Day two started out with us having the complimentary continental breakfast at the hotel. Just some self made waffles, bagels and whatnot. Hit the road and continued south on i79. It looked like it could rain at any time so we put on the rainpants and rainboots. We got no real rain aside from a little light sprinkling a couple of times. We rolled into Charleston WV around lunchtime and stopped at a Hardee's. It was blazing hot by this time and it no longer looked like rain so we removed the raingear.
I have decided that Hardee's is officially my favourite burger place. I had a Jalepeno cheeseburger. It kicked ass. Definitely something I wish I could ge here in Canada. We did have a rather amusing experience at the Hardee's though. Amy asked for a Grilled Chicken sandwich, only she wanted half the mayo on it. The girl behind the counter had two things going against her. A) We could barely understand her and B) She could barely understand us! It was at this point that we decided we were not in Kansas anymore Toto! We seemed to have reached that line were we were in the south. We managed to get our food, normal mayo on the chicken, but rather than try to explain it further Amy just said forget it. I think if she had have asked for double mayo it would have been easily understood. I can just imagine the girl later talking with coworkers. "Y'all won't believe this! I had dis crazy Yankee wantin' LESS mayo!"
We rode through Charleston, which is an interesting ride along i64 through the city. You cross a rather large bridge, then proceed through some big sweeping turns that have elevation changes. I can only imagine how many accidents happen along this stretch in inclement weather. The ride along i64 was pretty much uneventfull untill we got into Kentucky.
About 30 minutes into Kentucky, we are riding along, me out in front and Amy behind to my left, when I catch sight of a bird to my right. I duck as it passes very close to my head. I look back at Amy and see the bird heading upwards and away. I make a motion as if to say "whew, that was close" and she motions to pull off. We pull into the rest area and I ask her if she saw that bird, she tells me "YEA! It hit me on the head!". She had specks of bird doo doo all over her faceshield, jacket and helmet! She was ok, nothing more than a "thump" sound ringing through the helmet. Times like this I am very glad she insists on always wearing a helmet. Taking a bird off the head at 75mph would be a lot more damaging without a helmet. Once the bird crap was cleaned up, we headed back out on i64.
Around Winchester, we headed down route 627. This is a convenient little way to avoid Lexington. Its a nice ride down some 2 lane backroads. Not too much traffic or stops once you get out of Winchester. Problem is that it seems to be regularly patrolled by the police. Last time we went through here I noticed the cops. Since 2006 when Amy and I got stopped for speeding on the Blue Ridge Parkway, I have been extra carefull not to speed too much. I don't like to be the fastest thing on the road. I kept the speed down to 5 over. There were cars behind me, but I had no desire for a ticket. Along that stretch, I saw 3 cop cars, one pulling someone over and another with someone already pulled over. If anyone takes this route, be wary of the police. We stopped for gas along that stretch as well. Unfortunately when Amy was pulling away from the pumps, she caught her saddlebag on my license plate. I have these bullit shaped bolts with fins on them. The bag caught, pulled my bike upright a little, then the bag ripped open on the seam. These are pretty nice Technic expandable bags too. Damn. At least the ripped insted of pulling my bike down. Amy picked up some safety pins and sealed the breach temporarily.
Once we got to i75, we jumped back on the Interstate and headed down toward Knoxville. This is a pretty nice stretch for interstate. Nice scenery and the speeds are pretty good. We had a scare as we were riding along. Amy and I were pretty close, riding side by side almost, when something flew up from underneath a truck infront of us. At first glance it looked like a piece of sheet metal. Scared the crap out of me. If flew up right between us. Turned out to just be a piece of cardboard about 2'x1', but it certainly scared me stiff. Unfortunately I wasn't so lucky about an hour later.
Riding along, I saw something silver and roundish pop out from under the wheel of a semi truck infront of me. I was about 50 feet behind it. It skittered along the blacktop. I held my line and watched it get closer, then wammo, it hit me in the shin. I looked down and saw it go off to my left at a 45 degree angle. Looked like a giant acorn nut. I am pretty sure it was a lugnut. My leg felt like Sammy Sosa took a homerun swing at it with a Louisville Slugger! The only good news was that it hit me on the padded part of my boot. Another 6 inches up and it probably would have shattered my Tibia!
We stopped for the night in Williansburg KY. We stayed at the Cumberland Inn. We stayed at this hotel last year on our Deal's Gap trip. This place is very interesting. It's run by the Cumberland College. They hire students at the college, the restaurant hires Chef's in training. There is a good sized museum onsite that features thousands of stuffed and mounted animals. Everything from Polar Bears to Field Mice. Apparantly the animals were almost all killed on hunting expeditions by the founder of the Cumberland College. Another rather strange exhibit at the museum is the Carl Williams cross museum. It was closed when we were last here so we never got a chance to see it. This time, however, the museum was completely closed so we didn't get a chance to have another look at the animals. It is definitely worth stopping in for. We were really looking foreward to staying here again and eating at the restaurant as it was very good last time. Turns out, its closed for dinner on Sundays! Augh. We ended up eating at the Pizza Hut down the road as neither of us felt like riding any further for the day. We had done around 680kms for the day.
It started pouring rain back at the hotel. Didn't last long, but the clouds were black as night, just as quickly as it began, it was done. I managed to snap this picture just outside our hotel room.
A double rainbow. This was something to behold. You can see the dark clouds in the background, but it doesn't do them justice. After a dip in the pool, back at the room, I popped outside again and looked up. The clouds were moving across the sky low and fast. They looked truly nasty. I was guessing it was going to storm bad that night. Glad we never had any of that through the course of riding today. I don't remember it storming bad that night, but we slept pretty heavy as the room was very comfortable and we were pretty tired considering we spent about 2 hours sewing up the saddlebag tear using a emergency sewing kit and more safety pins :)
This was our ride for the day. about 680kms.
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