Wild Hogs VI Day 1

The crew ready to go

We got a fairly timely start this morning (just after 8 am). We made good time running down I-81, and we had unbelievable weather for the ride.

Lunch at a truck stop Wendy's

We stopped for lunch at a place called Raphine VA. It was just a Wendy's attached to a truck stop, but after a long couple of hundred miles of riding it sure tasted good.

View from one of the many overlooks on the Blue Ridge Parkway

From there we moved on to Roanoke where we took a road called "12 o'clock Knob Road" which took us to one of the access points for the Blue Ridge Parkway. Once on the Parkway we had an amazing ride for about another 100 miles south before exiting to find some dinner and a place to stay for the night in Mt. Airy NC.

The Lone Survivor

We found a place called Cappola's Pizzeria and Italian Restaurant where we enjoyed some very good pizza. We split 3 large pizzas among 7 of us and as you can see in the picture there was one surviving slice. (It should be noted that less than a minute after the photo was taken, that slice was no longer a survivor. And no, it was not me who killed it!)



So far it's been a great day of riding with great weather. It was remarkably cool up on the parkway, and we actually stopped for jackets along the way. It was probably about 15* warmer as we came down off the mountain into town. It could be very cool tomorrow morning.

This trip is very different form past years in the fact that we are not camping this year. We are staying in hotels. There's a little sense of loss with not having the campfire to sit around etc., but there's also something to be said for a bathroom 15 feet away instead of 1/4 mile. Tonight it's a Holiday Inn Express in Mt. Airy NC. Who knows what we'll know by morning due to staying here! Tomorrow is more of the BRP, then Great Smoky Mountain National Park and hopefully the "Tail of the Dragon". We will see how many miles we will get in tomorrow. Some of our more sensitive members are complaining of soreness already. We will see what tomorrow brings.