September 20

This morning started out a little cooler, probably mid 50's.  I had been shooting so many pictures this trip that I had almost filled the 1 gig card in my camera, so our first stop was a Wal-Mart, where I bought a half-gig card to get me through the next few days.  Vacations are expensive, memory is cheap.

My goal was to get us back up into the mountains (Roanoke sits in a valley), so I had the GPS route us to Newport.  It once again led us down little local roads that we never would have found otherwise.  I am not sure of the actual route we took, but we did run through a little community named Ironto.  Amazing roads all the way into Blacksburg, which is a cool little college town.  The Chamber of Commerce had a poster in the window encouraging motorcyclists to explore Virginia backroads during the leaf season.  I tried to see if they had some sort of organized tour set up, but the poster was too far away to read completely, and I didn't feel like parking the bike to go read it.

A few miles of 4 lane on 460 brought us to 730, then to 42, both of which parallel the Appalachian Trail.  I figured that had to be a good sign, and it was.  More amazing roads, some of which were very tight and narrow, others offered excellent scenery.

The temps were still in the 50's, and at our first gas stop, somewhere out in the boonies, I put on another layer.  The lady pumping gas across from me was a transplant from Daytona Beach, and she said she was having a hard time adjusting to the colder weather.  The temps didn't rise into the 60's until after 2.

After lunch, I got turned around somehow, and finally just told the GPS to take us to Banners Corner.  This system was working out really well.  Pick a little town 20-40 miles away, set the GPS on "minor roads", and just follow along.  We rode little unmarked, barely paved pig-trails all the way there.  Approaching one blind left on a road hardly a lane wide, I noticed movement on the top of an abandoned corn crib on the outside of the turn.  As I got closer, I could see that it was a woodchuck, sitting up on his haunches, watching us pass, like a spectator at a road race.  He even had a little pair of binoculars...

Banners Corner to Clinchport to Jonesville brought us to the northern end of Highway 70, which I had heard was a great route south down into North Carolina.  Wow, what a road!

The 88 miles of road, from Jonesville to the NC line, has got it all.  Tight twisties, broad sweepers, stunning scenery, and great asphalt.

70 becomes 208 when it crosses into North Carolina, and there it intersects 212, the road that Eric crashed on.  Since we were going to be in the neighborhood, we decided to go back and take a second look.  We wanted to see that corner again, and try and determine exactly what happened there.

The best we can tell, his crash bar touched down in the curve, lifting the bike and un-weighting the tires, causing it to slide.  We figured that he was only doing about 25 MPH through this corner.  The thing is, Eric is an excellent rider, and has ridden through thousands of corners just as tight, at the same speed or higher.  Sometimes you just have a bad day.

The day was getting on, so we decided to run out to I-40 and south to Asheville, where there was sure to be some hotels.  I didn't intend to take us all the way into downtown, but that is the way it ended up, and after hitting two places that were full, we found a Starwood Suites for $119 (the last room they had, two queens, non-smoking...what luck!) with a Carrabba's next door.  This would be Eric's last night on the road, as he was headed back to Huntsville the next day, and we always like to have a nice dinner to celebrate the end of a bike trip, so this worked out great.  I love the food at Carrabba's, and Eric had never been to one, so he was in for a treat.  There was a 20 minute wait for a table, so we ate at the bar (immediate seating, and usually better service, anyway).  Dinner was excellent.

Remember I said that yesterday was the best day of riding I had ever had?  Today was just as good.

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