GOE VI The Ride Home
Saturday, June 22 to Sunday, June 23, 2002
Some Like the Turns, Some Don't
So now it was Saturday, and time to make the two day trek back home again to Indiana. We would begin with myself, my brother, and a couple sharing a bike from the Terre Haute Chapter. She seemed very enthusiastic about the mountain roads we were returning on. He wanted to take it slow, and enjoy the ride. That was until we really got into it. Handling a bike with the extra weight of a passenger can be a blessing and a curse. It's nice to have the company right there on the bike, but it can make a good handling bike become unwieldy. The bike also featured what is called beach bars, wide bars, that can make it hard to do tight turns. When we stopped for lunch, the other gentleman was ready for roads as straight as the eye could see, with a telescope! We had stopped in Seneca Rocks, a place I had visited before, and knew of a good place to eat. Yes, any place I have been, I know a good place to eat. The other bike pilot was scouting a place for a helicopter to land. Then he and his passenger could ferry them and the bike out of the mountain passes.
Post lunch was more curvy, rocky roads. By the time we had reached the hotel for the night, he had way more than enough, and announced they would travel the super slab the rest of the way home. My brother and I would continue on the route full of less traveled roads. Being just the two of us, we could push the limits of our abilities and our bikes. We carved up corner after corner, slicing through the warm air of Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio. One stop for gas and a bathroom resulted in a new idea and attitude for me. We were in the middle of nowhere Ohio. It was a late Sunday Morning. My brother had won the coin toss to get the men's room first. The ladies room was free, no one was around, and nature was ringing that bell pretty loudly. I went for it, and dove into the lady's room. It was not a whole lot different than the average men's bathroom at a gas station. Sans the condom machine, but with more toilet paper strewn on the floor. Feeling like a dog in new territory, I felt compelled to leave a sign that a man had been there. Not marking my turf like the average hound, I made sure the seat didn't get put back down seat after I finished my business.
So we continued through Ohio, and as I got closer to home, the roads looked more and more familiar. There were still towns, with empty shops and ghosts of the past milling about. I thought about the wagon ruts beneath the asphalt I was gliding smoothly over. Yes, I thought about next year's GOE, and anticipation was born, and started to grow.
Just a note, I rethought of this trip in 2006, after I started this blog, and now in 2013, I am re-writing and posting this story. According to Wikipedia - The "moderated newsgroup" that led to Blogs was started on August 7th, 1987 - my 19th birthday! They were called online diary's at first, and the term Web Log came about at the end of 1997. The term was shortened, made a verb, etc. in 1999. It would take about five years before I would catch on to it.
Some Like the Turns, Some Don't
So now it was Saturday, and time to make the two day trek back home again to Indiana. We would begin with myself, my brother, and a couple sharing a bike from the Terre Haute Chapter. She seemed very enthusiastic about the mountain roads we were returning on. He wanted to take it slow, and enjoy the ride. That was until we really got into it. Handling a bike with the extra weight of a passenger can be a blessing and a curse. It's nice to have the company right there on the bike, but it can make a good handling bike become unwieldy. The bike also featured what is called beach bars, wide bars, that can make it hard to do tight turns. When we stopped for lunch, the other gentleman was ready for roads as straight as the eye could see, with a telescope! We had stopped in Seneca Rocks, a place I had visited before, and knew of a good place to eat. Yes, any place I have been, I know a good place to eat. The other bike pilot was scouting a place for a helicopter to land. Then he and his passenger could ferry them and the bike out of the mountain passes.
Post lunch was more curvy, rocky roads. By the time we had reached the hotel for the night, he had way more than enough, and announced they would travel the super slab the rest of the way home. My brother and I would continue on the route full of less traveled roads. Being just the two of us, we could push the limits of our abilities and our bikes. We carved up corner after corner, slicing through the warm air of Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio. One stop for gas and a bathroom resulted in a new idea and attitude for me. We were in the middle of nowhere Ohio. It was a late Sunday Morning. My brother had won the coin toss to get the men's room first. The ladies room was free, no one was around, and nature was ringing that bell pretty loudly. I went for it, and dove into the lady's room. It was not a whole lot different than the average men's bathroom at a gas station. Sans the condom machine, but with more toilet paper strewn on the floor. Feeling like a dog in new territory, I felt compelled to leave a sign that a man had been there. Not marking my turf like the average hound, I made sure the seat didn't get put back down seat after I finished my business.
So we continued through Ohio, and as I got closer to home, the roads looked more and more familiar. There were still towns, with empty shops and ghosts of the past milling about. I thought about the wagon ruts beneath the asphalt I was gliding smoothly over. Yes, I thought about next year's GOE, and anticipation was born, and started to grow.
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