Riding the Ridge, Part One

In the early part of July 2011, I decided to test the BMW's worthiness on the road and embarked on a journey that would ultimately take me down the Blue Ridge Parkway from it's northern to southern terminus. The first day of the trip I spent on the interstate heading north through Cincinnati and Columbus where I turned west on interstate 70 through Wheeling and into Western Pennsylvania. After spending a few days at my father's house, I turned the bike south through Maryland and into northern Virginia and Shenandoah National Park's Skyline Drive.

I slept that first night in the park at Mathew's Arm, a campground positioned at about the 22 mile mark along the Drive. I wish I could say that the stay was pleasant, but the gnats along the parkway must have been holding their annual world conference. The winged pests were in such thick numbers that all of my photos along Skyline Drive contained the dark flecks of their pulpy little bodies. While the bike was in motion, the windscreen deflected most the bugs, but as soon as all forward momentum ceased, they descended on you in a horde. Stopping to converse with other riders at one of the plentiful and otherwise beautiful overlooks was always accompanied by constant waving of limbs.

My first day along the parkway was spent in the good graces of the weather gods. I always seemed to be where the rain was not. At one particular turn off, I was standing in the sunshine when another rider heading north stopped to inform me that the sky had opened just a few miles south and a deluge had commenced. He advised me to use caution; it was raining hard enough that he was having trouble navigating. When I resumed travel, I never encountered anything further south than wet pavement, the vapor already rising into the hot July air in thin wisps.

The storms diminished the gnat population. Even being near the tumultuous weather provided a relief from their incessant buggery. I have yet to be able to explain the reason behind their disappearance, but the gnats just ceased to exist the further south I traveled. They didn't gradually dwindle away; they just stopped altogether. I don't know if this was caused by weather change, elevation, a change in habitat. Whatever the reason, I was glad to be rid of them. It would mean more agreeable environment while off the Beemer.

I'm always surprised at the mini wasteland accompanying the transition from Skyline Drive and the northern end of the Blue Ridge Parkway. It appears as if there was once a gas station and perhaps a small hotel just at the convergence of these two roads. They've been abandoned for years, just shells left from a different time. I always mean to stop and snap a few photos of the place, but never manage it when I pass by. It still strikes me as one of the loneliest places in the world. It's the type of emptiness created by distant, fading memory.

Skyline Drive, according to the guard manning the gate upon my arrival, was undergoing maintenance, mostly repaving. Much of the blacktop looked fresh enough to worry me in areas where the pavement was wet. I suspect that the rider who warned me of heavy rain earlier in the day experienced oil skimming the road surface following such a sudden downpour. The speed limits along the Drive demand a more sedate pace than I normally prefer, but with wet areas and fresh paving, I kept the RT only slightly over the mandated limits.

The Blue Ridge Parkway offers numerous points for quiet reflection. During my first day of riding, I passed through the highlands of northern Virginia on my way to my second camp in the lower elevations of the Virginia midlands. The country isn't the only thing that changes. Life, along with the accents of the people I had the good fortune to meet, slowed as I rode south. Toward my second stopping point, grits began to appear on the menus of the small town restaurants in which I sought respite from the heat. As I turned off the Parkway in the late afternoon, I could feel my spirit leaning West like a compass. Somewhere across the misty ridges of the Appalachians, the old bones of the mountains tumbled down into the foothills of the Bluegrass State. But the high elevations of North Carolina awaited before I would turn the bike toward home. For now, it was time to camp.