I arose at 4:30 a.m. in order to get an early start for the race up I-81 to try to stay ahead of the rain moving into the area. By 5:30 I had showered, loaded the bike, and checked out of the Comfort Inn. I decided to forego breakfast and to simply hop onto I-81 North for the ride home. Traffic on I-81 North was light at that time of the morning, and I made good time. In fact, for the first three hours of the ride, I was able to maintain a high (for me) average speed albeit at the expense of gas mileage. Prior to sunrise, the weather ranged from mostly clear to somewhat foggy to raining lightly. All the while, I was zooming up I-81, staying just ahead of the weather front chasing me from behind. Once the sun came up, I was able to enjoy some of the views from I-81 as it wound through the highlands of Western Virginia. Or at least as much as one is able to enjoy any scenery while travelling along an interstate highway. After a quick stop for gas and a snack North of Roanoke, VA, I continued my flight North.
Eventually I reached the New Market exit where US-211 heads East towards Washington, DC. There is an interesting website where the owner documents the signage present at the beginning and ending of nearly every US Highway. Prior to my trip, I noticed that he didn't have any signage for the Western end of US-211 from New Market, VA. So after I exited from I-81, I found where US-211 East started in New Market and took some photos of the signs there. He incorporated a couple of these photos into his website--cool! After a free breakfast/lunch at McDonald's (courtesy of the Comfort Inn), I headed East on US-211.
US-211 is relatively short for a US Highway (only about 60 miles long), but has an interesting section where it rises quickly in elevation in order to cross over the Skyline Drive and then dives back down to the Virginia Piedmont on the Eastern side of the Blue Ridge mountains. The ride up and down the Blue Ridge on US-211 consists of segments of winding roadway interrupted by hairpin curves! The 10 miles or so of this ride are very nice and served as a good punctuation mark to a great trip!
Once on the Eastern side of the Blue Ridge mountains, I just took the most direct route home. I ran into increasing traffic the closer I came to the DC area, traffic that served as a reminder about why it was so nice to get away to Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee! I rolled into my driveway around noon, washed the chain (it still had remnants of my gravel road adventure in North Carolina on it) and the bike, and began getting back into my normal routine. All the while, though, great thoughts of the interesting/exciting/wonderful things I'd seen during my 9/11 tour kept filtering in. I can't wait to visit some of those areas again!
Updated Tuesday, 11-Nov-2008 15:16:33 CST.
Copyright 2007 by Kelvin Utendorf