The Ride Itinerary
This is the intended route of The Ride for Paul and Tabitha. Three of us are starting out on the westward leg of the journey. George Luttrell (organizer, blogger, and "can't wait to spend all this time away from work" guy), Mark Featherstone, and Rick Laughlin. It begins in Gore, VA (where is that?) and continues through Lexington, KY; Kansas City, MO; Lincoln, NE; to Hot Springs, SD.
Hot Springs is in the Black Hills area of SD and will be our base of operations for a few days while we visit the Harley-Davidson rally at Sturgis, SD and enjoy some of the scenic riding around the Black Hills, Mount Rushmore, Spearfish, and Lead. We will probably take a small trip to Montana just to say that we have been there.
From Hot Springs we will head South through Wyoming and into the Fort Collins area of Northern Colorado. We have appointments at Thunder Mountain Harley-Davidson in Loveland, CO to have oil and filter changes on the bikes. From there, we will try to get to Estes Park, CO which is the gateway to the Great Rocky Mountain National Park. We will try to spend some time in the park and continue south on back roads to Denver, CO where Mark has a friend that he would like to see. I am also going to attempt to make contact with a friend, Bill Lippert, while we are in Denver. At this point we will probably lose Rick as he will need to start heading East, back to the land of work and responsibility.
Leaving Denver, we will attempt to take back roads and scenic routes to Colorado Springs, CO. While there, weather permitting, an attempt will be made to climb Pike's Peak with the motorcycles (living on a dirt road in Gore somewhat qualifies me to attempt this).
We will continue into New Mexico via the scenic route to Taos and on to Santa Fe, NM where we will attempt to hook up with my brother Wayne and probably hit him up for dinner or a place to stay. Hey, what is family for, anyway? I am sure that he will be excited to see a couple of smelly, grimy bikers parked in his front yard.
From Santa Fe we are compelled to go to Southeast to Roswell, NM. There is a Harley-Davidson dealership there and I know that they have a Harley shirt with an alien on it just for me. Gotta have it!
From Roswell, assuming that we are not abducted by a UFO, it is northeast to the panhandle of Texas and Amarillo. Our goal from that point is to travel East as rapidly as possible through Oklahoma City and into Arkansas. In that we will be traveling through Arkansas, Mark and I have both updated our passports and received all necessary shots. Hopefully, the sprint across Oklahoma will give some extra time to enjoy some scenic riding around the Hot Springs area as we wind our way to Little Rock, AR.
From Little Rock, it is a Northeast trend to the Great Smokey Mountains in Western North Carolina. Our goal is to pick up the Blue Ridge Parkway and follow it as far north as our patience allows (I am told that the speed limits are very slow and that there are no services available unless you leave the parkway).
As we continue North, Mark will probably head East on Route 7 toward his home in Sterling and I will head West out Route 50 back to Gore.
Piece of cake, huh?
posted by George at 9:04 PM
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