Up the Shenandoah Valley

For the most part, riding a bike (or a car for that matter) on the interstate is boring. It only serves the purpose of quickly getting you someplace else. While maybe not exactly an exception to this rule, riding from our home up I-77 and I-81 through first the Blue Ridge Mountains and then up the Shenandoah Valley is a lot better than most interstate rides. The valley, in particular, is really nice. Pretty scenery, and the route isn't so windy and steep that it keeps you from your real goal on the interstate...putting miles behind you.

The goal for today and tomorrow is to get these high mileage days out of the way early in the trip. We left the house today just before 1PM hoping to make it to Hagerstown, MD. We estimated we would be there around 7PM. Our bike has a range of about 175 miles. That's somewhere between 2.5 and 3 hours of straight interstate riding, which is more than our stamina will allow, so our plan was to stop around 90 miles into each tank and then stop again to fill up. This worked out really well today and we didn't have one "wasted" stop. We were helped somewhat by the fact that both rainstorms we hit came upon us as we were already stopped to fuel up, allowing us to don the rain gear without an extra stop. The rain gear worked pretty well. We went through two soaking showers and our clothes stayed completely dry.

We made better progress than we expected and flirted with the idea of proceeding on past Hagerstown, but ended up stopping there anyway. We checked in around 6:30, picked up a couple of tall boys and ordered Papa Johns.

Only two pictures today. First is of us posing with the fully packed up bike, immedeately prior to our departure. The second is at our first fuel stop in Natural Bridge, Virginia. Why a pic at a gas station? Well...perhaps our first scavenger hunt success. The Exxon had a large tiger stature. T couldn't get on top of it, but we took this pic of her posing with the big kitty. Since Swish sent in this scavenger hunt recommendation, he can give us a ruling if it counts without her actually sitting on it.

Tomorrow's goal is Bennington, Vermont. The planned route is north through Pennsylvania, driving through Harrisburg, Wilkes-Barre, and Scranton. Then on to Binghamton and Albany in New York, before arriving in Vermont. So long as we don't have any mechanical difficulties and the weather isn't too uncooperative, we should be able to get there. Hopefully we'll have wi-fi tomorrow night and can add another entry.

PS-We went by JMU, Toms Brook and Boonsboro today.
T's terrific thought of the day: K2O protein water rocks!!