This entry is for Thursday, 26 May 2011:
Thunderstorms occurred overnight in the Athens area and thus roads were wet at the beginning of the ride today...just enough to cover my bike with road grime! We expected to encounter some rain based on the various weather report and weather patterns predicted. Gerry decided to ride some of the morning route with me before splitting up to travel back home.
We took northeasterly secondary farm roads from Athens to Zainsville, OH, over roughly 75 miles. Along the way we had a deer cross in front of us and saw Amish men in a horse-drawn buggy along one of the farm roads. I was not fast enough with my camera to get a picture of this.
Once we got to Zainsville, we took the requisite "end of ride" photo (posted) and said out good byes. Gerry headed west on Rt. 22 to Cincinnati to a Harley dealer who will service his bike and be the pick-up point for shipping his bike back to CA. He will be flying out of Cinci on Friday morning. I headed east on Rt. 22 from Zainsville and stayed on 22 all the way to Steubenville, OH. This was through more OH farm country. The I took Rt. 7 north to Youngstown, OH. The southern portion of Rt. 7 parallels the Ohio River which was swollen and running swiftly after recent rains. At Youngstown I took I-80 east into Pennsylvania. Then I took Rt. 8 north to Rt. 52 north to get me to Rt. 6. Rt. 6 runs east - west across much of PA. This road has a lot of scenic dots on the AAA maps so was must ride route for me. Rt. 6 follows along the northern boundary of the Allegheny National Forest and the Susquehannock National Forest and goes by several water bodies and parallels a river.
Overall, today's ride was 490 miles of delightful riding. I did not hit any rain along this route while riding. Today was the 14th day of riding on this trip and, with two minor exceptions totaling less than one hour, I have not encountered any serious rain...knock on wood. This is amazing since every night the news warns of severe T-storms and potential tornadoes. I have been fortunate to not get caught up in either so far. I have posted a few shots along the ride today.
Tomorrow I am continuing my trek back to the east following the scenic dots where it makes sense to do so in the general direction I am going.
I should also mention that all throughout this trip wherever we went people would ask us where we were from. Gerry would say that he was from southern CA and I would say that I was from MA. Then people would be dumbfounded as to how and why left and right coast riders would be riding together. We probably went through this 3 to 4 times per day when stopping for gas, eating in restaurants, and checking into/out of hotels. It made great conversation with people every day.
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