; tomorrow I will continue riding south on the Parkway.

Shanandoah National Park's Skyline Drive

One of the magnificent views along both sides of the 105 mile scenic roadway that follows the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains from the north entrance just outside of Front Royal to the southern gate just outside of Waynesboro where it connects to the Blue Ridge Mountain Parkway that stretches for 469 miles to Great Smokey Mountains National Park. The plan is to do some of the Parkway tomorrow.







This is another of the many viws where I stopped to admire the scenery. There are probably 150 or so Overlooks along Skyline Drive with lots of paved surface to park one's vehicle. The traffic was light along the whole Drive. At 2,000+ feet of elevation the temperature was some 10 degrees cooler, at around 27 celsius, than its been for the last few days. There are numerous places to stop for water and even a few places where a meal in a dining room can be had. I had a nice Virginia ham on a bun sandwich for lunch while listening to a park employee give a lecture on bears to a group of young children.




As the sign says, this is the entrance to the national park.

I have a room at the Waynesboro Quality Inn.

The bike is performing very well and so tomorrow it's on to the Blue Ridge Parkway.

I hope you are all enjoying the heat.

From Harrisburg PA to Winchester VA

This is the view from the terrasse at the National Cicil War Museum in Harrisburg. The Museum is extremely well done and is a great place to get an overall impression of the 1861 to 1865 Civil War. They have found way to explain the sequence of battles in each of the years and to effectively convey the different and often conflicting points of view and emotions of the time by having actors portray a number of people, including both union and confederate sympathizers and a slave and his wife. You are introduced to these characters throough a series of short clips at the beginning of the display and then you find them all again at various points during the visit which follows the chronology of the five year period. I feel that I learned a lot about the war, the main players, and the issues which dominated the battlefields and the political arena during that time.

This is a picture of the National Museum.

After a two and a half hour visit to the museum I left Harrisburg and headed south along Route 11. The sun was blazzing and the temperature reached a high of 39 degrees. I stopped for lunch at the North Hanover Grille in Carlisle just south of Harrisburg. The ice tea was good, the Philly steak sandwich not so much.

I guess because I'm riding on secondary highways, which means that I go through a number of small cities and towns with traffic lights and reduced speed limits, it feels like this trip so far is much hotter than others. I have to remind myself to stop occasionally to drink some liquids. I'm becoming addicted to the 32 ounce bottle of Gatorade (I don't care what Mayor Bloomberg says).

These are more of the day lillies that in some areas line the highway for long stretches.

I arrived at The Washington Hotel in Winchester Virginia under cloudy skies at around 6 pm and, after a shower to cool down I went out in the old part of the city for dinner.

Tomorrow I continue south towards Waynesboro and Buena Vista.

From Cortland NY to Harrissburg PA

Picking day lillies for Jane along the road!

Let me tell you now about last night's dinner in Cortland. First of all one should never ever ever eat in a restaurant called the Community Restaurant ( it's in front of the car in the picture on the left) if one doesn't know what the communities tastes are. My meal was a white on white on white affair. The special was chicken and biscuit, which I mistakingly thought would be a lighter than lite deep fried chicken dish. I was wrong. It was a white biscuit of some kind covered by a half bucket or so of bits of chicken in a white tasteless starchy gravy, served on a, yes you guessed it, a simple white plate. I thought I was back in the dining hall at Collège du Sacré Coeur in 1964. I passed on the vanilla ice cream dessert; but I did have a Saranac beer, which went well with the tomato juice I had also ordered.

At around 9:00 this morning when I was leaving the Day's Inn the sky was clear and the temperature was already 25 celsius. I figured I was in for a hot day and it turned out that I was right. As the day wore on the heat kept rising. By lunchtime it was 27 and by the time I pulled into the Howard Johnson in Harrisburg the temperature was over 29 degrees and the humidity was off the scale.

The ride south on route 13 from Cortland to Ithica was nice but not as nice as the stretch along route 14 in Pennsylvania to Williamsport. This road winds its way through a valley between lushly forested mountains and along small rivers and brooks, and the sides of the road are marked with large clumps of wild flowers and patches of beautiful orange day lillies.

Lunch at a tavern in the town of Lewisburg was a surprise. The special (I must learn to mistrust that appelation) was a chicken bruschetta. OK I thought, that should be nice; ome bits of grilled chicken on a toasted piece of bread of some kind with chunks of ripe tomatoes, onions, fresh parsley, lemon juice, olive oil, freshly ground pepper and salt; along with a small greek salad, and a glass of nice cold unsweetened ice tea. Sounds delicious I hear you say.

Well, not so much, the aforementionned chicken bruschetta was a hot pita wrap of grilled chicken and melted cheese with pieces of tomato soaked in cheap balsamic vinegar. The same tomatoes were also on the greek salad, along with finely sliced canned black olives and crumbled pasty feta cheese. And so I would not run out there were two small plastic containers of greek salad dressing.

But the ice tea was perfect! So, like a good Canadian, I left a nice tip and was on my way. After all, siiting in an air conditionned room has got to be worth something. Right?

The remainder of the drive to Harrisburg along route 147 which follows the Susquehanna River, and even the 20 mile or so detour on even smaller back roads, was very enjoyable.

After dinner at the Lancaster Brewing Company establishment next to the HoJo in Harrisburg, I'm still searching for a first really good meal. As luck has it there are still many miles to cover, so I'm confident that my patience will be rewarded.

Tomorrow I plan to visit the National Civil War Museum here in Harrisburg before heading south to Winchester Virginia. A room awaits at the George Washington Hotel.

Retirement Rides - Season 3

Hello all friends and any other curious folks out there in cyberspace.

Well, the planning, to the extent that I do any serious planning, is over; and so is the wait. Some will recall that two summers ago I went west, all the way to Victoria, then from there south to San Fransisco. Jane was with me from Calgary to Vancouver; and though she nearly froze on the stretch from Canmore to Kalowna, she didn't complain and I think actually enjoyed (note the lower case) herself. The return portion was through such places as Yosemite, Death Valley, Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, through Colorado and a bunch of mid-west states to Chicago. I raced home via Kalamazoo, the Blue Water Bridge and the 401. O K, there were a lot of other interesting bits and they are listed in earlier posts.

In Season 2, the sequel so to speak, I rode to the eastern seaboard of the USA, through the northern parts of New Hampshire and Maine and up to New Brunswick. I rode around most of Nova Scotia, including the Cabot Rail, and then went from St Johns to the western end, and up to L'Anse aux Meadows, the northwesternmost tip of Newfoundland. I returned via PEI where I picked up my favourite passenger and together we rode around the Gaspé Peninsula. We stopped in Québec City to visit Michèle's parents and came home via the 138 along the north shore of le fleuve St Laurent and the 148 to Lachute.

So, having gone west, and east, it seemed to make sense that this year I would point the windscreen of the beemer south. I left home under cloudy skies at 9:00 this morning waved off by a tearful but brave-faced Jane and I think a happy phill. I hate to think what he gets into when I'm not around. The cats for their part were both nonchalant about the whole thing; we'll see what their tune is when they realize that the double-treats guy (Guy) isn't there for a while.

I crossed the border at Prescott after a quick snack on the Canadian side and rode to the Cortland Day's Inn via a number of beautiful secondary highways. The skies cleared and the temperature steadily rose throughout the day to reach 34 C by the time I pulled into the hotel parking lot. The roads are in really good shape, I suspect as a result of the billions which the federal government has poured into infrastructure projects since 2008, and the traffic is very light. is this a consequence of the state of the US economy and relatively high price of gas?

Dinner tonight is somewhere here in Cortland; details in the next post. Tomorrow I plan to cross into Pennsylvania south of Elmira N.Y. and make my way via routes 14 and 15 to somewhere around Harrisburg; but, that could change.

I'll try to add pictures to the next blog posts.

A mari usque ad mare

One of the highlights of the trip: les fous de basan on isle Bonaventure

Jane at the Gaspé site where Jacques Cartier planted a wooden cross in 1534

Riding off the ferry at Forestville after crossing from Rimouski.

Last Thursady, August 4th at around 2:50 in the afternoon, I rode my motorcycle into my garage at home; and with that the Summer 2011 Eastern Tour was finally over. But most importantly I had achieved my goal of riding from coast to coast accross Canada. I have now had the opportunity to ride through all ten provinces and to experience the beauty, diversity and magnificence of this amazing country Canada, which I'm so proud to call my home and native land.

Jane and I had a wonderful time with Jean and Jacques in Québec City. The weather was lovely as we walked around the Citadelle, the river and the old city which was full of tourists. Our last day riding took us along route 138, le chemin du Roy, through many small picturesrique towns and villages between Québec and Trois Rivières. It was really nice having Jane with me from Charlottetown to home. While I know she was not always comfotable behind me, she was always positive and her chatter through the headset, often about the flowers she was admiring, was very nice to hear. While she couldn't see it, it made me smile.

Here are some statistics from this year's ride:

9,356 kilometres

414.1 litres of gas

1 litre of motor oil

31 days

4 States

6 Provinces

3 time zones

21 different lodgings (plus 1 room on a ship)

7 ferries

hundreds of pictures

And along the way many meetings with some interesting characters with whom I sometimes shared meals and stories and who are now part of my thousands of memories of this trip.

It was a remarkable experience. I hope you enjoyed the ride.

Percé - Gaspé - Rimouski

Well we made it to Percé mostly through the rain. Jane actually said she liked riding in the rain beacause she could hear the rain pelting on her helmet. The truth is that it's not that bedm, except fro the feet, when you're well covered in rain gear, and the smells of the ocen and the shoreside fields seem to be accentuate by the humidity in the air. We arrived in Percé around six and went to our room at the Les trois soeurs motel which had a great view of the Rocher through the early evening fog. We had a great dinner at Chez Matilde, a fine dining establishment next door to, and associated with the motel. I had the fisherman's platter, and no simple platter it was consisting of delicious cod, cod cheeks, salmon, sole, trout, scallops, big and small shrimp, crab, a half lobster, rice, vegetables, roasted tomato, tartar sauce, and drawn butter. Jane had a bouillabaisse that was topped with a fist-sized lobster law.

When we awoke Sunday the weather looked more promising. Indeed one of the charming chambermaids said she had done a sun dance that morning and she promised that the sun would come out in 15 minutes. While she missed the timing somewhat, she was right about the woutcome. The sun did come out and we had a great visit to Rocher percé and l'Ile Bonaventure where we followed the 45 minute walking trail accross the island from the where the boats land on the island to the colony of gannets, or their much more interesting french name: Fous de Bassan. The trail is amazing, and wait awaits at the end is nothing short of spectacular. On approaching the site where thousands of birds guard the 5-foot diameter space around their individual nests, which consist of a few twigs and some other small scaps of vegetation and feathers, you begin to hear their squawking. The sound rises to the point that it's hard to have a conversation with anyone when you're right next to the colony in the roofed (you can imagine why) specially-constructed viewing galleries. The site which is a world-recognozed landmark is well maintained by Parks Canada that provides guides on the boats and on site to explain the history of the island and details on the flora and fauna found there. The visit to the colony is the highlight of the whole trip.

We walked around Percé, had a nice pasta dinner Chez Real, and retired early - after all these are retirement rides.

Yesterday we rode the xxxk from Percé to Rimouski, passing through Gaspé where we had a small breakfast and the greatest cup of coffee on the trip, and visisted the site where Jacques Cartier planted a cross in 1534. While the forecast was for rain, we only experienced one brief shower before lunch which we stopped for at the same restaurant in Ste-Anne-des-Monts I had been to on my last motorcycle trip to the Gaspé. The ride along the Gaspé peninsula is really magnificent. The vistas are amazing and the ditches and fields are full of blooms including the fireweed which Jane through her running commentary, interupted by her OHs! WOWs! and OH WOWs! informs me are bigger than she's seen anywhere. As I said at lunch, you ain't lived until you've driven around the Gaspé, all 800k-plus of it.

Today we taake the ferry accross the St-lawrence to Forestville and go down the north shore to Québec City, our last stop before the ride home.