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One of the things I wanted to do on going to Freebird’s MD was to take a little extra time and set up a route to take mostly secondary roads. By doing this, Linda and I set it up to only travel about 250 miles the first day, Thursday, and then about 200 the next day, stopping by Don’s on the way to Elyria, OH to check into our room. We started out from NE TN going up 23 thru VA and KY up to Portsmouth, OH, which are mostly curvy four lanes. We were early enough to be able to get into our room and take a swim, rest a little and then go out to dinner. After a great dinner, we walked along the levy on the river side then back on street side with all the murals. Very interesting way to present history of the area. With our walk being over a mile, it was nice exercise after being on the bike for about five hours. In putting this trip together, Linda and I found that we had about $85 on various Walmart gift cards left over from Christmas. This was a perfect way to use them up and have great memories. With this, I went on line and found Walmarts that have gas stations and was able to get almost all our trip gas by doing this along our way. Another thing that I had not really done before to any extent was to use a GPS on a trip. I have a cheap one that I bought off one of the sale things on the internet for about $39, plus $5 shipping and it worked great. What I did was to pick out some towns that I wanted to go thru and I would just load the center of town location. Then at about ten or so miles before I got to that town, I would call up the next town and that would help me get through or go around the town I had noted. I had found that by preprogramming, I could do about three touches on the screen and would be good to go. This also allowed me to get off on some of these secondary roads and not worry about going in circles. By doing it this way, it kept the GPS from trying to send me down the interstate. Friday was a great ride through the farm country on central Ohio and at times, it was like riding thru a moving postcard. There were the occasional farm tractors and school busses, but it was true Americana at its best. We were able to stop by Don’s and then get checked into our room and go to the Quaker Steak and Lube for a great visit and food. As many already know, Saturday was a great time, with some really neat folks and good food and helping out a little on some maintenance. I have to say that Don and Eileen are great hosts and have the perfect place for this kind of get together. I would have loved to have had the little camper and stayed there, but with the temperatures we had Saturday and Sunday, the air conditioned motel room was good. After going back to the room from Don’s, Linda and I rode up to Lake Erie and stopped at a couple of parks. It was interesting as I had not been there before, but flown over it some in a past job, but I was surprised at the lack of restaurants along the waterfront. Sunday morning, I rode over to Don’s to see a few off and visit again. This ended up being a lay around day and riding the area a little more. Monday we trekked down the middle of the state to a room we had reserved west of Charleston, WV. Again, a great meal and good rest and then the final leg back home on Friday. All in all, I can not think of a thing I would want to change other than maybe a little lower temperatures, but, we did not see a single drop of rain. We rode some beautiful roads, did not have any close calls and the bike ran absolutely perfect for a little over 1,200 miles. This says a lot for a bike over 28 years old with over 143,000 miles on it. I was a little surprised at the gas prices in that area as we have gas at about $3.40 at home and we saw $4.03. I truly feel very blessed to have so many friends on this site, have an antique bike that I am proud of that does so well and to have a very special person in my life that loves to ride and enjoys the back roads of America as much as I do. Life is very good. RandyA
