Homeward Bound – donchildrey

Friday, July 17th

Friday morning dawned a bit gray. But at least it wasn’t raining. We packed up quickly, partly because we had done this every day for almost two weeks now, and partly because it was going home day. I could suggest that Brian was looking forward to getting home more than me because he was ready first, but that happened nearly every day. I just had too much stuff to win any contests on getting packed the fastest.

No, we didn’t stay in the RV behind us in the picture. That belonged to the older couple camped beside us who probably didn’t appreciate the bikes cranking up and heading out before 7 am.

The GPS said it was 20 miles shorter to follow I-81 north from here to Wytheville, VA, and then come back down into NC, than to follow I-40 the whole way. Brian was headed up I-81 too, so I decided to go that way and ride with him for another hour or so.

We met a guy at the campground who told us about a big BMW bike rally going on this weekend nearby. He said about 10,000 bikes would be there. As we headed north up I-81, many of these 10,000 BMWs were coming down on the other side of the highway. We had just ridden almost 5,000 miles across the country and back and had gotten quite used to low-waving at riders we met coming the other way. A good percentage of those riders had been on BMWs, but apparently, these rally bikers were a different type of rider. Most of them didn’t respond to the low waves we were giving them. Maybe it was because of the impending rain, which had finally started to trickle out of the gray skies.

We eventually got close to the exit Brian needed to take, so we stopped to put on rain gear. We said some awkward goodbyes, accompanied by promises of future rides, and parted company.

As I headed further up I-81, I finally figured out that most of the BMW riders would respond to a high wave, but not a low wave. Maybe low waves are more associated with Harley riders, and these folks riding German bikes and looking down their noses can’t see that low? No matter.

Instead of running into worse rain, the skies dried up for me and I enjoyed a little sunshine in Wytheville as I stopped for lunch. Heading down I-77, it just got better.

Brian ran into heavy rain near Lake Watauga. He said it was the heaviest rain he’d seen on the whole trip. At the time, he thought I was getting really soaked.

The rest of my ride home was pretty uneventful. When I got there, everyone was out, so I had a few minutes to savor the accomplishment. I had just closed the garage door, cranked up the bike, rolled out of the driveway, and ridden all the way to Arizona and back. That’s pretty cool!