Day 19: Wednesday May 23
Day 19: Wednesday May 23
Marion VA loop
335 kms 7 hrs
map:
https://www.google.ca/maps/dir/Amer...76c4e81a59!2m2!1d-81.4931796!2d36.8456703!3e0
One of the ‘great’ roads of the east lies immediately north of Marion: the “Back of the Dragon”. This 30 mile section of VA 16 contains something over 400 curves, so the action is pretty constant, and I was keenly looking forward to it when I left the motel at about 9 am. Only a half dozen or so miles from town, at Hungry Mother State Park, I came up behind a little Ford SUV, the only traffic on the road. Knowing that the twistiness was about to start, I waited only briefly until a generous ( but still double-lined) straight section of road opened, before popping by. Almost immediately, red and blues started to flash behind the grill! I found a safe driveway intersection and pulled off, expecting the worst. The fellow in the SUV was not uniformed, but said something to me about the double-line pass and asked for my driver’s license. I reached for my wallet and discovered an empty hip pocket – I had left my wallet in my street pants, back in the motel! I blurted out, “I think my day is just about to get much, much worse”, and explained the situation. I also provided my name and license number, which I know by memory. The officer returned to his vehicle and did a bit of checking, then came back, explained that he was not with the traffic division, told me he just wanted to check I wasn’t some young hooligan, scolded me again for my pass and told me to be respectful to the locals, and saw me on my way. I, of course, headed back to town to get the wallet – my lucky day – what if I had ridden 200 kms off into the wilds, and then discovered no wallet, when I came to fill up?
The second attempt at the road was more successful than the first. There is a lot of good riding involved, but the ‘flow’ is very inconsistent; there are some scruffy pavement sections; and there are a lot of very tight right-handers where you’re pressed hard up against the bank, limiting visibility and creating ideal conditions to chance upon rocks on the pavement. Overall, I’d give it a ‘B’.
IMG_1832 (2) by
Don Serl, on Flickr
IMG_1835 (2) by
Don Serl, on Flickr
I had a fine breakfast in “The Front Porch”, in Tazewell VA, altho the tasty local sausage could have been hotter.
Burkes Garden, to the east, is an isolated, elevated valley, nearly completely surrounded by a low mountain ridge, but a rich agricultural oasis. The ride up is entertainingly winding, but the pavement quality is only moderate. The valley itself is a jewel, and I stopped many times to take photos and to just soak in the view and the atmosphere. A significant proportion of the population is Amish, and I came across a couple groups of girls walking about in long white frocks with white bonnets. I also watched for a while a fellow haying with a horse-drawn combine. Certainly the simple life…
IMG_1850 (2) by
Don Serl, on Flickr
IMG_1854 (2) by
Don Serl, on Flickr
IMG_1856 (2) by
Don Serl, on Flickr
IMG_1859 (2) by
Don Serl, on Flickr
VA 614 runs east thru a pleasant farming valley, and it’s possible to avoid the interstate thereafter by staying on the paralleling US 52 to Bland VA. And just west of Bland, I had my second legal encounter of the day, when I got ‘lit up’ just a few miles out of town. I hadn’t been travelling very much above the posted limit, so I was bit surprised to be attracting attention, but the officer soon cleared this up by announcing that, “ I pulled you over today because you’re running a radar detector, and those are illegal in Virginia”. Yup! Too true! And my response was to grab my head in my hands and blurt out, “I
KNOW that”… which I did. I explained that I had been riding for 3 weeks, thru 8 or 9 states, and that it never even occurred to me that I was IN Virginia. “ How much trouble am I in?”, seemed the next obvious question. Confiscation is an option, but he told me to pack ‘that thing’ away in my tail bag, and we exchanged a few stories before he sent me on my way. Friendly place, Virginia…
US 52 runs up over Walker Mountain, and is just brilliant, both on the north and south sides. I ran it out and back, before continuing west on VA 42, re-intersecting the morning’s route about midway. I was very short on fuel by this time, so I stopped to tank up at the Thompson valley Market, a few miles short of Tazewell. I made 257 kms, which I reckon is my personal record, without running out.
US 52 Walker Mountain
IMG_1867 (2) by
Don Serl, on Flickr
VA 42 west of Bland VA
IMG_1869 (2) by
Don Serl, on Flickr
I like to explore secondary routes, and VA 604 (Thompson Valley Rd) led me west very nicely for a few miles, but then dead-ended. I knew I had to get south of the ridge on my left, and since my option was to run north and then take a 10 miles or so diversion around the west end of the ridge, I set off onto the gravel road leading directly up onto the ridge. In the event, the road was solid, and while gravel surfaces are not ideal, there was no problem getting up and across both the first ridge and ( a bit of a surprise) its lower companion to the south.
No blacktop? No problem!
IMG_1881 (2) by
Don Serl, on Flickr
The run down into Chilhowie was uneventful, and I relented and used I-81 to regain Marion nearby to the east. It hadn’t been a long or especially challenging day, but it had been full of ‘adventure’, and I was very satisfied and even a bit 'worked' as I switched off and began to think about supper. Mexican, as it turns out, at El Puerto – hmmm, good! And within walking distance...