Thursday, May 24^th  

We awoke to the sound of Canadian geese flying just outside our screen door and other happy birds on this very brisk morning.  Our room was called “Appleview”, you could step out on our private balcony complete with two rocking chairs and see the huge apple tree beside our steps.

Our first morning we enjoyed breakfast with two other couples and two women that were working in the area. Jerry and Kathy were from Ohio and had just been camping on the beaches of NC, Mike and Karen were from Franklin TN and come to the area often to do some hiking. The other two ladies were traveling on business.  They said even though they had to work, at least they were getting to stay in a nice place instead of a cold motel room.  We finished up breakfast and went back to our room to suit up and take the bikes to the Blue Ridge Parkway.  My V-Strom didn’t have many miles on it yet, but we planned to add some today. You need to remember that I am a novice rider, having ridden a standard-shift bike less than 600 miles over the past 2 years.  Before getting the V-Strom I had a Honda Silverwing, great super scooter, but I missed running through the gears.  Anyway, we suited up and had a 15 minute lesson on riding around sharp curves before we left the room (I also said a quick prayer for the day and off we went). 

We headed north on the Parkway and had only gone 10 or 15 miles when Chan radioed that we would get off and go search for fuel. He had thought there was a station within a mile or two of our exit, but it turned out to be about 10 miles, almost back to Boone.  I checked voicemail while I was there and had a call from someone wanting to view one of my listings back home. I called one of my agent friends and asked if they would mind showing the home for me (we do this a lot and it works out great for both us). Being a Realtor® is a great job, 99% of the time. (Don will appreciate my using the ® after Realtor®, if he reads this, LOL.)

Gotcha!

Back on the Parkway, I asked Chan to stay ahead of me for a while so I can watch his lines. We pulled off several times to make photos, then I took the lead. We stopped several more times, but that’s gonna happen if you’re with me in a scenic area and Chan didn’t mind.

Most of the time there are other cyclists pulled off and conversations start up, we met several neat people one of them being Frank, age 70, seen here by his totally restored 1940 Ford. Now he was quite the character telling us of his past younger days as a moonshiner. He had lived there all his life and was going to be selling some of his property soon, he gave us a brochure on it and asks us to tell our friends, what a great marketer he was! People would pull over to see his car and he would hand them a property flier, he really was a Realtor® at heart.

I think this cool old guy just sits up on the Parkway with his car to meet people!

We rode almost to the Virginia line before turning around. I had wanted to make it to Mabry Mill, but it was getting late in the afternoon and I figured adding another 70 miles was more than I wanted to do.  We turned around and stopped at the Northwest Trading Post store for a snack and to rest. Since we had such a great, and very large breakfast neither of us wanted lunch and by this time it was 4:30 or so. We shared a small can of honey roasted peanuts, a peach Nehi for me, a raspberry green tea for Chan. We sat out on the grass and enjoyed the view.

After a 30 minute break we hit the road again.  Traffic had been really light most of the day, made up mostly of other bikers. By this time vehicle traffic was picking up but it was after 5:00 so I guess some of the locals were on their way home. We pulled over at overlooks several times to let folks go by. I had radioed Chan to take the lead again as I wanted him to be ahead of me going back down the tight, twisty road we came up on so he could radio me of what was coming up. Again, not as bad as my mind thought it would be, just took it slow and easy, the V-Storm is a great bike for low gears and maneuvers very well. We came all the way down with no one following me, I was so happy about that. After getting back to the B&B we decided to go for a walk along the river and look at some of the homes built along it..

By the time we returned we were getting hungry since we had skipped lunch after the huge breakfast. We did take Tom’s advice this time and went just down the road to a great authentic Italian restaurant. We stuffed ourselves and still took home nearly a whole meal between us. Back at the B&B we got our laptops and headed to the living area of the main home to check email and open a bottle of wine we had brought from home. It was close to 10:00 by this time, we heard the back door open and it was Tom bringing in some things for the next days breakfast. He sat down to chat a while and mentioned seeing a bottle of Mantanzas Creek wine in our room and asked if we had been to that winery? We said we had, Tom told us he & DeeDe were just there last fall celebrating their 25^th anniversary in Sonoma County and the surrounding area and loved that winery. We did too, so much that we joined their wine club when we there March 06. Before we knew it, it was after 11:00 and Chan was planning to get up at dawn and do an early morning ride before breakfast, so off to bed we went.

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