| Continuing
west on the National Pike, we passed through Clear Spring,
Indian Springs, Hancock, Flintstone, Cumberland and Frostburg
en-route to Grantsville, MD our destination for the night.
Tuesday evening we had dinner at the Penn Alps restaurant in
Grantsville.
Wednesday we continued on the National Pike through Uniontown
and Washington, PA and Wheeling, WV then crossed the mighty Ohio
River into the buckeye state. At this point the road started to
get pretty straight with only a very few curves, peaks and
valleys as we traveled through Cambridge and Zanesville en-route
to Columbus, OH our destination for the night.
Thursday was the big day, we continued on to the Honda
Motorcycle Plant and registered for the Homecoming. After
registration, we continued on to Bellefontaine to attend the
Ohio B2 chapter picnic. There was no charge for the picnic,
however they were raffling off a few items and accepting
donations. This was a great picnic with plenty of good food and
drinks and all the proceeds went to the Pediatric Brain Tumor
Foundation (Ride for Kids). Before the picnic, they had a guided
tour of the Indian Lakes area in Lakeview, OH. It was a great
ride with a good view of the lake. After the picnic, we attended
the ice cream social at the Honda Motorcycle Plant, which was
hosted by the good folks at Honda. Immediately after the ice
cream social, there was a light parade from the Motorcycle Plant
to downtown Bellefontaine. Choosing not to ride in the light
parade, we hotfooted it to Bellefontaine (15 miles) and |
elected
a great locating to view all the bikes as they arrived in town.
There were lots of bikes with dozens even hundreds of lights in
the parade. One guy had so many lights that he installed a
generator to support the electrical demand for all the lights.
Friday morning we arrived early at the Homecoming to register
for demo rides on various Honda model bikes. After getting our
names on the ride list for the Honda 919 and ST1300, we attended
the pancake breakfast hosted by the Honda Riders Club of America
(HRCA). The demo ride was 15 miles with some straight and curvy
roads and we got a pretty good feel for how the bikes performed
and handled. We also took a guided tour of the Motorcycle
Assembly Plant. They were building GL1800 Gold Wings and VTX’s.
In between the plant tour and demo rides, we visited the vendor
expo at the fairgrounds in Marysville and Bellefontaine. Friday
evening, we had a fantastic dinner at the Captains Point
restaurant in Lakeview, OH then stopped for Dairy Queen on our
way back to the hotel.
Saturday we attended Motorman’s demonstration of how to
control a motorcycle doing maneuvers such as starting/stopping,
slow riding, weaving and making very tight U-turns.
He performs an excellent demonstration of controlling
motorcycles and it is amazing how easy he makes it look. Being a
trained Motorcycle Police Officer no doubt contributes a great
deal to his control and handling of motorcycles. We also took a
demo ride on a 750 Shadow. Saturday evening we attended the
celebration dinner and closing ceremonies. They gave away a 2005
Gold Wing, however it did not come home with us! |
Leaving
Sunday morning, we traveled the same roads on our return trip
home. It was great riding weather and we returned to the Comfort
Inn in Grantsville, MD Sunday night.
Acting on a tip from the local gas station attendant, we had
a great seafood dinner at the Hen House restaurant in
Grantsville. If ever in the area, you don’t want to miss this
one!
Shortly after leaving the hotel Monday morning we enjoyed a
"Kodak Moment". There were three beautiful deer
standing along the shoulder of the highway and we slowly passed
by them. Continuing on the National Pike (also known as the
Scenic Byway), we passed through Frostburg, LaVale, Cumberland
and Hancock en-route to the Hagerstown, MD area. Continuing on
to Chambersburg, we picked up US 30 east to York then stopped at
a diner for lunch. After lunch we continued on US 30 to
Lancaster, PA then headed south on route 896 to Delaware.
This was quite a scenic ride with lots of nice sweeping
curves, hills, mountains, valleys, woods and green meadows along
the way. It was also quite neat passing through all the various
little towns and burgs along the way. There were a lot of old
historic homes and buildings in the towns.
Traveling the back roads, national pike and scenic byways
made this a very relaxed and enjoyable trip.
After 1451 enjoyable miles, we made a "safe
arrival" Monday evening.
[email February 2006] |
