Day 3 Sunday, May 29
Summersville, WV to Portsmouth, OH 370 miles

The four of us met in the parking lot at 9AM. We were all taking different routes but would stay together on 39 West for a while. I was surprised to find out that I could not use my Garmin V GPS today. Somehow the power button on my GPS broke. It had sunken in and I could not pull it out, I pressed on it but nothing happened. 39 was also nice and twisty, traveled though some woody areas and a few towns. Bryce took off at 16, and the 3 of us continued. We headed East on 60 though Hawk’s Nest State Park Area. The road was exceptionally twisty and tight though some parts, maybe the tightest curves on this trip, but there were some passing lanes, and some sections the road was very wide, so even if you went wide, you had plenty of run off space. As I went around one of the tighter turns, I saw a tow truck picking up a balled-up and crunchy new black Mazda RX-8.

At 19, Steve went North and Brian and I went South. There were more patrol cars on 19 and there was some traffic though Beckley. South of there, the road became a two-lane and there was open farm county and forest again with sweepers and some tighter corners could be found. In Princeton, we took 20 southwest, a windy road, to Bluewell. We turned west on 52 and the curves started, then we passed Pinnacle Rock State Park. I noticed it too late, I was concentrating on following some super-sweet switchbacks down a big hill to notice a state park entrance I got to the bottom and turned back around to check it out. Towering above the rugged mountains of southeastern West Virginia, Pinnacle Rock is an unusual sandstone formation reaching 3,100 feet above sea level. Above the parking lot there was a relaxing picnic area. It was lunch time so we decided to have lunch here in the park at one of the picnic tables. I hiked up to the top to take some pictures and Brian backtracked east on 52 to the Swiss Burger joint we passed a few minutes ago. He brought with him a Swiss burger, a walleye sandwich, some jalapeño poppers, two brownies and some drinks. Brian said that they took forever to make the food, and after all the effort, it wasn’t even good. But we ate it all since we were hungry. At least we had a good view. The curves continued on 52, tight stuff, sweepers, elevation changes, narrow sections of pavement, wide sections, four lanes, two lanes, passing lanes. Everything could be found right here on this one road. Although I have never seen so many old and interesting towns on a particular road, most of them were unincorporated, so the speed limit was only dropped from 55 to 45 though town, but the bigger towns had a speed limit of 25 to 35MPH through town. For touring purposes, this was a good road and very entertaining, and even though there were so many towns to go though, I was surprised we were making good time on this road.

Once we got to the 119 junction, the road turned in a highway for a bit and there was a huge “welcome to West Virginia” sign over head. Many high speed sweepers and then the road narrowed again. At around 5:30PM we crossed the river in to Kentucky and continued North on 23 to Ashland. We didn’t have a reservation here, but Streets & Trips had indicated a Holiday Inn Express in town. I was planned on staying there unless we found something else. It was still early, so we got some gas and took a long break. For the first time ever on this trip, we were done riding early. We continued North on 23 looking for the Holiday Inn Express but only found a Quality Inn, which was in the same spot as the Holiday Inn should have been. But there were no restaurants near by so we continued North. There was a Best Western further north and seemed like a good location, at least we could walk to get some dinner but they had no vacancies. We rode around town for a bit but there were no other motels here. There goes the idea of getting in early. We still had some daylight left so, we continued north to Portsmouth, OH, which was the next bigger town still relatively on the way home. There was major construction going on 23 and we were detoured and had a tough time locating any motels at first, but finally we found three and chose the Days Inn since it had a restaurant inside and was right next to a Ponderosa, where the other two motels had no restaurants around them. It was already dark when we checked in. The restaurant at the Days Inn closed at 8PM, so we walked over to Ponderosa, which closed 15 minutes earlier at 9PM. We looked across the street and found a Giovanni’s Italian ma and pa place that was open until 10PM. We ordered some cheese bread and lasagna. The thing they called lasagna was tasty (or we were really hungry) but it was not a lasagna at all. Just lasagna noodles with meat sauce with one thick layer of melted mozzarella cheese on top. It was a baked noodle dish. Where were the layers of ricotta cheese and meat? Weather wise, it was a good riding day. It started very foggy but the fog burned off by the time we left in the morning and it was in the low to mid 60’s for most of the day, towards the afternoon it got a bit warmer, in mid to upper 70’s for about two hours or so. I though we would get some rain, there was rain clouds above for a while and it sprinkled some but no rain. The night remained warm in the low to mid 60’s.

Day 4 Monday, May 30
Portsmouth, OH to West Chicago, IL 473 miles

The morning was overcast and rain was coming, according to the all-knowing weather people. Cincinnati was going to have rain in the afternoon they said. I was hopping to be far away from there by the time it started coming down although Chicago was expecting some rain also in the afternoon. Hopefully we would miss all the rain somehow. Since we were further North than originally planned, I figured out a new route for today. We left at 8:30AM and headed North on 23. We turned West on 348, which started as a wide road but got narrow quickly. It ran though hills, farms and forests and it had many turns, not a twisty road, more of a windy road with some bumpy pavement in places. We turned on 73 west, which continued same as the previous road. Then, the drizzle came. Rain in the afternoon my foot, and we were still east of Cincinnati. It wasn’t too bad, there was no traffic so we kept going and having fun, the road had many 45-35MPH turns. Then the rain came, not too bad at first, then it got harder. I was looking for a clearing in the clouds, a hint of blue sky, something telling me soon it would stop…nothing. Traffic got heavy before we reached Hillsboro. We pulled over in town for gas, as I added another layer, it was chilly in the low 60’s now and the rain made it feel colder yet. After a longer than needed break, we continued. The rain started pouring hard. I had rain gloves with me but I didn’t have them on. My regular gloves were now soaked through, which takes a lot of rain to accomplish. Rain was also entering from the gauntlet. I even had some rain coming in my left boot, where it was getting in from the top. At some point it was pretty miserable riding, the helmet visor was fogging up and my brakes were wet or something, because every time I squeezed the front brake lever the loud squeaking noise started and the bike wasn’t slowing down as fast as I wanted it to. Traffic was light for a while but then it got heavy again as we approached Springboro. We pulled over one more time at a gas station so that Brian could put on his rain pants. You would know it, by the time we reached Springboro it had stopped raining, we got gas again, Brian took off his rain pants and we headed northwest on 123 to Germantown. More sweeping curves lead us to 725 west to Gratis, where we took 503 with more nice curves North to I-70.

All the roads were nice and traveling though the least populated areas. I enjoyed the route except for the rain. All the roads had nice curves and nice scenery, there were many hills and some nice farms, forests and cute small towns. Portions of this route remind me of Wisconsin, but with bigger hills. There was nothing where 503 intersected I-70, so we got on the interstate and headed West. We were looking to stop for lunch since leaving Springboro, but most of the places in the little towns were closed for the holiday. We spotted some restaurants at the Richmond, IN exit. We decided on Red Lobster, which had outside seating. The skies were blue now and the temperatures in the low 70’s, perfect weather. We spread all of our wet gear in the grass next to the parking lot to dry in the sun while we enjoyed some sea food on the patio. After lunch we continued on I-70 to I-65 North. We made one more quick stop for gas and continued. The traffic got heavier and heavier, it wasn’t all that bad though Indianapolis but got progressively worst further North. By the time we reached Lafayette, I needed to get off the interstate already, I couldn’t take it anymore. The both lanes were packed with cars, the passing left lane sometimes going slower than the right lane. We were only traveling at speed limit or 5MPH over at times. The temperature was in the in the high 70’s now but the heat from all the cars made it feel like it was warmer than that. We took the exit for RT 24, we needed gas again. I had no intention on heading further north on the interstate, it was only going to get worst and the traffic around Chicago would be horrible. We still had enough daylight to take the long way in. Same way we came from Indiana a month ago, it wasn’t that bad, how many miles was it? I couldn’t remember but at least we would be moving faster and with no traffic. 24 was pretty empty, the road was boring just as I remembered it and straight, the sun was blinding me. We turned on 47 and got gas again near I-55. No time to linger, I wanted to get home before it got dark, we continued until we reached the far edge of suburbia and continued straight for home. Traffic was light and we were home just a few minutes before 9PM.

As for West Virginia, I like it. I enjoyed the roads of West Virginia more than Tennessee and North Carolina, better roads and less traffic, nicer scenery. I’ll be back.

 

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