My first trial comes the day before leaving. The street in front of my house is under construction. And by that I truly mean under construction; there is no street. All the street is torn away leaving only mud after several days rain. So getting the 700-plus pound cruiser out of the garage is a challenge by itself. I make it however and get it around to my back yard via the private alley owned by a neighbor who has kindly consented.

There I load up come morning and pull away about 8:30 AM on Tuesday, starting via US131 as/per usual when heading south. And as usual I swing off to ride through the longest remaining covered bridge in Michigan at Centerville. Then it’s down through Sturgis’MI and across the border to Indiana to get on the Toll Road.

Covered Bridge
Centerville MI US23
Carl Perkins Bridge US23
Zelda KY US23
Pikeville KY

I fairly hate to cruise the I-states. Too much traffic! But I have a deadline to be in Charleston SC by Thursday night so as not to miss the retirement ceremony of Steven Wilson, whom I new from Okinawa way back in 1975. On account of that I don’t have time for dead reckoning errors or lots of shear-curiosity side trips on the leg down. Thus I make use of a map. And to quickly distance myself from already-explored territory, I take the I-states. I plan however, take a new bridge across the Ohio from any of my prior trips. That much is a must.

At a turnpike oasis in Ohio I stop for breakfast. There is a full dress Harley parked outside of the McDonalds, so inside after getting my McMuffin, I search for another clad in leather as myself. There I make acquaintance with Max who is likewise on his way to re-unite with ex-Army chums, in his case the 82nd Airborn. I finish before he does and go out to gass up the bike. Just as I’m thinking maybe I should get his picture, Max rides by and waves on his way through the out-ramp. I too shortly take off, catch up with Max, and wave as I pass. Max is hugging 65. In Indiana most cars had pushed the limit, but here in Ohio they bust it wide open. I am pushing it just a bit, passing most of the trucks. But still I must hop right back into the right-hand lane as many a car will pile up behind me if I do not.

Once out of known territory I get off the turnpike and onto US23. There are some interesting sightes, like a coal mine right up beside the highway. There are good sized bulldozers pushing the black ore around into giant piles.

The country side and small towns are interesting as I drive through, but nothing of sufficient interest to stop the bike and drag out the Sony Mavica for a digital picture. Before getting cut loose from my job of twelve years, I had been planning to get a new and smaller, higher res camera. The Mavica is to bulky and heavy to keep in a pocket. So to snap a photo I must stop and unpack it. Hopefully next year...

Nearing dusk I stop for dinner at a place called Reno’s in Pikeville KY. Like far too many establishments nowadays though, they insist on blasting music out of celing speakers over every second table. I really hate that, and not just because it is country music, some of which isn’t half bad. Personally, I’d rather there just be none at all. Too much time and trouble to search elsewhere, though. Misty, my waitress, hands me a menu and I order a steak and cheese sandwich. They had a different name for it, but it looked just like a Philly steak & cheese to me. Nothing exotic, but good all the same. Then it is back on the road again.

Come dark I hunt for a non-big-chain motel. I accidentally pass by a coupe which are not visible at highway speeds until too late for anything short of a panic stop. The only option would be to backtrack. But US23 is too narrow most places for an easy U-turn. Then shortly an ordinary highway sign alerts me to the Jefferson Motel in downtown Norton KY. This being Kentucky, I’d’ve thought they’d name it the Madison. But both rank about equal as my favorite two presidents, so I take the exit. The room is adequately comfortable at $38 per night. Probably I could have saved a buck or two had I backtracked. Only major difficulty is with the motel’s phone system which blocks my calling card access number. After several tries by the night attendant to re-program so as to permit 1-888-###-#### numbers I end up having to do the 1-800-CALL-ATT thing.

Jefferson Motel
Norton KY US23
Erwin NC US23
in NC Jason Eling of
Three Rivers MI US176
in SC

Arthur Garcia
of Lawton MI

Come the morning I’m off again at about the same time. Gaging the weather I decide on the rain suit instead of leathers. It’s looking pretty damp in the air. Cars in the parking lot are all pretty wet. Trotting across the road to snap a photo of the motel just for my records, an occasional rain drop splats down on my head. Then back onto the highway again. US23 is nowhere as busy as the I-state. It affords a nice view in most places. And what with the lighter traffic I can even spare some attention to take it in. Even so, only a couple of places places are so photogenic as to be worth stopping and hauling out the camera. At one point a sign leads off to an overlook. I pull off and walk up to have a look. Having walked up I grap picture. But later I find that the file was corrupt. It was so misty anyway so that the picture would not have shown much.

Now as I procede further south, gradually the weather improves. The sun even peeks out now and then, just enough to turn my rain suit on and off from sauna mode briefly, once every several miles. So at Exit 13 I stop to shrug out of it and back into leathers. And recalling as how the sun turned my face into a red oval mask when last I rode south, I do not fail in applying sunblock. Right here, in mid-chang-eover is where I meet Jason, who has spied my Michigan plates. He now lives in Ashville’NC but hails originally from Three Rivers MI. That’s just barely spitting distance from the covered bridge in my earlier photo and only thirty minutes or so from where I started. Small world, yes?

I get off US23 in preference to a less travled back road, US176, which is almost empty of cars. I soon find out why. The road surface is excellent, but the path is a tortuous serpentine down from the mountains. Slow going on account of quite a few hairpin turns, but I love it. The view in my peripheral vision is great, but I must keep my central focus glued on the road. Being from Michigan I only slight experience with this, and all of that from prior trips elsewhere. So I have to concentrate hard as it does not come natural. The outboard dropoffs give me a bit of vertigo. No chance whatsoever for a picture as the shoulder, where existent, is far too narrow to park or even halt the bike.

Come the bottom I am out of North and into South Carolina. Gradually US176 straightens out, at least horizontally. Rolling hills from here on into the low country, as South Carolinians call their flat spaces nearer to the ocean. Come Spartanburg this route takes me right almost through the middle of town. Too many stop lights. It is a drag but I suffer along. Then its back to small towns and ever flatter spaces between.

Remembering the pain of Spartanburg, on approach to Columbia I take advantage of I26. And does traffic ever fly here. I have to do eighty just to keep up. Cars are whizzing by at ninety. I must do too in a couple of places just to escape from the press of a traffic node so as to slip comfortably into an anti-node. Should I hug the limit here I’d be like a stone in the river with a current rusing up from behind to part on my left and likewise merging in from the right.

Come exit 149 I’ve had quite enough. As turns out, Exit 149 from I26 is marked as the end of a detour route for US176. Must have been construction somewhere along. So I’d have been doing this anyway. I stick with US176 as far as Goose Creek, just outside of Charleston. Back in the mid-70’s there’d been a band, Goose Creek Symphony, which had a few hits. Here is from whence they came.

There is not one mom-and-pop motel anywhere along this route. In due course I find myself entering North Charleston. Nothing do I recognize from when last I was here. Rivers street is horrendously busy on a scale of four or five times what I remember. And I’m sure it was not built up nearly this far out. A very short spell of this and I elect for the very first Motel 6 that I spy. I get a room on the ground floor so I can park the bike right outside my door. Another small world encounter takes place in that Arthur Garcia, a friendly fellow who is conversing with a couple of pals in on the second floor veranda breaks off from Spanish to send down a hello in accentless (aka Midwestern) English. Asking after how far I have ridden, I tell him. Arthur himself hails from Lawton MI, just 15 minutes from my own home in Kalamazoo. He is down here on some kind of contract work. We talk a few more times before I leave. I get him to write down his name, which he does. On my little pocket spiral pad, it came off a bit squiggly. I hope I got the last name right.

Steve & Judy Wilson Al Bauer & John Musik

To see these folks is the reason for my making Charlestion my destination for this year. Steven and I were stationed on Okinawa together in 1975. He was just an enlisted man then, a MN3 (Class Mineman 3rd Class), while I was a lowly MNSA. We had worked together at the US Navy mine shop at Naha, Okinawa where Al was a MN1, and John the Chief. So here are my ex-coworker and friend, two of my favorite supervisors all together in one place after more than 28 years. Lt. Dunn figureheaded the show back then, but Al and John were who really made the place go.

For more detail on the event, here is a link to the relevent page from my website dedicated to US Navy minemen:  Steven’s Retirement 

Cooper River
west side Cooper River
east end SC6
canal

US601
Niel Rollins
watching race US21
in VA

I tried to look up a couple of names from folks I used to know. I had emailed Joe Baker a week or so prior to heading down, but he hadn’t replied. I find his name in the phone book but the motel phone system blocks the exchange. Must be long distance. I heard from others that he is doing well. It would hardly be polite to just spring in on him all of a sudden. Would that I had prepared this trip better. Yesterday I was at the reception until almost evening. Last night I had working on web page about it for  minemen.us . And I need to be back home soonish in case a job offer might come in. Some other time, perchanse. I got, at least, to see three old friends. So it will have to do.

I’d bough a new helmet for this trip. Same kind, but a larger size. Padding on the old had worn out. It is a full-face model, Snell rated. The padding had never squished down the way the salesman had said, so the cheek pads had always gave me a case of fish-mouth by the end of a single day. The discomfort was so distracting as to pose more a hazard than wearing no helmet at all

As I paid for the replacement helmet I announced my destination to the clerk. He mentioned as how the scariest bridge he had ever ridden was right there in Charleston, the one over the Cooper River. Now I had ridden that same bridge no few number of times, on a chopper, and did not understand the big deal. But that was 25 years ago. He said they were building a brand new bridge, a better one. Well, I have to disagree. The new bridge they are building will be utterly cheerless, just an elevated flat slab of concrete. Higher yet than either of the other two, but such that you won’t be able to see a thing, just like I65 over the Tennessee. The old bridge is really two bridges. Two lanes east and one west on the old bridge, and tow lanes coming back east on the really old one. I ride across on the old one, make a U-turn, come back on the really old one, and then switch back again via the Meeting Street exit to head out via the old one again. Not so scary. For a really scary bridge let me recommend him to the ancient relic across the Missouri on ND23 in Sanish ND which looks nearly as if Lewis and Clark might have used it.

From the bridge I have followed US17 to I526 to US52, starting out in leathers. But no sooner than Monks Corner I use breakfast as an escuse to stop at Burger King and get into the rain suit instead. At St Stephen I switch to SC6 because of the green dots marking it as a scenic route in my Rand McNally atlas. Here abouts are parts of the Intracoastal Waterway built by the Army Corps of Engineers. I get a picture of one such. This road runs along Lake Marion and through some pretty rual areas. It is quite nice. I had wanted to make a turnoff onto SC267 so as to keep with the green dots. But even though I’m looking still I miss it. So at St Mathiews is where I switch to US601, which I stay on all the way into North Carolina.

At some point along I change out of the rain suit and back into leathers, as the skys have cleard a bit. Just outside of Kershaw I see a bike to the side of the road. Wondering if they might need help I pull off and alongside. Here I meet Niel Rollins who has stopped to watch a race in progress at the Carolinas Motorsports track. They are having an open competition. I see painted up stock cars running neck and neck with what look like Hondas and other soccer-mom-mobiles that have blundered somehow onto the track and gotten caught in the traffic circle.

It sprinkles off and on through most of North Carolina, almost, but not quite enough to be worth the trouble of getting back into the rain suit. It gets ever hillier until the mountains begin. And with that come low hanging clouds, heavy mist, patches of fog and on-again off-again sprinkles rain. In due course my leathers get damper and damper. The chapse below the knees are soaked from spashing through the occasional puddle. Cold has spurred me to don the balacava, which under the helmet, presses uncomfortably on the ears. Still it keeps my neck nice and warm.

I get to the end of US21, the signs just run out. Here I could pick up US52 again. In fact, in searching for the non-existent continuation of US21 I kind of run into US52. But it is now edging into twilight. And I am just a little tired. The attendant at the Citgo station informs me I had best to take I77 as there are big mountains ahead. The I-state has tunnels through whereas US52 winds over them. Good, I was hoping for mountains just like that, but not in the dark, and certainly not in both dark and in rain. My last ride south took me over some scary mountains through darkest night, the headlight shining off alternately onto steep walls and falling rock signs on one side and into an abyss on the other. Nope, not in the dark this time I don’t think. So I ask for motel recommendations and end up at the Travel Lite, which is pretty nice.

Travel Lite Motel
Wytheville VA US52
Iaeger WV Billie Ann’s
restaurant US52
under US119

Nick Joe Randall III
bridge over Ohio US52 bridge
to Ashland KY US52 runs
along the Ohio US52 bridge
to Maysville KY

The Travel Lite Motel turned out more than comfy, again at $38 per night. It is heated by an electrical radiator along the baseboard of one wall. Last night I had arranged my leathers to hang nearly over it by suspending the jacket from a hanger off the curtain cord and draping the chaps over the side of the second bed. The gloves I bridge between the radiator itself and my shoes. Now all are dry again. I fish out the expensive European water repellent and give them a fresh going over. Reloading the bike, I lock the key in the room and head out, back past the Citgo station and out via US52...toward the big mountains.

Well, big is a relative term. This is nothing like last year when I crossed the Continental Divide via Crows Nest Pass out in British Columbia. But for hereabouts, and of a certain versus Michigan, they are good sized mountains. It is nice. For one thing, there is no snow! Always a plus for a motorcycle. Up and down, like a snake twisiting to and fro. I like it. The only disappointment comes where US52 joins with I77 for to share a tunnel. And this same tunnel I had been through before. It did not show that on the map. That little part’s a downer, but a short-lived one. In several palces US52 criscrosses I77, passing either over or under it. Sometimes I can look down on it. But, just like the Citgo guy had warned, this is taking triple the time. I don’t care. This is nice. It is what I own a bike for in the first place; not just the getting there, but more importantly the how thereof.

Once into West Virgina it gets even better, except for the weather, which is thoroughly wet. Heavy mist and actual rain now most all of the time. One of the towns I pass through is Bluefield. According to what my dad had told me, I have relatives here: 2nd and 3rd cousins. But I haven’t a clue who they are. And nowadays folks don’t reckon that very much of a connection. So it is just a thought. Bleufield, under these gray skys, is pretty depressing. If it were not for the franchise chains I could think I’ve gone back fifty years in time. But then, the streets near to old US52 are most probably not the best real estate in town. There other little towns, just as quaint. In one, the truck route points to a small bridge which leads into Kentucky again. But the bridge is closed. So I take the trough-town route, which at one point is a single lane wide, with cars parked on the left and an ancient stone wall on the right. And no I’m not lost; it is clearly marked. This is the road. An adventure, this is.

Then in Gilbert WV I stop for lunch, a ribeye sandwich, at Billie Ann’s, who’s owner is claimed to be the great (and a few more great’s) granddaughter of Devil Anse Hatfield, of feuding fame. Interestingly, the History Channel had just recently run a full-lenght documentary on the McCoy/Hatfield feud mis-remembered in many a children’s mockumentary cartoon. Quite a story there. Only partly had it started over the alledged theft of a pig. It wound up rather slowly. But once in full motion kept on for a while. There had been feuds just as bad out West, also described on the History Channel, and perhaps as bloody. But this is the one folks seem to like retellingn best. All is quiet now, however. Anyway, Billie Ann’s decor is a strange mix of Christian religous regalia and old photos of Hatfield clan members, and even one of folks gathered for a hanging. Considering Christendom’s own bloody history, I expect they do go together, after all.

Now US52 joins with US119 for a short ways. When it splits again I halt under the US119 overpass to snap a photo. Then before long I am running almost exactly parallel to my trip down. But then I was on the McCoy side of the Ohio River, in Kentucky. Now I am on the Hatfield side. There is a smaller river running right alongside of US52 in most places, and a railroad on the other side of that. In Iaeger WV the road widens a bit under an RR overpass so that I can halt for a picture. For quite a ways it is all up and down, twist and turn. What with having to slow down for so many sharp bends, hours worth of it. The exercise of clutch and throttle are starting to cramp up my hands. Still I would not trade it for the I-state even in this gloom, fog and rain.

Eventually I cross out of West Virgina over the Ohio and into the State of Ohio via the Nick Joe Randall III bridge. As bridges go, it is not so much. But I record it anyway. Still does US52 parallel the Ohio River. And several of the bridges I had passed by on my way down I make the two way ride back and forth on just for grins.

The final noteworty leg of my trip is where US52 runs along the north bank of the Ohio for quite a ways. Rand McNally shows green dots along it. Those are fairly well deserved. Near to where I need to turn north is a thoroughly modern suspension bridge from Aberdeen OH to Maysville KY. This design is very like one I saw a TV show on about a gigantic one across the Mississippi. I cross back and forth over it.

And now I have to switch off at Ripley and take US68 just about due north. The southern part of Ohio holds some interests, but hardly so from a sight-seers perspective the northern part. Very like southern lower Michigan, by and large just flat and dull. But not even one tenth as flat or as dull as Saskatchewan, thank the gods. At US68 runs out. And it is nearing dark. The weather has cleared as well as gotten somewhat cold. So I bop into a McDonalds for a bite, and change back into leathers again. Then it is onto I75, then I475, then I80-90 the Ohio Turnpike. That of course leads to the Indiana Toll road and back home.

So close to home, very late, but not too very tired, I decide on a lark to go through Centerville’s covered bridge again. Through that and somewhere on the other side of the St Joseph river I get turned around in the dark. This area is all rual. I take a few wrong turns and end up going the a wrong way. But you can’t get lost in southern, lower Michigan. Pick any direction and you will run into a highway in short order. So after admitting I’ve hardly a clue which direction I’m now facing, I just follow the road I’m on till I hit M66. Hm... So far north as this? Rather than bring out the atlas I just follow it back south to Nottawa Road as originally intended, then through Vicksburg and up the tail end of Sprinkle road into Kalamazoo.

My own home street is still under construction, so I pull back in the way I had started up, via the neighbor’s private alley and into my own back yard, parking under my son Skajler’s stilt fort. It is four o’clock in the moring and the family is fast asleep. Skajler has my spot next to Karen. Rather than roust him out, I just give them both kisses and go crash out in Skajler’s room.