Scouting Trip to Galax Virginia

Every year we send a small scouting party to our rally location to find a hotel and set up a block of rooms at the best rate possible. This year I was able to be a part of this fun activity. The plan was to ride straight down on Thursday, spend Friday and maybe Saturday checking hotels and restaurants and then ride straight home on Sunday. Galax is about 430 some miles or so from home so riding straight through was going to be tiring I knew.

We packed light for only 4 days and stuffed everything in the two trunks of Bessie. Don had the ice chest filled with bottled water strapped to the little slide-in and one last leather bag with my sneakers strapped to the back seat. We pulled out of our drive at 5:45 AM bound and determined to beat Bernie and Shirley to the meeting location in Templeville. One hour later we joined George Hires at McDonalds on Kent Island and headed west around the Washington Beltway to Front Royal and then south down I-81. The cooler so carefully strapped to the slide-in on the back of Bessie came loose as we travelled 65 mph around the beltway. I wonder if that thing bouncing down the highway caused any accidents.

Weatherman was calling for rain and we had a couple of slight periods of rain where we would stop and put the rain gear on and then take it off and then put it on again. Then just 8.9 miles from Hillsville we stopped. It was beginning to rain and Don had just hear on the radio a warning of an approaching storm with 1 inch hail, heavy rains and 65 mph winds coming right for us. We pulled into a truck stop just in time! Grabbing the GPS and covering the CB we ran inside and watched out the windows as more and more bikers pull in as lightening flashed and thunder rolled and the hail began to bounce off the pavement. Three times the rain let up and we walked outside only to have the storm circle back around and start again. Mountains surrounded us and the storm was bouncing off of them like a ball in a pinball machine. After spending 2 hours in the truck stop we, like the other bikers, decided we were going to mount up and go; the lightening had stopped and the rain had slacked. No more than a mile down the road the rain came again in buckets. By the time we traveled the 8.9 miles we were all wet and poor Bernie had packed their clothes in a small bag and strapped it to the top of his bike's trunk and had not covered it with anything water proof! Every stitch of clothing they had on them and with them were soaked. Dripping water all over the counter of the Super 8 we signed in and headed to the nearest restaurant for dinner 13 hours after leaving the McDonalds on Kent Island.

Friday George talked to the manager at the Super 8 about the rally and got prices for our group to stay there. Then we went to the Quality Inn to see what our chances were of getting a reasonable rate and to our surprise the manager offered us a fantastic rate at this fairly new hotel with great amenities. Okay hotel choices selected now to find a banquet location. The manager of the Super 8 had suggested the Countryseat Restaurant right across the street for dinner so we discussed the idea of a banquet with the manager. Not a problem and within a few minutes everything was discussed and the room surveyed.

Mid morning - now what to do? Well lets ride to Galax and find the Rex theater and a short walk down the historic district brought us to The Galax Smokehouse, winners of the "Best of the Best BBQ Restaurant Award" from the National Barbeque Association for 8 years in a row. It wasn't lunch time yet so we decided to leave the tasting until the rally.
Heading out of Galax we wondered some of the best back roads with our destination being Mt. Airy (Andy Griffith's hometown) for lunch at Snappy Lunch where Don and George had the famous pork chop sandwich for $4 and I enjoyed a cheeseburger for $2. I was riding on the back of Bessie but I've made a mental note of the roads and how I found them and this is going to be the ride I lead during the rally. One of the roads was very much like Snake Road when we were on the 2009 rally at Smith Mountain Virginia.

Back to the hotel and then walked to the Countryseat Restaurant for dinner around 5:30 pm. Ate our fill of a wonderful buffet, sat and talked and laughed and then - it started raining again. Not a soft easy rain but a down pour! We had our only dry clothes on so we sat and talked and laughed some more.

We decided to leave for home at 6:30 am Saturday morning and not take I-81 and fight the trucks or that awful beltway with it's never ending construction and traffic. We would head east on 58 where we traveled through fog on the mountain tops so thick you needed a knife to cut it. Reaching Danville Don, Bernie, Shirley and I headed north on 29 planning to take 33 into Orange and then 301 to the bridge and home; a 12 hour ride but much nicer. George continued on 58 to the Bay Bridge Tunnel and then north on 113 to his home in Salisbury, MD.