RA RALLY WELLSBORO - JULY 2018

Tioga County Fair Grounds, Wellsboro PA
July 16 - 22  (1,455 miles)

We left home on Monday at 7:30 am for Farmville Virginia, 5 1/2 hours away.  Our route was 421 to 701 to 96 to 15.  Stayed at Tru Hilton, a new brand for Hilton more of a modern European style.  We went in the pool and also used the pool table in the lobby.  The room door opened with my cell phone!

The hotel let us park on the sidewalk out of the elements.

Tuesday we left at 7:30 to get to Winchester, Virginia.  We were planning on taking Skyline Drive but after looking at the forecast we decided to take 20 to 340 to get to Winchester before the rain.  Still nice back country roads and 3 1/2 hours later we arrived at the George Washington, a Wyndham Grand Hotel.  Even though it was 11am the hotel had a room available and the motorcycle parking was in the hotel garage.

Old Town Winchester has a pedestrian mall with shops and restaurants, a civil war museum, Stonewall Jackson's Headquarters Museum and George Washington Office Museum.  At 16 he came to the area as a surveyor.

Benny's Pizza for lunch.

Had a Virginia slice and a beer for lunch. What a huge slice! Torrential downpour so I had another beer.

A Virginia Slice

Rain off and on most of the day.

We sat outside for dinner at Brewbakers on the Pedestrian Mall. Just as the bill came the rain started  again.

Left Winchester Wednesday morning, a beautiful sunny day in the 70s. Got lost for a while in the Pennsylvania mountains but finally got back on track taking Interstate 99 and 15 to our Quality Inn Mansfield, just six miles from the rally.  Walked to dinner next door to a great restaurant on the top of the mountain called Lambs Creek Food and Spirits.

Thursday morning lots of fog over the mountains, all gone by the time we left the hotel for Walmart to buy our chairs.  Got to the rally about 9:30, found Jerry and put up our brand new tent in one of the barns right next to Jerry.

My all time favorite camping spot

We're all set with electric outlets, bathrooms with showers in the building right by us and electric lights along the barn's main walkway.

Found Jerry and Cindy from ROK while we were walking around, they are staying in a cabin about 30 miles away.

 

Food for the rally was in the main fairground building and the ladies made lasagna or roast beef sundae for dinner.  Of course, hot dogs, hamburgers, strawberry short cake and other food. 

Bill and Ed came to register and we arranged to ride together on Friday to the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania in Tioga State Forest.

We helped Jerry with the Thursday evening free beer and hot dogs. Tony and I worked the keg and Jerry cooked the hot dogs. Went through a full keg in 60 minutes👍😎 .

Before we went to the Grand Canyon we listened to a talk about George Wyman the first person to ride a motorized vehicle in 1903 from San Francisco to New York City (a one-and-a-half horsepower motorized bicycle).  The lecturer traced the original trail on a Zero electric motorcycle, its range was 88 miles at 55 miles per hour before charging.  His challenge was to find charging stations within that range across the United States.

Pine Creek Gorge (Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania) 50 miles long and over 1,000 feet deep

After looking at the weather we decided to leave early Saturday and take the interstate home in two days instead of our original itinerary of leaving on Sunday and taking 3 days on back roads.  Thank you Bill for all your time and help with loading our GPS with your route home (and showing me how to make custom routes).

Friday night we took the "no schedule" shuttle bus into Wellsboro for dinner at Timeless Destination, a very good Italian restaurant.  Got back around 9pm and had a great evening with Mark and Jerry at our campsite.🍸🍺

Saturday up and out by 7am to get as far as we could before the forecast rain.  We made it 5 hours before the rain started.  The last hour and a half we had heavy rain  and stopped a quarter mile from the I-95 exit in Fredericksburg.  So glad to get out of soaked riding gear and be inside while the rain continued most of the night. Bikes sat in the rain all night. 😣 Ordered Chinese takeout which was delicious.

Sunday morning we left at 6:30am trying again to miss some of the rain forecast for the whole way home.   Got to Emporia, gassed up and it started to rain, amazingly 10 minutes later we drove into clearer skies and got home with no rain at 12:30. 👍