Day 36 Chantilly, Ocean City Md, to home

WE DID IT!  It has taken me a couple days to post this. We put in our longest day on the motorcycles on July 9th because we really wanted to get home. 

We were up at 4 am and on the road at 5:15 am from our hotel at Washington Dulles Airport. We wanted to get through Washington DC before the traffic became too heavy. It was 70 miles across DC to the Bay Bridge.  I have been on the Bay Bridge more times than I can count but it was my first time crossing on our motorcycles. It was such a beautiful morning I wish I could have stopped and took a picture. Of course, for safety that wasn’t possible. 

Still can’t believe we drove from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean. We walked on the boardwalk and went to the end of the pier. Of course I had to shop a little. There definitely were not the crowds you usually see. 

We left Ocean City and took the Coastal Hwy Rt 1 up the coast into Delaware. 

We stopped in Rehoboth Beach for an amazing meal. We had that homemade soup first and it was delicious. Then I had Caramelized Salmon and Wade had Blackened Hallibut. While we ate we decided we really wanted to get home. We weren’t sure in the heat if we could make it but figured we would just start heading home and see where we got to. 

Thankfully with taking backroads we were able to be on a lot of shaded roads that really make a difference on the heat. I definitively couldn’t do the route again. We were on so many backroads which really helped make the drive interesting. We went through Port Deposit MD which was such a pleasant surprise. What a beautiful ride and going over the dam was gorgeous!  Once we reached Rt 30 in York County we knew where we were but honestly until that point we were on roads we had never been on. We arrived home at 6:30 pm. It was a long day but boy did home look good. 

This was such an amazing site to get home too. This was my Grandma’s cactus and it normally blooms in June. But due to our cold May I didn’t put it outside until right before we left in early June. I never expected it to still be blooming when I arrived home. 

Wow that is a lot of miles in the seat on this trip. I honestly had doubts whether I could get this trip done but I made it. I had a total knee replacement in January and less than 5 months later took off on this trip. I received a handicap placard good for 6 months when I had my knee replacement. So glad I didn’t need it.  I feel so blessed that I was able to heal and complete this trip.

Home never looked so good. Wade and I had completed being though all 50 states back in 2016 when we took 5 weeks in a car and spent it on the road covering some of the western states we needed to see. We didn’t count landing in an airport as being in the state.  We had already spent significant time in each state. This trip took us on completely different routes through those states for the most part. We had been on small sections of Rt 66 and on some sections of US 50. 

So for this trip we were in 18 states and Wash DC. The states were Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware.  We were through Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania twice on different routes. We visited 6 new National Parks.

Bucket List Item Completed ✔️

Day 35 Parkersburg WV to Chantilly VA

I saw my favorite bumper sticker on this trip today:

“I believe in dragons, good men and other fantasy creatures!”

Wade and I chuckled over this one😊

We had a great morning of riding. The temperature was very comfortable. We were in the mountains of WV most of the morning so that helped keep the temperatures down. We did hit some fog but it didn’t last long thankfully. We stopped at this store in WV for our first break.  They had a lot of different kinds of products for sale, definitely a general store. Thought it was cool that it has been open since 1929. 

We pretty much stayed on US 50 all day. We went from WV to MD, back to WV, then into Virginia. We have previously been on most of US 50 that we covered today. 

We really enjoyed going through the towns of Middleburg and Aldie in Virginia. Such cute little towns. Tonight we are staying very close to Washington Dulles Airport. Should be at the beach tomorrow. 

Day 34 Seymour, Indiana to Parkersburg, West Virginia

Our ride this morning was nice and cool. My favorite part today was going through Cincinnati on US 50 which runs along the Ohio River. The views were pretty but there really wasn’t a safe spot to pull over and take a picture. I was worried about traffic through Cincinnati but there really wasn’t much on our route through the city.

By late afternoon the temperatures really started to climb. It was so nice when we would go through an area with a lot of trees along the road. It is amazing how shade lowers the temperatures. But the heat definitely gets to us.

Several people have asked about our behinds getting sore from all this riding. For me, it has mostly been my hands that get sore. By the time we get to the end of our riding for the day, my hips also will start hurting. Wade had his butt hurt a little at the beginning but his neck has been his biggest issue. We ride most days around 300 miles. Some days like yesterday are 350 and today was 290. That is mostly determined by where we are staying for the night. 

We left most of our camping stuff at our Missouri house this past weekend because the temperatures are just too high to camp. We don’t get our hotel until sometime during the day. We usually have an approximate location of where we want to go and at one of our stops we start looking for hotels. Most of our hotel stays have been at Hampton’s and the second is Holiday Inn Express. 

We are definitely missing the grandchildren. We FaceTime a lot but it is still not the same. Jane pulled out a tooth today. She still doesn’t have her top two teeth in yet and now she is missing one on the bottom. Definitely is snaggletooth!  Bryce is into hockey and likes to show off his skills. He likes to talk on FaceTime more than Jane. She can’t sit still. Today I did a 3-way FaceTime call with Andrea and Courtney and the kids. There were lots of laughs and I got to see Andrea’s new apartment she moved into on Monday.  

Hopefully tomorrow I will take a picture😊. We are closer to home and these are the states we have visited a lot. 

Day 33 Fredericktown MO to Seymour Indiana

We hadn’t even made it to Illinois and we came to a stop sign and I saw one of my headlights was hanging out of the frame. Neither Wade or I saw the outer ring come off. Wade was following me so you would have thought one of us would have seen it happen. Thankfully Wade had electrical tape and he was able to tape it back in place and it still works. 

We crossed the Mississippi River at Chester Illinois. Chester is home to “Popeye the Sailor Man”. The character Popeye is based on a real person and was created by Elzie Crisler Segar born in Chester in 1894. Several of the characters in the cartoon were created from his experiences with people in the town of Chester. The character Popeye was based on Frank ‘Rocky’ Fiegal, who was a one-eyed, pipe smoking brawler who never turned down a fight. Fiegel did not eat spinach but the rest of the caricature fit the Sailor Man exactly. Fiegel was a bartender who loved children and would impress them with his feats of strength. He also had a corncob pipe. 

Shortly before we crossed into Indiana, another strap broke on my luggage. I have been so blessed that none of the three straps that have broken have ended up in my wheel or caused me to have an accident. 

Tomorrow I need to go back to scenic photos instead of motorcycle issues😳

Day 31 and 32 Fredericktown MO

We enjoyed a nice weekend at our house. Friday night we went to the winery for dinner. 

Saturday we did some chores around the house. We power washed all the railing on the wrap around porch. It really needed done and was past due. Wade had to do some maintenance on the pool solar system. The crows have been pulling the plugs out that he puts in if a leak is sprung. He had to go get some silicone. Hopefully they don’t get their beaks stuck to the silicone until it dries.  Saturday afternoon and evening we spent with our good friends and had a nice day.  

Sunday, Wade was under the weather and rested most of the day. I did our laundry, cleaned the house and watched some of the NASCAR race. Sunday evening we took our motorcycles to the car wash and stopped for some ice cream. 

Day 30 Nevada MO to Fredericktown MO

We had a great day driving across the backroads of Missouri to get to our house in Fredericktown MO. The roads were nice and curvy and fun to drive. We thought we would hit rain but we managed to avoid it the entire trip. It was overcast most of the trip which kept the temperatures down and made for a very nice ride. About 40 miles from the house, the sun came out and it warmed up considerably. 

We had to avoid so many turtles on the road today that I lost track of how many. We also saw a live snake. We had a deer cross the road a little ways in front of us but I really kept an eye out for them today. The backroads of Missouri don’t have a berm to the road. The weeds come right to the edge of the driving area. It makes it very hard to see something coming onto the road in front of you. 

So far on this trip we have had to watch for free range cattle, free range horses, elk, wild burro’s, pigs, deer, rabbits, big horn sheep and now turtles. We also had an area in Nevada where all these large bugs like Locust were crawling all over the road. Wade says a bird just missed hitting my helmet by inches as well. 

Our driveway into our Missouri house is a long, hilly gravel driveway. Thankfully we don’t have to drive our motorcycles down the driveway. Our great friends, Leo and Jana, allow us to park our motorcycles at their house under their carport. We can’t thank them enough for all they do for us. 

This is me resting after getting dressed in something other than jeans since June 9th. I also put makeup on for the first time since June 9th. Definitely a few days not riding motorcycles is exactly what we needed.  Now off to the winery for dinner with friends. 

Day 29 Dodge City KS to Nevada MO

On this trip we have driven in temperatures in the 30’s, temperatures over 100, rain, very windy conditions, and now heavy fog. 

The fog was so heavy that the windshields were completely soaked while riding and our pants were soaked from the knees down. I had to ride with my face shield up looking over the windshield.  My biggest fear was deer but thankfully there was very little traffic and we could drive slow. This section of US 50 out of Dodge City was really wide so if a vehicle came up behind us we had plenty of room to move off to the side and let them pass. The sun couldn’t poke through the fog until 8 am, over two hours after Sunrise. 

The weather forecast called for it to get hot into the 90’s quickly today but there was a huge storm ahead of us that formed over Wichita. We stayed just behind the storm most of the ride and it stayed overcast and the temperatures were very pleasant. We managed to stay out of the rain as well. It didn’t get hot until we crossed into Missouri about the last hour of our ride. 

There still wasn’t anything on the eastern side of Kansas to take pictures of but it was a lot greener, more corn than wheat, lots of irrigation and lots of combines. 

The roads on this trip overall have been really good. There were definitely rough sections on Rt 66 but that was expected since it was decommissioned in the 80’s. But overall, I have been impressed with the roads. PA has one of the highest gas taxes and some of the worst roads. They need to manage their funds better!

There was a great bar and grill within walking distance of the hotel. The appetizers were huge. 

To date, we have had no issue finding hotels or places to sit down and eat. A couple times we have ate outside by our bikes because they only had takeout but that has been very few times and one of those was McDonald’s for breakfast. We actually have had the most issues finding campgrounds open. We haven’t camped near as often as we planned. We will get to our Missouri house tomorrow and we need to decide if we will just let the camping gear there to pick up when we come back in the vehicle.  It’s a lot of stuff to carry to not use. 

 

Day 28 Pueblo CO to Dodge City KS

We were up early to start our day at sunrise to get our miles in before the temperatures became unbearable. We started the day at 53 degrees in our leather coats and by lunch it was 92 degrees. 

This caboose sitting at McDonald’s was interesting. There is not a lot to take pictures of going across Kansas. It is mainly corn and wheat fields. The many cattle feed lots where they load the cattle on rail cars were very interesting and I would have taken pictures of those but the wind was seriously too strong to stop the bikes along the road and try to take pictures. Wade and I both were worn out fighting the wind on the bikes. We stopped several times at gas stations to give our arms a rest. This was the worst wind day we have had.

 

It was a welcome treat to get to Dodge City and head to the Boot Hill. The lager we had is similar to what would have been served in the late 1800’s in a saloon and it was good. 

I think Wade was feeling comfortable 😂

It was cool seeing Gunsmoke on these old televisions. 

 

Then there was a shootout between cattle rustlers and the law enforcement 😉

The Boothill Museum and Cemetery were very interesting. The museum has so many artifacts and such great information. We enjoyed our afternoon and evening learning about life in the 1800’s in Dodge City. Of course, we had to have steaks for dinner. Now we need to watch some Gunsmoke. 

Day 27 Gunnison CO to Pueblo CO

We went over the Monarch Pass today after leaving Gunnison. Since we were heading East we were in the outside lane climbing the mountain and there are so many drop offs without guard rails. That has been a frequent event in many of the National Parks we have been in on this trip. That can be scary in a car but definitely a white knuckle moment on a motorcycle. Of course, the higher we climbed the colder it was. It was 37 degrees at the top. The people in the restaurant/gift shop at the top said it was snowing a few hours earlier. Later in the day it reached 89 degrees. It is definitely a challenge on the motorcycles adjusting to the crazy temperature swings we encounter each day. 

The size of the snow plow tells you what they get for snow in the winter. When we came off the mountain there were a lot of people rafting the South Arkansas River at the base of the mountain. 

As we headed towards Pueblo Colorado the land became flatter and the wind picked up. When we reach Pueblo the gusts were crazy. 

We had a short riding day because we had appointments at Outpost Harley Davidson in the afternoon to get our motorcycles their 10,000 mile service. My rear tire didn’t need replaced quite yet but it was close so I had it replaced as well. It’s not worth taking a chance on the motorcycles. Thankfully Cracker Barrel and the Hampton were within walking distance of the dealership so we were able to have a nice meal and get our laundry done at the Hampton while our bikes were getting serviced.