With a heavy heart the day has come where I have to leave my Beaver retreat.  As I am loading up Stan I get a visit from Julie who wants me to come up to the house to say goodbye to Sam before I go.  I finish up and ride to the house and bid a quick farewell to my friends who are in a rush to get to their daughters sporting event.

I am in no rush as the ride I have for the day is only 300 klms and will get me over the border into Virginia.  I booked a place to stay at Staunton as it would be an ideal starting point for me to do a ride called ‘The Blue Ridge Parkway’  – a 465 m / 754 klm ride that goes from Virginia to North Carolina on top of the smokey mountains.

I soon ride over the border into Virginia but funnily enough have a section that cuts 30 klms through the corner of West Virginia;

Back in Virginia I stop at the Visitor Centre and get excellent information as well as a couple of handy maps.  I work out that I can do a great ride on ‘Skyline Drive’ which starts at a nearby town called Front Royal and goes through the Shenandoah National Park to Waynesboro.  The ride is 105 m / 170 klms long but would take me over 3 hours given the speed limit is only 35 mph.

Where Skyline Drive finishes is where Blue Ridge Parkway begins.  The difference is that there is a park fee for Skyline Drive and not for the other.  I decide that I have enough time to be able to do the ride as where I am staying in Staunton is not that far from Waynesboro.

I head off and soon arrive at Front Royal.  I ride through the town and there are plenty of signs that take you to the starting point at Shenandoah National Park.  I pay the $25 motorcycle fee and start the climb up the mountains;

The temp was a warm 29’c when I started but as soon as I got over 3000 ft in altitude it cools down nicely and I even had fog sections;

The ride takes me close to 3.5 hours by the time I get to Waynesboro.  I make my way to my to Staunton and pull up in the Motel carpark at 5:30 – so much for an easy short day but totally worth the effort!

Having done the Skyline Drive ride I decide not to go back and do the Blue Ridge Parkway and leave that for next time – I would need multiple days to do it and after what I had just done I didn’t feel the need to do more of the same.

Next morning I am up at 5 to get an early start – I was aware that an extreme heat warning had been issued in the direction that I was headed and did not want to have to spend hours in it.  The temp is already 18’c but the high humidity makes it feel a lot higher – Stan was actually wet when I went out to pack him.

I head off in the dark but the light is ok as there is a full moon.  I take the ramp and get on the Highway and immediately there is a deer in the centre of my lane looking at me (bloody deer are as bad as kangaroos).  The deer certainly wakes me up and makes me ride with an ultra amount of caution.

After riding about 50 klms I start running into patches of fog.  The fog progressively gets worse until it is more common than clear road.  The temp also begins to drop to the point I start to feel cold.  At the 250 klm mark I stop to refuel and the Service Station is in dense fog.  I decide to put on some extra clothing whilst wondering where the heat wave is.

I only have to ride for another 15 mins before I hit clear sky and the sun is out (off comes the extra clothes).   I keep on going and cross the border into Tennessee;

I pull over and have lunch and the temp has now reached 30’c but its expected it will get up around 38’c.  I was told that Highway 81 would be boring but I was enjoying riding with the mountains right beside me;

I did notice that the size of the churches and in particular their crosses were huge as I went further south through the ‘bible belt’;

My next stop is at Knoxville PD where I call in but no luck re patch as no-one has access on a Sunday;

I ride the next 200 klm to my Motel in Chatanooga in the heat as it gets up to 38’c.  I find the place and its in a great location as all of the amenities are in walking distance.  The good thing about the heat is that I wash out my riding gear and its dry within 15 minutes!

Next morning I get underway at 7 and the conditions are very similar with high humidity.  Just like West Virginia I sneak through the corner of Georgia before I get into Alabama;

After doing 200 klms I pull off the Highway and stop and refuel.  Right next door is a McDonald’s so I go in and get a coffee.  I am the only customer and the 2 girls behind the counter have a good time asking me everything about Australia.   One (Tenisha – on the right in the below photo) tells me she will go home and pack a bag to come with me!  I laugh and tell her that I don’t think my wife would be too keen on that idea – total circus;

By 9 am I have taken off my jacket and the temp climbs up to the mid 30’s.  my next stop is at the Tuscaloosa PD which is right beside the Highway.  I go in and meet some Detectives who give me a couple of patches.  In conversation I find out that the local University of Alabama has over 100 police officers for the 17,000+ students – a city of its own.

About 100 klms further on I cross into Mississippi and stop to take a photo;

I keep riding and around 1 pm I arrive in Meridian where I am staying the night.  I go straight around to the local PD which is housed next door to the courthouse.  The parking lot looks like a war zone and is overflowing with some rough looking dudes.

I go in and meet a couple of great fellas who are more than happy to swap a patch.  I find out that they have 2 x capital murder trials starting that day which has caused chaos.

After leaving the PD I stop at the Service Station to fill Stan up.  I have trouble getting my travel card to work at the pump – the attendant must have been watching as she comes out from behind her desk over to help.  I really appreciated the help but was taken back that she was smoking a cigarette!  At least she wasn’t using her mobile phone.

I head around to my Motel and even though I am early (gained an hour crossing the border) I am able to get my room.  I go and get my dinner for the night and later learn a lesson in why I need to have my glasses on when I shop;

I thought I was buying the chicken/broccoli meal and not the above – it tasted even worse than it looked.

After watching the news the night before I am aware that I could be in for rough weather associated with Tropical Storm Imelda.  I am up at 5 am and gone by 6:30 – the temp is already 22’c with 89% humidity.  I do a solid 280 klms which takes me into Louisianna before I stop at the Slidell PD.  I get shown up to the Chief’s office and made to feel welcome.

On the way out of town I stop and refuel.  I take the ramp and stop at the lights waiting to get back on the Highway when a guy blasts his horn and yells that I have dropped one of my bags – I turn around and sitting on the road right behind me is my tank bag that fell off when I pulled up.  God knows how I managed to leave that sitting on top of my luggage without  noticing I hadn’t put it back on.

I jump off and get the bag back on before the lights change – no harm done but it would have been interesting to know when I would have realised it was missing.

Next stop is the Baton Rouge PD which is a large Department with its own Academy;

I go into the foyer and get a really poor reception at the front window – the girl is obviously having a bad day and can’t help me as everyone is out.  I can’t get out of the place quick enough.

I ride another 90 klms and try my luck at the Lafayette PD – I am glad I did as the experience was the total opposite.  I meet the D/Sgt who has his arm in a sling after recent shoulder surgery.  He is a great bloke and has to hunt around to find a patch and eventually digs one out from his car.  He also gives me a coin out of his own display cabinet. 

I ask him about the photo on his desk that is a picture of himself with President Bush Jnr – turns out he gets called up at different times to work with the Secret Service.

Back on Stan it takes me the rest of the afternoon to get to Lake Charles where I am staying for the night.  I just finish unloading and the storm hits with rain bucketing down.  Fortunately it stops after a while which allows me to go and get something for dinner.   I later check the weather forecast and see that there is a 90% chance of being hit the next day by the tropical storm.

I am again up early hoping that I may fluke beating the storm like I did the day before.  I set off at 6:30 and the temp is already 28’c with high humidity.  Just when I start to think I might be ok (30 klm mark) I hit torrential rain.  I stop to take a photo of the Texas sign but have trouble as my camera keeps fogging up;

The rain is even heavier than what I experienced in Canada but thankfully unlike Canada its not freezing cold – it actually drops to a reasonable 25’c.  I push on before stopping at a Service Station in Beaumont to refuel which is about 170 klms into a 550 klm riding day.

I get off Stan and I cannot believe how heavy the rain is – I am absolutely saturated and the looks that I am given by other customers indicates that they thought I was a complete lunatic.

Again I push on and have a bloody hard 140 klm ride before I make Houston.  The amount of water on the road, huge number of trucks and roadworks make me have to ride every inch of the way which is exhausting.

As I get to the west side of the city it is like magic in that someone has turned off the tap.  I have blue sky and the sun is out – I can’t even see any sign of rain on the road!  Apparently this is quite common for Houston.

I ride another 30 klms before I see a large diner and pull off the Highway to get something to eat and check that I am still alive.  I get off Stan I can see steam coming off my clothes from where the sun is drying me out.  I take a seat on the kerb and empty out my boots that are full of water.  

I go inside the diner and they have the aircon on full blast – me being wet it is like walking into a freezer.  I have a large breakfast and regroup.

The rest of the days ride was the complete opposite of the morning.  The temp rose to 38’c and the riding was hard because of the heat.  Thankfully I wasn’t in it too long and pulled up at my next stay in San Antonio at 2:30 pm.

I am staying in San Antonio several nights with Lynn – a good friend of my wife.

So I can now add riding in a Tropical Storm for 300 klms to the list – I am way to scared to think of what is coming next!

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