Take Me Home, Country Road

Day 13
States: 33
Miles 7372

What do you think of when someone mentions West Virginia to you?  Grimy coal miners getting extricated from mine disasters?  Hillbillies bootlegging home made moonshine?  West Virginia often gets a bum rap, viewed by many as a backwards population.  Thanks to my day spent traveling through it, when someone mentions West Virginia to me, I will think of beautiful wooded mountain scenery, warm, friendly people, and some of the best motorcycling roads in the nation.  I was not planning on spending a great deal of time in West Virginia when it came time to resume the 48 state chase.  As I prepared to depart Gettysburg, regretful that Shark Week had come to an end, I looked at my maps that had me zipping into Maryland, blasting through West Virginia, and into Kentucky all via interstate highways.  Once again, a friend rescued me from the languor of the interstate.  One of the other Shark Week attendees, WV-Glider, was heading in the same general direction as I.  As a resident of West Virginia, he had an intimate knowledge of where not to go; I-81.  He suggested HIghway 50, an alternative that takes a little longer, but winds through the Appalachian Mountains, offering a much more pleasing riding experience.  I thought for, oh, about a half a second and said I'd love to join him.

Ron and his wife, Marilyn, and friend Grant, presently on a Road King, but sure to be a Road Glide owner in the near future, led me back up Route 30 via the route that we had taken from Pittsburgh as part of Hutmo's Lincoln Highway Tour.  A billboard along the way caught my attention.  I didn't have time to take a picture of it, but as I spotted it in the distance I could see that it said, "Time To Say Goodbye," then noted that it was an add for a Hospice Facility.  "Wow," I thought, "they don't mince words here in Pennsylvania at all!"  I was wondering if caskets doubled as beds and if they served formaldehyde for dessert with that kind of attitude.  It was then that I noticed small letters in parentheses just before those large words stating "We had."  Oh.  Not a whole lot better, really, but the add must have worked - it got my attention.  I wonder how many conversations go something like, "Hey, Grandma.  It's time to say goodbye!"

We soon found ourselves on Route 50, a terrific curvy, twisty, expanse of highway that spreads across the state through mountainous terrain.  It was a beautiful day, and traffic was relatively light, allowing us to cruise through the curves at will. It was the best riding I'd had since New England.  I was beginning to fall in love with West Virginia.  Soon it was time for a little break.  We pulled into a roadside station with a suitable convenience store and the necessary facilities.  It was then that I spotted this:

Future Banjo Player?

OK, I thought.  That was just an isolated event.  West Virginia doesn't really have people like that.  That could have been anywhere.  Like Arkansas.  Back we went onto Highway 50.  More incredible scenery.  We passed through lush, green forests, saw expansive views of the mountains, leaned the bikes into turns seemingly every five seconds.  It was an amazing road.  Soon it was time to stop again, this time to get some gas.  And I saw this:

Who puts them in pellet form?

How can you not trust a place with a cow on the roof?

Hmmm.  OK, maybe I was giving the people of West Virginia a little too much credit.  Every stereotype ever laid on West Virginia and its people is apparently firmly cemented in fact.  I apologize for trying to change your mind.  Doesn't matter.  The road was worth every goofy character present, and I highly suggest that if you are in the area, bypass the interstate and take Highway 50.  You will not be bored!

After HIghway 50, we had no choice but to get back on the interstate.  In this case, though, the interstate was anything but boring and flat.  I-79, running from Clarksburg to Charleston, is the national highway system's 70 mph version of the Tail of the Dragon.  Turn after turn after turn, up and down mountain terrain, it is without doubt one of the most fun interstates in the nation.  Our day was all twisties, all the time! 

Soon it came time for Ron, Marilyn, and Grant to exit the interstate and I continued on my way toward Charleston.  I had been in contact with old friend Terry, who was on his way from Ohio to Kentucky.  He and I had gone to high school together, and we ended up going to the same college, and we even roomed across from and next to each other in successive years.  We hadn't seen each other on many years, but we were both in the same area at the same time and we were trying to arrange a meeting spot somewhere along our concurrent paths.  We had settled on Morehead, Kentucky, but due to my screwing around, I was much too late to enable a compatible meeting.  Our rendezvous preempted, it occurred to me that it might not be necessary, now, to travel all the way to Morehead.  A more direct route through the eastern part of Kentucky towards Tennessee and the Carolinas might enable me to shave some time and distance off of my route.  Out came the Harley Touring Handbook and Beatrice, the moody and misleading GPS.  I spotted Pikeville, Kentucky, in the Handbook map.  It presented a much more direct route and seemed large enough to feature a variety of hotels.  It was getting late and the distance looked like a good one for stopping.  I punched up Pikeville on the GPS.  Hey, only 84 miles away!  I told Beatrice that this was where we were heading.  She thought and calculated and said, "OK, let's go this way!"  But one glance at the distance caught my attention.  Instead of 84 miles, it was now 118 miles.  Hmm, how did 84 miles suddenly become 118?  Then it dawned on me, that the first distance is crow-flying, while the driving distance is the second.  And a difference of 34 miles could only mean one thing - twisties!  Ordinarily I would have been thrilled.  At this point I was getting a title tired. 

I turned toward Pikeville and sure enough, more of the same terrain.  Lean it hard left, hard right, on the throttle to get up the hill, downshift going down the hill and don't overspeed the corner. Fun, but work.  I began to pray for a straight stretch of highway, but went unrewarded.  It was becoming clear to me that there are virtually no such sections of road in Kentucky or West Virginia.  My bike had spent a total of 90 seconds in the upright position for the day - and 60 seconds of that were spent starting up and backing up.  My wrists ached, my thumbs were sore, and my sense of balance was shot.  I had only done 483 miles for the day, but I was exhausted.  Twelve hours of twisties had sucked the life out of me.  Finally, I arrived in Pikeville.  Beatrice told me there was a hotel right around the corner, and when I turned, what did I see?  About 100 Harley's in the parking lot.  Bikers!  Figuring I was among my people I decided to see if I could get a room.  All that was available was smoking, but I didn't care.  As long as I didn't have to lean left and lean right to get into the room, I was happy.  It turns out that the crowd is part of a Harley Dressers organization.  Biker types were sitting everywhere around the hotel, having discussions and drinking beer.  I didn't bother trying mingle with them.  I never did trust those biker types.

Unusual things seen on the road today:

• Aggressive hospice billboard
• Little girl with Billy Bob pacifier
• Pickup truck towing a golf cart.