When I started riding motorcycles more than 15 years ago, I planned to go from a small town in Massachusetts to the furthest parts of the opposite coastline in Oregon and California. That was always the goal: to go as far and to see as much as was possible without a map, without a deadline, without a job or obligation to anchor or call me back home. I wanted to be overrun with … [Read more...] about Sunflowers & sunsets: The road to West Virginia
West Virginia
A Dragon’s Back: and a Quest to Find Seven Covered Bridges
Motorcycles can often feel like time machines. They encourage you to explore roads that once were main thoroughfares but are now sleepy backroads. They take you along winding paths filled with old barns, small towns and sometimes century-old covered bridges. Feeling a call to revisit Virginia’s Back of the Dragon this summer, I vowed to explore some side roads I’d ignored on … [Read more...] about A Dragon’s Back: and a Quest to Find Seven Covered Bridges
Touring the two Virginias: Seeing new life in the Bluefields
A few days earlier, a buxom, wet and nasty bitch named Helene came our way up from Florida, uninvited and unwelcomed, and for many people in many places throughout our divine mid-Atlantic mountains, life would never be the same. The hurricane absolutely devastated several communities, large and small, mostly in North Carolina and Tennessee, but also in far southwest Virginia. … [Read more...] about Touring the two Virginias: Seeing new life in the Bluefields
Lost highway: The last ride of Hank Williams
On the evening of Dec. 31, 1952, legendary country singer Hank Williams checked into the Andrew Johnson Hotel in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee. By the following day, the iconic performer would be pronounced dead at a hospital in the depths of rural West Virginia. Although there is much debated speculation and haphazard lore as to what really occurred along “Hank Williams’ Last … [Read more...] about Lost highway: The last ride of Hank Williams
Monster quest: Exploring the mountains and mysteries of West Virginia
The wall of mountains loomed before me as I headed west on U.S. 33 across the wide Shenandoah Valley. Soon I’d twist my way over them into West Virginia, that mysterious land with epic motorcycle roads and legends about other-worldly creatures. I’m on a pilgrimage to see a town steeped in UFO lore, but mostly I’ve traveled here just to ride the seemingly endless two-lane … [Read more...] about Monster quest: Exploring the mountains and mysteries of West Virginia
