Today we are going nowhere. We have planned 3 nights in Asheville to try and recuperate from the last couple of days. The last time we were in Asheville was back in 1999 when we were first dating and we came up here for the Honda Hoot Motorcycle Rally before they moved it to Knoxville and ruined it. It's a beautiful area, with the Blue Ridge Parkway running just outside and mountains everywhere. Since we have 2 full days here, we decided to spend one day sightseeing in the area and one day visiting downtown. We had hoped to do the downtown thing today, but the museum we wanted to go to is closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays so we had to change our plans. We had also planned on visiting the Biltmore Estate, but when ... read more

Since we arrived at the hotel late from our Cass Scenic Railroad train ride yesterday, we were both tired when we awoke this morning. We had originally planned on staying last night back in Luray and resuming our ride down Skyline Drive where we left off, but the late ending of the train ride had us stay in Harrisonburg some 40 miles away. So our first hour this morning was spent just getting back to Luray to pick up where we left off. It did give us the opportunity for that one last ride up and over the mountain on US-211E. It's about 400 miles from Luray to Asheville, NC on what starts out as Skyline Drive while it's in Shenandoah National Park and turns into Blue Ridge Parkway when it leaves. We decided to split ... read more

This morning we are off to the hills of West Virginia. The weather looks promising as we begin our journey west. We are actually doing a loop into West Virginia today and tomorrow before we rejoin Skyline Drive at Luray again and head south on Saturday. Since we were excited to get going and this hotel didn't have a free breakfast, we packed up the bike and were on the road by 8:00 with a stop at McDonald's for quick breakfast. Today we are headed for the Loony Bin - officially called the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, it was in operation from 1858 to 1994 as the state mental hospital. Jody has been especially looking forward to visiting here since our trip began. The Lunatic Asylum is located in Weston, WV about 175 miles west of Luray, ... read more

Today we bid the North a fond farewell and officially return to the South. We're have about 2 weeks left to go on this trip and we are starting to feel like we are in the home stretch. After a quick breakfast at the hotel, we headed back north and west out of Delaware on into Maryland. We stayed far enough north to just skirt around northern Baltimore. I have been to Baltimore several times, and while I really like the downtown area, it's not really great for motorcycles. So we will save Baltimore for some other time. Most of the roads out of Delaware and through Maryland were about the same. We mostly followed Liberty Heights Ave/ MD-26 from Baltimore to Frederick. Mostly it was suburban secondary roads with lots of fast food, gas stations, ... read more

Today was just a great day! We slept in a little as we are only 15 miles away from the action and nothing opens until 9:00. So we had a leisurely breakfast and hit the road about 8:30. Our first stop of the day was at The Hershey Story, The Museum on Chocolate Ave. We thought we would get to know a little about the founder and get some idea what it takes to make chocolate. We arrived at about 8:50, so we hung around for a bit waiting for them to open. The museum was nice, but not as in depth as I had hoped. The building is 2 stories, but the actual museum only occupies the second floor. It went in a little to the early life of Milton Hershey, who started out as ... read more