July 15th - Heading to the MOA rally

We were up again at the crack of dawn.. around 8AM, and on the bikes by 9..

About to leave La Quinta Inn (told you it was nice..)

Route for the day - mostly Rt 42 - The Blue Grass Highway

I'd noticed most roads named something are more interesting that roads that just have a number. I spotted on the maps - a road that appeared to follow the next valley north of 81 heading the same direction as I-81. It looked to go through undeveloped country, and promised to be a good road.  It was. Perfect 2 lane country road, swooping along the valley floor, up/down/sweepers and the occasional small town (which usually had 4-5 white Baptist churches in it - and usually only one still in use..)

The Bluegrass Highway ended too soon - only about 100-120 miles of perfection. That evening I called Skip Palmer since he'd be coming down this way the next day - and told him about it. He found you can pick up Rt 42 at about Front Royal - making it a great alternative to the Blue Ridge Parkway for those people who've done enough of the BRP.

We wandered through Bristol (VA and TN), and into Johnson City TN - which immediately impressed me as urban sprawl. I'm not sure what city it was sprawl from - but it had all the signs. Clusters of big-box stores, motels, overloaded local roadways and highways that shot through the center of the area. We finally found the Almost Quality Inn (it tried - but didn't always succeed) and checked in. A few other early riders were also arriving. We had a few hours to kill until the Ambassador's Dinner - so we went to the rally registration and registered. Met some local club members there who were helping out with registration. Then we went to a late lunch across the street from the registration, and back to the motel for a nap before dinner.

I managed to convince Ted Verrill to come pick us up for the Ambassador's Dinner - seemed the wise thing to do since they had an open bar at the dinner. It was a nice event, and I got to see the big-pig museum firsthand. http://www.grayfossilmuseum.com/?CONTEXT=art&art=5  Turns out it wasn't a pig (I asked).. it was a fossil tapir - sort of a pig with an elephant's nose. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapir  The staff seemed a bit put off by my question about the big-pig, but looking in Wikipedia it clearly says: A tapir (pronounced /ˈteɪpər/ "taper", or /təˈpɪər/ "ta-pier") is a large browsing mammal, roughly pig-like in shape, with a short, prehensile snout.

Walks like a pig, looks like a pig, smells like a pig..  anyway - the dinner was fun of sorts, saw some people I hadn't seen in a while, drank some drinks, ate some of the food (somewhat limited since we were one of the last tables called, and apparently - they hadn't quite planned on that many people..) missed the desert entirely. Spent a lot of the evening chatting with Jack Riepe (http://jackriepe.blogspot.com/), which is always fun.

Finally after a high-speed return trip via VW bug with the top down.. we settled in for the night at the Almost Quality Inn, looking forward to the official opening of the rally on Thursday.

Days 4-5-6 - The MOA rally..