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In July of 2003, Marcia and David started the longest motorcycle trip
they ever took. On the morning of July 26 we met our best man,
Jim, and his wife Sherry at a rest area on I-81 just outside of
Watertown. They had come up from their home in Newark, NY, and
left their pets with Sherry's folks.
Marcia and David were riding David's 2001 Harley Davidson Road Glide
and towing the Cycle-Mate trailer. Jim and Sherry were on Jim's
Yamaha Venture, a bike he had recently bought. He had been without
a motorcycle for a number of years but the bug bit again after he rode
our Harleys the summer before.
Our trip took us to Hanover Pennsylvania that night where we stayed
at the home of Lance and Nancy Griffin. The Griffins had lived in
northern New York for several years and were good friends. Lance's
job took them to the southern Pennsylvania area. Early Sunday
morning, we departed for the Skyline
Drive which is the northern section of the Blue Ridge Parkway.
This section is a toll road that takes you 105 miles through the
Shenandoah National Park. We entered the park at Front Royal,
Virginia, which was only an hour or so from the Griffin home.
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The speed limit on this section of highway is only 35 miles per
hour. We traveled this to Rockfish Gap where the highway becomes
the Blue Ridge Parkway. The Blue Ridge, like the Skyline Drive,
follows the crest of the Appalachians from the Shenandoah National Park
in the north to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park of North
Carolina in the
south. This 469 mile stretch of road has speed limits that vary,
but mostly 40 to 45 miles per hour. There is no shortage of
scenery and various overlooks and highlights. We spent four days
riding this 574 miles.
Near the end of the Parkway, we split from Jim and Sherry. They
only had a week to travel and they were going to do some touring at the
southern end before heading back north. We were heading
west. We spent Thursday night in Gatlinburg Tennessee and then
headed out on I-40. We spent Friday and Saturday in Memphis where
we toured Graceland and Beale Street, the home of the blues. On
Sunday we headed out once again and traveled to Branson Missouri where
we had reservations. We had swapped a week at our Myrtle Beach
timeshare and stayed in Branson, seeing shows and enjoying the area.
On Tuesday night, we called Jim. He was supposed to arrive back
home that day so we wanted to find out how their trip was. He
announced to us that they had "totaled' the bike. As it turns
out, on the Friday after we left them, they visited the Biltmore Estate
in Ashville, North Carolina. While they were in a gift shop, a man
driving a 1913 Stevens automobile on an antique car tour, parked his car
in the parking lot, about three spots from Jim's bike. He forgot
to set the e-brake and it rolled in a semi-circle and knocked the bike
over. They were about the only two vehicles in that section of the
parking lot. The bike suffered mostly cosmetic damage, but because
it was somewhat of a vintage model and parts are not available, the
Yamaha dealer in Ashville declared it a total. Jim was able to
roadside engineer some temporary fixes and they rode it home, arriving
the next day.
Meanwhile, we enjoyed six days in Branson and left a day early so
that we could get back to Fulton in time to enjoy the annual family
reunion at Mark and Lisa's. On the way home, we stopped and
visited with cousin Sue who lived in St. Louis at that time.
By the time we returned home, we had been on the bike 16 days and had
logged over 3600 miles. It was a great trip.
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