Route 66 - Day 1
So today we started our big trip which is based around driving the entire Route 66 mother road. We met at 8am at my house, went over a few things and took off.
Once we hit the highway, I we set our cruise and boom, first problem. My cruise would not engage.
Now one of the first things to check with a cruise control is that the brake is not on. I checked everything and still would not engage. I had Kirk get behind me and sure enough, my brake lights were always on. Dammit. We stopped to see if something was stuck and another guy in a car stopped to help as well (rides a Harley). Nope. So we made the decision to head to the dealer. Luckily it is in Greensboro about 45 minutes away.
Once there, the folks at Select Cycle were great. They jumped right on it knowing we were starting our big trip. Now just for clarification, we bought our bikes at this dealership and still do all our maintenance there as well but even so, I was very impressed that they had one mechanic stop to work on it.
We arrived about 9:45 am. We said that if it was not fixedby noon, we will need to start the next day. This was the first issue like this the dealership had seen for this bike and had a hard time narrowing down the issue. The main reason is in order to properly diagnose it, you need to remove the gas tank. We gave them some more information about the testing we did and at 11:30, the bike was fixed. It was the foot brake switch. We jumped on and headed for Ohio.
The worst part was it was raining. Not too bad but enough. Lets just say it NEVER stopped the entire day. It would let up and tease you that the sun was coming out ONLY to turn a corner and see the thunderstorm from hell facing you. We had a time commitment. We needed to drive 350 miles in a short time period so we drove through it all.
The first really nasty storm hit us in North Carolina. Lighting and wind and pelting rain. We slowed. With this amount of rain, yes, I got damp. Especially down the front of my shirt (from the collar on my jacket). Eventually this storm let up and we did have a brief moment of sunshine and hope. We stopped for gas then headed back out.
We were able to ride a bit without rain and needed a bio break so we stopped at a rest area. After a quick snack, we headed back out.
It was short lived. Soon another ominous storm loomed on the horizon. This one was worse and it was happening while we were in the mountains of West Virginia. Just like before, wind, pelting rain, lighting...it never would stop.
We finally got off the main highway and took a back road toward Ohio. This was a beautiful ride except for the rain, the high water in the roads, the gravel all over the road, and the never ending rain. Needless to say, we did not stop for pictures.
At one point, we were riding about 55 mph and the entire road was covered in over 2 inches of water. I was very happy how our bikes handled this unexpected surprise. No issues. We finally were getting out of the mountains and once we did, the skies started to clear. We got on a nice 4 lane highway with sunshine in our face. We were headed to the Baxters Harley Davidson dealership to meet up with our bunk a biker host. They had an owners meetings and food. We got there at 6 and ate hamburgers, hotdogs, grilled peppers, and beer.
I was still soaked but drying out. The food and beer helped. It was nice talking with the folks there. Once done, we headed for our hosts house after stopping for gas. What a cool road he lives on. It was a fun ride.
Once we arrived, he has a camper for all his guests and it was perfect. We unloaded and started hanging things to dry out. Once unpacked, we looked at what we needed to do for Day 3. We contacted another host and booked it. I then took a shower and hit the bed. What a day. And that was only the first one.
In the morning, we are headed out to treat our host to breakfast. Once cool thing about this area are the Amish. Lots of horse drawn buggies everywhere. Just be careful of all the poop in the road.
Total miles today? 404.