Write2ride and 3Dchief coast to coast

Tomorrow is the big day! Write2ride and 3dchief depart on our 3 month coast to coast and TAT adventure. We have been planning this trip for over 2 years and the day has finally come! See our writeup and intro in Trip Planning: http://advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=781308

We will be starting the trip from NE Indiana, traveling to NC to the Outer Banks to start the coast to coast portion, catch the TAT in TN, and travel to OR to finish, then to Missoula, MT to start our new life by the end of August. So far it looks to be about 10,000 miles, but we will see when this is all over!

We will try to update our ride report daily. Lots of pictures on here and on Smugmug. Supposedly Write2ride will be posting her version on here as well. Because of the timeframe, we will be traveling slowly and taking it all in. There should be plenty of time to take in the sights and share them with you all. I will be running my SPOT tracker, also linked in my sig line, so give us a shout when we get to your area. We will get into details about the bikes/route/gear as we go along.

This will be our first big ride and first ride report, so be patient! Please tag along and join us in our big adventure!


Tim & Cheryl

Yee-hah! Best wishes for all the fun you can stand.

Miss you guys!

subscribed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Enjoy, Enjoy and Enjoy. When do you plan on being in Arkansas and Oklahoma?

We will be in Arkansas around June 15-20th, just a guess.

We have a little bit of a weather delay this morning, so taking our time packing the bikes up and plan on leaving in about 2 hours after the rain passes. Planning on about 275 miles today, finishing up around Zanesville, OH somewhere.

Tim

Lucky you!

The first day is done! 283 miles of country roads, about 50% dirt. We rode for about 9 hours, getting to the campsite at Dillon Lake State Park around 9pm. Everything worked well, even though I was a little concerned about the routing on the GPS. We had several re-routes because of bridges out and only had a problem with the first re-route. The GPS shut down on me instead of re-routing. It loaded right back up and worked fine after that. I did forget to re-start the SPOT though, so that is why about an hour of our progress wasn't tracked until I remembered it. We re-organized the packing on the bikes a couple of times just to make it more comfortable and I think this morning when we packed up camp that we have our final packing setup. Now for the pics!

Odometer on the DR650 at the start of the trip:



Odometer on the XT225 at the start of the trip:



Cheryl ready to roll out:



Tim ready to roll out:



Typical Ohio country road, about what I expected when routing this leg of the trip:



One of the surprise roads, we hit about a dozen of these county roads that show on the map as a road, but are just farmer's lanes. Very cool surprise!


That one was actually pretty nice, it had fresh gravel. Several of them were a bit muddy and slippery in places from the morning rain. An easy warmup for some of the stuff coming up!

Today will be a bit less ambitious, planning on stopping somewhere in WV tonight to camp. The scenery has gotten a lot nicer the last 50 miles, so looking forward to what today will bring!


Tim

Over night my light, nimble bike turned into a big, heavy pig. The first 20 miles, I was wondering what the hell I was doing. Then I started getting the hang of it. By then we were on dirt, and I was getting used to the extra weight. By mile 50, it sunk in that we are really doing this. We aren't going to turn around and head back to the house. That was when I started getting excited.

My wrist started hurting about mile 80. I swear there was a stop or a turn every mile going through the farm land. I don't think I've ever shifted that much in my life. We made a couple stops for food or to just stretch our legs. By mile 200 I was cussing up a storm in my helmet. We left a day early, just so if I wanted to wuss out and not ride all day I could. It was probably about half an hour of swearing before I realized that there just wasn't anywhere to stop. We were on narrow country roads and the only thing around us were fields and houses. When we stopped, I didn't say anything, but Tim still explained that there were no campgrounds anywhere in the area, and that was why we were pushing through.

Mile 283 we stop at Dillon State Park. I was tired and focused on getting the tent set up while Tim paid for the site. Thankfully, we had grabbed some food about 20 miles back, so all I had to do was roll out the sleeping bag and collapse.

I hope to be in West Virginia by the end of the day.

NICE! subscribed...

Subscribed

Day 2 is in the books and just now getting to the internet to post the results. About 90% of the day was dirt and really good prep for the TAT. As we got near WV, things got really scenic and the roads more sketchy. We got in 208 miles before calling it a day at Tygart Lake State Park near Grafton, WV. The day was not as smooth sailing as it sounds right now, but some pics first and then we will get to the not so fun part.

Typical road in Eastern Ohio:






Write2ride questioning my navigation skills!


Crossing the Ohio River:


This guy says the road goes through.....sort of! What? Is that a challenge?


Starts looking "not like the other roads so far"!


Suddenly we have a couple of these:




And then a couple of these:



"So explain to me one more time how this happened?"

"Road" gets sketchier:



Screw it, I'll just nap here and wait for you to decide what to do!



At this point we got smart and turned around. The GPS also showed that the trail ended in another 1/4 mile and I was tired of picking up someone who shall remain unnamed's bike. The roads after that got better, although you can see my impatience here:



Now's when things go south quickly! We stopped at a small restaurant in Hundred, WV, AKA heart attack capitol of the world! Everything there is smothered in gravy! Cool for me, not so much for Cheryl as she is gluten intolerant and can't have gravy. I can't complain too much, as the first steak came out smothered in gravy and I'm not one to let food go to waste, so I ate her steak in addition to mine. When she ordered a plain chicken breast, they looked at her like she had two heads. Anyhow....somewhere in the process, she got some gluten into her system. Cue stomach cramps, total loss of energy, general not feeling well, and we won't even go into the grouchiness factor!

That was enough adventure for her and we boogied 50 miles on paved roads to Tygart Lake SP. This morning, she finally figured out what was going on when she couldn't eat and was still exhausted after 10 hours of sleep. We decided to stay here another day and after a Benadryl and lounging around all day, she is doing much better.

Several interesting facts we have learned in the past 2 days:

1. If the locals say "sure, it goes through....sort of", turn around immediately! They are just looking for a photo opportunity!

2. If you have never been to a Walmart in WV, check it out, it is worth your time to people watch! I have been to Walmarts all over the USA and not much surprises me, but this one was quite the experience! Apparently I was the oddity though, as everyone was staring at me!

Tomorrow we will get back on the road and plan to finish up in Charlottesville, VA. Plans are changing as we speak, so not sure what our plans will be for the weekend, but I'll post as we have internet access.


Tim

I knew that my gluten intolerance was going to be a problem on this trip, but I didn't understand how bad or soon it would be effecting me. The time we were supposed to be pulling out of camp this morning, I was curling up with stomach cramps. At first I thought it was from the little road side dinner we stopped at last night. I thought they were going to tell me that they couldn't serve food without gravy on it, but the second plate they brought out I could eat. Ends up it was the caramel popcorn I bought at lunch time. And, I am going to use this as my excuse for dropping my bike yesterday.

Tim found some great roads across Ohio. I don't think we were on more than 10 miles of pavement. When we crossed the river and were in West Virginia, things changed a little bit. Some of the roads we were supposed to take didn't exist. So, we tried the next dirt one we saw, and it degraded fast. I wasn't doing well in the rutted mud, and quickly got tired of picking up my bike. I was really questioning if I should be doing this trip, but I can hope that it was because I was sick, and wont have any more problems.

Tonight we are having a great dinner at the lodge of Tygart Lake State Park. Wifi at the table. A nice steak and potatoes to push the yucky food through. We should be back on the road in the morning.

Oh, and I am tired of bugs. Crushed one that was in my shoe this morning. I think it was a grasshopper, based on the crumbled remains. Thankfully not something that could bite me. Then a moth flew into the pan while I was making scrambled eggs. I launched him out with the spatula, and he flew away. Unfortunately, I know that they are just going to get worse as we head south.

Tim, you guys rock. The pictures tell stories in and of themselves. Use that good CG training and remember not to ever trust one instrument for navigation...always double and triple check, but you knew that. Hey, have a good time...living the dream. I'll be making a few entries on FB with my travels after Saturday...hopefully.

Lunchtime in WV, waiting out a rain squall. We have been avoiding a big storm fairly successfully so far. Cheryl is doing much better. No real plans today other than to keep going and get into VA by tonight. Posting from my Droid, so more info and pics later!

Tim

Made it to Harrisburg, VA tonight. We rode some incredible dirt roads today and the scenery was breathtaking. Rode a fabulous road near Shiloh, WV that was in and out of the clouds. Riding in the clouds was kind of bizarre with 100 feet of visibility. Weather finally caught up with us right as we crossed into VA. Had dinner at a gas station/mini-mart/diner in Fulks Run, VA with awesome fried chicken. Got there just as the rain really opened up, so we spent about an hour telling and retelling our story while we ate. We decided that there was no way we wanted to set up a tent in the rain, plus weather was calling for hail, high winds, and thunderstorms, so we decided to get a hotel room.

When we got a break in the rain, we took off for Harrisburg, but only made it about 7 miles before it opened up again. Pulled into a carwash and waited it out, watching the break in the clouds get closer but never quite reaching us. Finally gave up waiting as patience isn't our strong point and made a dash for a hotel. Found a room for $43 a night, slightly rough around the edges, but free wifi and a roof that doesn't leak!

The good news is that our jackets are very waterproof. Pants not so much! But neither of us had on our rain pants. I was wearing my Klim mesh pants and Cheryl was wearing her Oneal MX pants. My Alpinestar WP Scout boots are bone dry, but Cheryl poured about a half gallon of water out of each of hers in the shower. Apparently all the water her pants soaked up funneled right into her boots. MX helmets and goggles are not recommended for rain, it really stings when it hits the tip of your nose at 60mph!

Not many pics today because of the rain. Even though my camera is waterproof, it was too much hassle taking it out of the tank bag with all the other stuff that isn't waterproof. I promise I will do better with the pictures as we progress!

Scenery from around Shiloh, WV:





Panda turned up 20,000 miles today!


Hiding from the rain at the car wash:


Hopefully tomorrow will be a little bit drier, but we can keep the cool weather! Goal for tomorrow is Gloucester, VA, weather dependent!


Tim

The day started out with a gas station that had no gas. One of the locals gave us directions to the next closest station, only 3 miles away. When we finally did get to pumps that would work, a guy from the shop came out and told us that a big storm was headed our way. After spending yesterday in the tent, I wasn't about to let that stop me.

We stopped at a McDonalds for lunch. The only thing that was gluten free on the menu was a salad, but it had bacon in it, so I wont complain too much. That was when the rain decided to get more serious, so we sat there a while and let it pass. Leaving there, it was just occasional showers, but no enough to even slow us down. Oh, and we had another warning about the big storm with hail and lightning.

Tim found some great dirt roads, even though the GPS was still trying to send us on roads that didn't exist or were gated off. Apparently my problem on Wednesday was the gluten, because my bike didn't take a single nap today. Sorry there were any exciting pictures, but I prefer to not break anymore parts off. Speaking of that, we saw a Yamaha sign, and stopped to see if they had the bracket for my mirror that I broke off. They didn't, but asked where we were going, to direct us to another place that would have it. They didn't seem to understand that we really didn't know where we were, and were just heading east and south until we made it to Virginia. They didn't even clue us in that we were only about half an hour away from the state line. Oh, well. Maybe I'll have better luck getting the part when we stop at our friends house.

Today felt great, even though we got wet. Now I'm warm and dry in a big King size bed and ready to get some sleep. I don't expend much dirt tomorrow, but it should be fun all the same.

I have enjoyed reading the reports from the both of you along with the photos you've taken. Be safe and have fun. Stay abreast of the weather as you head west.

Oh yeah, my bike is finally getting over 50mpg! The only thing I can figure is that my right wrist is too strong on paved roads and the dirt is keeping my wrist in check! Well......mostly! Either that or after 20,000 miles, it is finally getting broke in and that caused the improved fuel economy.

Whatever the cause, I'm happy to finally see the magical numbers that everyone else is getting. I was averaging about 43mpg for the past 3,000 miles before this trip started.

Tim and Cheryl,

Looks and sounds like you guys are having a blast. I finally registered on the forum so I could post to you once in a while. Loving the pictures and the ride reports; keep it up. Ride safe and have fun.