Today was another early start day as we left the chaos of Rome for the more peaceful Florence, called Firenza by the locals. After a quick breakfast at the hotel, we were ready to board the bus by 7:45. Today we began the seating chart rotation, where everyone gets a chance at various seating locations on the bus. We ended up at what the driver called the "pole position", right behind him which gave us a great view out the front window. It didn't take long before the craziness of Rome was behind us. We could visibly see the signs of stress disappear from Anna, our Tour Director. She admitted that she really does breath a sigh of relief when leaving Rome, because as she said, "If anything is going to go wrong on a tour, ... read more

After completing travel to the lower 48 states by motorcycle, and finishing Alaska and Hawaii by cruise, Jody and I decided it was time to tackle Europe. I have been to a few European countries during my time in the military back around 1975 (England, Germany, Italy, Turkey), and I have been on a short business trip in the early 2000's to Scotland and Germany, but in 1975, I was too young to appreciate anything more about Europe than the local beers, and in the 2000's there wasn't really any time to explore. Jody has never been outside the United States, so it's all new to her. Since we have been on many cruises, we considered cruises to Europe, but dismissed them for the most part as we wanted to actually experience staying in local hotels ... read more

Last night was our first night out of the mountains, and we miss them already. Today we are heading to Savannah, GA, our final stop this journey. We were not sure what to expect out of "Historic Downtown Savannah", but the plan was to sleep a little late, as it was Sunday morning, and then get a quick breakfast at the hotel, and head down the short distance to Savannah. We did manage to sleep until after 7:00, and by the time we hit the road is was after 9:00. The Garmin Lady seemed to feel much better this morning, and set up the directions without any problem. The first thing we noticed on our morning ride was how straight, flat, and boring the ride was to Savannah. After all the mountains of the past several ... read more

Today is our last day in the mountains. As we travel further east and south, the land will get flatter and the weather will get hotter. We will miss the mountains - a lot! Today we are headed for Charlotte, NC, home of the NASCAR Hall of Fame. But before we go, we have one last pass over the mountain as we bid farewell. The weather report for today is HOT! It's supposed to be bright and sunny and over 95 degrees. So we had a quick breakfast and tried to get out of Gatlinburg early to beat the heat. For some reason the Garmin Lady was not cooperating this morning and wanted us to head west out of Gatlinburg and onto some highway. We were having none of it, as we wanted to pass through ... read more

Today we bid a sad farewell to Asheville, NC. We both really liked this area and enjoyed our stay. We will probably need to come back sometime soon. Today is a motorcycle riding adventure day. While we could take the short route from Asheville, NC to Gatlinburg, TN, we decided to take the more circuitous and more adventurous route. So we had a quick breakfast at the hotel, and hit the road at about 8:15, thinking we would get a jump on the day. We had a little problem packing this morning as it seems we bought a little more in Asheville than we thought, and while everything fit on the bike, if we were going to buy anything else, we had better find a post office quick. We planned on figuring out the post office ... read more