The Road Home

I managed to hit the road at about 6:30 Thursday morning. The first order of business was to wipe the bike down to keep from getting soaked just from the dew on it. I made my way toward Florida using those good ol' north/south, east/west Baldwin County roads. My goal was to make it to Anderson, South Carolina by dark. The early start was a plus and other than a couple of spots with some early morning fog, it was a good start to a day of riding where I planned to avoid the interstates as much as possible.

I ultimately had to hit I-10 for part of my ride. This included crossing Escambia Bay on the I-10 bridge. It brought back memories of the time Jerry and I crossed this stretch of road shortly after Hurricane Ivan had battered the area in 2004. The I-10 bridge collapsed in a few places and was replaced with temporary steel-panel spans that made the bikes really squirrely. They shifted and slid from side-to-side. The speed limit was set at 25 mph, so you rode along at a slow speed with the bike bobbing and weaving underneath you and, of course, at least one or two cars in a hurry who basically just wanted to run your ass over. But, we made it across. Ah, good times!

I rode along on I-10 for about 65 miles to my exit for some back roads across the Florida panhandle and into southeast Alabama. My plan was to stop for some breakfast at a greasy spoon in some small town, but I soon discovered that my route really didn't include passing through any actual towns. I made my way to CR-2 and used it and CR-2A to move across Florida. This route got me to AL-27 and led me into the town of Geneva. By this point it was late in the morning and I was going to lose an hour when I crossed into Georgia, so I decided to skip breakfast and stop for lunch in Blakely, Georgia.

I passed through Dothan, Alabama and over the Chattahoochee River and into Georgia. In a split second it was an hour later as I passed from the Central Time Zone into the Eastern Time Zone. I spent my middle school years in Blakely, Georgia, so that was my target for lunch. Unfortunately, Blakely made the news recently as the home to the Peanut Corporation of America peanut processing plant where salmonella was discovered. Blakely is the county seat for Early County.

Early County Courthouse and Square in Blakely

Just around the corner from the courthouse on Main Street is Smitty's Grill. Smitty's Grill has been in this location for more than 60 years. It was 11:30 and I had been on the road for 4 hours (remember I lost an hour when I crossed into Georgia), so lunch seemed like the best idea of the day. I got lucky with a empty parking spot right in front of Smitty's and had a great country meal consisting of a grilled pork chop, butter beans, black-eyed peas, corn nuggets and jalapeno corn bread. Oh man was that a good meal! If you ever find yourself in Blakely, I highly recommend a meal at Smitty's. The staff was friendly and worked hard to make sure I felt right at home even though I was a stranger passing through.

Smitty's Grill on Main Street in Blakely

After my terrific lunch, I hopped back on the bike and headed for my next destination. I have always wanted to visit Andersonville, Georgia. Andersonville was home to a prisoner of war stockade during the Civil War. Union POWs were held in some pretty severe conditions at Andersonville. The prison was in existence for 14 months and more than 45,000 Union soldiers were confined at the prison. Of these, almost 13,000 died from disease, poor sanitation, malnutrition, overcrowding, and exposure to the elements. After being tried by a U.S. military court and convicted of war crimes, the prison's commander, Captain Henry Wirz, was hanged in November 1865 for "impairing the health and destroying the lives of prisoners."

The South Gate of the Andersonville Stockade

The remainder of the day was spent trying to outrun the sun and get to Anderson, South Carolina before nightfall. I had to take a short ride on I-75 for about 35 miles to Forsyth, Georgia where I turned onto GA-83 and took it into Madison where I picked up US-129. For most of the ride along US-129 I kept getting hit by pieces of something being kicked up by the cars around me. It was smacking me in the face on a regular basis and beginning to piss me off. I couldn't figure out exactly what it was because it wasn't the usual road grime or dust that can come up from time to time. This was constant and making the trip more uncomfortable than it should have been. This continued on US-129 all the way to Athens (home of the Georgia Bulldogs); about 30 miles.

It wasn't until I moved onto US-29 north that I figured out what was going on. A few miles outside of Athens traffic backed up behind a hay spraying truck. For those of you that don't know, a hay spraying truck is this large, 10-wheel, flat-bed truck stacked with 75 pound hay bales. The hay bales are fed into this large cutter that shreds the hay into tiny pieces and then sprays these pieces out of a nozzle under high pressure.

As best I can tell this serves two purposes, 1) to blow shit all over unsuspecting motorcyclists and 2) to control/prevent erosion on the side of the road. I don't know how well it accomplishes number 2, but it does one damn magnificent job at number 1. At one point, I swear the guy manning the nozzle was spraying it directly at me for the fun of it. Once I got past this asshole, things smoothed out to be a much more pleasant ride.

The remaining run to I-85 took me through a little town called Shady Dale. A few miles north of Shady Dale I passed some acreage that was for sale that would make a great site for a spring or fall motorcycle rally (too damn hot in summer and nobody wants to ride in the winter. Oops, wait a minute. Didn't I just do a cross country ride in the winter?). The roads in the area meandered through the Georgia hills and the site had large open spaces for tents and RVs. I'll have to keep this in mind when I win the lottery. I might just have to have the Saddle Tramp Ball here one day and invite all my biker friends to a party.

I rolled into Anderson about 7PM. It was already dark, but the last 25 miles was on I-85, so I watched the sun set in my rear view mirrors. That left me with an 11.5 hour day in the saddle and 535 miles under my belt and only about 125 miles on the interstates. Ah, a much better ride than a 700 mile day via the interstate. The only problem was the promise of rain the following day. Oh well, dinner at Hooters and a good night's sleep was all I could do.

I woke up early on Friday with the intent of getting on the road and trying my best to outrun the rain. Based on what I was seeing on The Weather Channel, it was best to move east as much as possible and wait to turn north as long as I could. I jumped back on I-85 and headed northeast toward Charlotte, North Carolina. I didn't want to turn north and I needed to make time, so interstates it was. This sucks already and it wasn't even raining yet.

This meant 125 miles on I-85 before turning north on US-321. US-321 is basically an interstate although it hasn't been formally tagged as one. It's a multi-lane, limited access highway that runs from Gastonia, North Carolina to Hickory. I stopped for breakfast at the Coffee House in Hickory. By the time I hit the road again, I was getting my first sprinkles of rain. That's my own fault for turning north. I probably should have stayed with I-85 longer, but too late now.

So, I headed east on I-40 to see if I could avoid the rain a little longer. It worked. I passed out of Hickory and left the sprinkles behind too. As I neared Statesville, I noticed a sign for a historic Fort Dobbs. I had no idea what Fort Dobbs was, but I needed gas and figured, "What the hell." I filled up the bike and followed the signs to Fort Dobbs.

Turns out Fort Dobbs was an outpost fort during the French and Indian War (1754-1763) or the Seven Years War. Of course the old fort had long ago rotted and fallen apart, but the site is a North Carolina Historic Site and the only one dedicated to this time period. A reenactor is onsite to provide a interpretive tour of the grounds and provide you with a sense of what the fort looked like and how life might have been back then. I made a quick stop and eavesdropped on the spiel the interpretive guide was giving an couple of other visitors.

The grounds at Fort Dobbs

From Fort Dobbs, I worked my way east and north and picked up I-77 and headed due north. I ultimately had to go north and cross the Blue Ridge Mountains to get to Harrisonburg, Virginia where I was meeting Renee and Jake. It was either cross the mountains on I-77 or pass over on a lesser road. Given the odds were good that I would be crossing in the rain, I decided to use I-77 as the route.

I hit the rain just west of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where I-77 passed over US-421. It rained heavily for the next 68 miles. I was pretty dry with the exception of where my chaps didn't cover me. In other words, I basically looked like I had wet my pants and sat in it for a while. Oh well, that's part of the game when it comes to riding cross country. When it rains, you typically get wet.

The worst part of the ride was crossing over the mountains on I-77. I assume this is normally a scenic and beautiful ride, but in the rain, it was a real pain in the ass. This seems to be a favorite route for truckers and between the rain and the spray from the trucks, visibility was very poor. To make matters worse, the clouds had descending on the mountain and I couldn't see shit. I wasn't sure whether I was going to ride over the side of the mountain or get run over by a FedEx truck. Either way, it was about 10 miles of really tense riding that seems to just wear you out. I made the decision to get the hell off that road first chance I got once I got through the pass.

My first opportunity was at US-221 where I exited and drove through Hillsville, Virginia. US-221 ran along the west side of the Blue Ridge Mountains and was a great road, even though it was still raining. The ride took on a much more relaxed pace on US-221. Or at least it seemed that way.

I entered a little crossroads called Dugspur. As I backed off the throttle the bike began to spit and sputter and lurch and buck. Shit, what is this all about!? I pulled off at the little grocery store on the corner (the only place in Dugspur) and took a look at the bike. The plug wires seemed to be ok and everything looked in order. I assumed something must have gotten wet and maybe I had an electronic issue. I decided to let the bike sit for a while and see if it would dry out.

After about 30 minutes, the bike fired back up without a problem and I decided to move on down the road. Less than a mile later the bike was running like shit again. I limped it down the road to a little town called Willis. About a mile out of Willis the bike was running even worse and I decided going any further could do more damage. I was 50 miles south of Roanoke and no where near a Harley dealer, so it was time to try out my Harley Owners Group (HOG) membership and see how the roadside service works.

I called HOG and they arranged a tow truck to meet me in Willis. It took the tow truck about 30 minutes to get to me, but get this. About 10 minutes after I confirmed the pickup with HOG, it stopped raining. Shit, shit, shit. It would have been fun to ride down US-221 without the rain. David showed up with his tow truck and got me loaded up. We headed for the nearest Harley dealer in Christiansburg; 32 miles away. On the upside, David showed me some great back roads between Willis and Christiansburg. I'll have to remember those if I ever get back down that way.

The service department at New River Valley Harley-Davidson made my bike a priority. They were able to see the bike running shitty, which was a relief. I figured it'd be one of those incidents where it runs like shit when I'm on it and fine when it was hooked up to the diagnostic machines. The diagnostics indicated two different faults. They unhooked a sensor on the crankshaft and pulled the fuel line and reconnected it. This seemed to clear the faults, but there wasn't really any explanation for what had occurred. They did a test ride on the bike, repeated the whole process and within a couple of hours, had me back on the bike. Still with no clear indication on what had happened.

I headed up I-81 to Harrisonburg. I stopped for gas in Roanoke and had another weird experience where the bike was idling at about 2500 rpm. It settled down as quickly as it stuck, so I'm not sure what the hell caused that. I jumped back on the bike after fueling and hauled ass up I-81 with the flow of the fastest traffic. I made it the 100 miles to Harrisonburg in about an hour and 15 minutes. But, when I exited the interstate and pulled in the clutch, the bike simply died. I coasted to a stop on the shoulder of the exit ramp. The bike re-fired without a problem and I was able to ride on to the hotel without any more incidents. I secured the bike in the parking lot and waited for Renee and Jake to show up. Needless to say, I wasn't getting a warm fuzzy about the final 100 miles I'd have to ride the next day to get home. The second day on the road covered 394 miles, not counting the 32 miles via tow truck from Willis to Christiansburg.

Jake had tryouts for All-State Band the next day at James Madison University, so I was glad to be off the road for a few hours and happy to get to see Renee and Jake after being gone for a week. We got up Saturday morning and took Jake to his tryout location. The weather forecast was not looking good for Saturday. They were reporting more rain and possible snow showers on Saturday afternoon, so Renee and I decided I should get on the road sooner rather than later.

I decided to take the bike to Grove's Harley-Davidson in Winchester, Virginia. That's where I bought the bike and I wanted to get it checked again since it had done a couple of weird things the night before. The 75 miles to Winchester was uneventful and I managed to fall in with the fastest moving traffic again. That got me to Winchester around 9:30 and the service department there jumped right on the bike again. I'll take a minute to say that I'm not a big fan of getting my bike serviced at the dealerships. But, both New River Valley and Grove's gave me priority treatment and didn't hesitate to throw my bike up on the lift and get me on the road as soon as possible.

Grove's ran diagnostics and didn't find anything out of the ordinary. I had them perform a 10,000 mile service on the bike since I had rolled over the 10K mark a few hundred miles before. About 3 hours later, I was back on the road and headed for the last 45 miles to home. The final leg was without incident and the bike seemed to be running great. I still don't know exactly what went wrong down in southern Virginia, but whatever it was, it seems to be gone for now at least. So, the last leg of the ride was 114 miles giving me a 3 day total of 1043 miles.

I made it home at about 1:30 Saturday afternoon. It did rain later that day, but it was after I was snug and safe at home. By Sunday night we were getting the winter storm that was working its way up the east coast. We woke up Monday morning to a winter wonderland.

The Riddle homestead Monday morning after Jake and I shoveled the drive