Vacation is here! Today we traveled approximately 470 miles
to our first destination, Knoxville, TN. We got an early start leaving at 7am
under cloudy skies. Instead of traveling I81 all day as originally planned, we
took US29 to Lynchburg and then went west on US460 into Roanoke, connecting to
I81 south for the remainder or day. Taking US29 allowed us to avoid the truck
traffic for a good 200+ miles.
We had a few drops of rain (I counted 2 on the Wing’s
windscreen) in the morning but by the time we were on the south side of
Charlottesville, the clouds broke to reveal blue skies. We made good time with
minimal traffic and took our first break just south of Lynchburg at 10am. After
our break, we rode a few more hours in windier conditions, and had lunch just
south of Christiansburg about 100 miles north of the VA-TN border. Our quirky
photo of the day went by too fast to actually take a photo—it was a Goldwing
motorcycle pulling another motorcycle on a trailer. We hope he wasn’t going
far!
Just prior to crossing over to TN, we made two quick stops
in Bristol, VA to finish up our 2013 Motorcycle Grand Tour of Virginia by
collecting our last stamps. One of the dealership employees at Atlas Cycles
said we missed the Goldwings Across Tennessee group by one day, over 40
Goldwings riding to raise money for St. Judes. What a sight that would have
been! This dealership also had a miniature dachshund in the showroom that was
not interested in us whatsoever despite Michele’s best efforts to coax it over.
Our next and last stamp stop was Black Wolf Harley Davidson. An older gentleman
was window shopping and had his little black and tan service dog Chihuahua with
him, her name was Apple. She apparently loves riding on the bike, and after
allowing us to scratch her a bit, she trotted to the front door ready to hit
the road.
Once into TN, the remaining 140 miles went smoothly.
As we
approached Knoxville during rush hour, traffic picked up dramatically and we
were alerted to heavy congestion on I40 by both the highway signs and XM
traffic. Taking the hints, we diverted onto I640 to bypass Knoxville and were
able to maintain normal speed without slowdowns.
We arrived at our hotel at around 5pm today and after
checking in and unloading the bike, we walked over to Cracker Barrel for
dinner.
Tomorrow’s destination is Arkansas. The weather forecast is
calling for the morning in the low 50s warming into the low 80s with sunny
skies.
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