I finally got some time to write up the ride report.
Day 1: I started my trip from my girlfriends place in GA on Friday, July 19th. I took I-85N to I-485N to I-77N to I-81N. Nothing interesting happened in Georgia or South Carolina, just long straight interstate. I stopped for lunch in North Carolina after a big lake crossing to avoid traffic. I managed to avoid the weather till the NC-VA line where it decided to pour on me through the mountain pass. Speaking of those two states, the interstates up there give you some amazing views overlooking huge valleys and rolling hills. I finally rolled into Strasburg, VA around 7PM where me and Dicgleason met up for dinner at a small italian place. The food was good but the waiter was a joke and we had to hunt for silverware and refills. I stayed in the Ramada there which was surprisingly nice considering it is a budget hotel.
Day 2: We met up at Denny's around 10 and waited for everyone to show up. It ended up being me, dicgleason, corradoguy, and a friend from another forum who was riding a GS500. We got on the road at about 11 and headed towards the WV line. It was funny to me, but the road was pretty boring until we saw the welcome to West Virginia sign. From there, the road got all kinds of curvy and I had a blast down the mountain. We stopped and checked on everyone to make sure we were going at a good pace and continued from there.
This is where we made our wrong turn. It wasn't a bad wrong turn as it took us through some very nice countryside and past a Zoo/General Store/Post Office in one. Other than almost having Dicgleason being taken out by a Harley Rider, all went well. We ended up back in Virginia on accident but managed to stop at a church and as for directions. This is after we took a back road that was named "Back Rd". The church folk sent us in the right direction where Corradoguy broke off with us to go see his wife as it was getting later and our detour took us out of the way. From there we got on 259W towards WV and finally got back to the road we were supposed to be on. This is where the guy from the other forum had to part ways so me and dick made our way to Seneca Rocks.
Seneca Rocks was a great view with some great food. It was about 3 or 4PM by this point so we took our time, relaxed, and toured their souvenir shop. I bought a t-shirt and dick bought a local beer. Now for the fun part, route 33. We left Seneca Rocks on Route 33 back towards Harrisonburg, VA. This road was amazing. The weirdest part was that a lot of the passing lanes were in turns so when we had to go around somebody you were having to watch way ahead to make sure nobody was coming. This road wound us through a few mountains with plenty of switchbacks. We barely saw any cars the whole way back. My favorite part of this whole thing was coming off of the mountains into George Washington National Forest where the temperature had to have dropped 15 or so degrees. It got so cold and humid my visor started to fog over. It was a long straight road with huge trees growing on both sides of the road, definitely post card material. After getting out of the forest we finally made it back to Harrisonburg where we searched for our hotel. This is around 6:30 or 7PM by the time we found our Ramada. We cleaned up and went over to the next door Cracker Barrel for Dinner and then passed out for the night.
Day 3: I headed back to GA. I got up early, had cracker barrel again (breakfast this time) and got on the road. I stopped every 100-150 miles or so to get off and stretch, avoided a lot of hellish traffic by getting some signals from Harley riders to ride around (woo no cops) and made it back to GA before 6PM. I then had dinner with my family and told them all about it before proceeding the rest of the way home.
Overall it was really cool for my first group ride. I don't think I'll ride that far in a single day ever again.
