U.S. 50, he explained, runs from Ocean City, Md., to Sacramento, Calif. One of the old east-west federal highways, Rich pointed out, U.S. 50 retains a lot of its original character.
The romantic old U.S. 66 is gone and much of the character of U.S. 40, the old “National Road,” has been marred by failed motels and other businesses that went under when I-70 was built.
Having recently taken an early retirement, I found myself with no shortage of vacation time in 2001 and it sounded like a great idea.
Besides, I was planning to ride west in July anyway to the BMW MOA International Rally in Redmond, Ore., and to visit my son in Portland. The ride to Portland and other points west has become an annual thing for me since the early 1990s and I’d pretty much exhausted all of the obvious interstate routes, so this U.S. 50 project got better the more I thought about it.
We decided to do the western portion of U.S. 50 in July, then pick up the eastern segment over a three-day weekend in the fall.
So, at 6:35 a.m. on Saturday, July 14 I kissed my wife goodbye and rode out of the driveway.
I met Rich at the McDonald’s at I-465 and Ind. 37 on Indianapolis’ southwestside. He looked ready for the ride in his new red-and-black First Gear Kilimanjaro riding suit.
So, after a cup of coffee, we followed Ind. 37 southwest to Bedford, where we picked up U.S. 50 and began our journey in earnest.
Rich is a geologist for a coal company so whenever we ride together, I get to see the landscape through his geologist’s eyes, adding another dimension to the trip experience.
We gassed at Vincennes and I bought five packages of beef jerky as a ready source of protein in the coming days. I discovered a couple of years ago how handy beef jerky is for a snack or a lunch on the fly. Carbohydrates make me drowsy and cause blood sugar fluctuations, but the protein in jerky knocks down the hunger pangs for extended periods.
Taking the Red Skelton Bridge over the Wabash River, we crossed into Illinois.
This was Southern Illinois coal and oil country, an area where Rich worked several years in his youth. He led us to a barbecue joint in Carlyle, Ill., and a splendid barbecued pork steak lunch.
We made a mad dash across the south side of St. Louis. I gave up trying to keep track of the U.S. 50 signs and put my attention on keeping Rich’s red R1100RS in my 11 o’clock position. He suddenly noticed U.S. 50 exiting the freeway and made a late dive for the ramp. I reacted instantly, like a fighter pilot’s wingman, and swerved to stay in Rich’s 4 o’clock position. There was no time for my obligatory head-check of the lanes to my right and I hoped nobody was overtaking me on that side. Luck was with us and we made the ramp without incident, but I spent the next few miles wondering how close to disaster I came with my “blind faith” maneuver.
Missouri was a slow slog with abundant heat and humidity. Rich pulled off at a rest area somewhere west of Jefferson City and we took about a 15-minute nap – Rich on the shady grass and me stretched out on a picnic table.
Somewhat refreshed, we pressed on and, as we approached Kansas City, the terrain began to open up and look more like the prairies of Kansas farther north and west. We gassed a last time at Knob Noster at a station that shared a parking lot with a topless bar, a tattoo parlor and an antique store. I slammed down about a liter of water and tried to psyche myself up for the run across the south side of Kansas City and into eastern Kansas. There were a couple of carloads of teenage boys at the station – new drivers out for some Saturday night fun, judging from their demeanor and their competence with a standard transmission car. One kid flashed the nude layout in a porn magazine in the car window as they sped past me into the muggy Missouri evening.
I was glad to have my new Schuberth helmet with its flip up/down sun visor as we stared into the setting sun while weaving through traffic south of Kansas City.
U.S. 50 follows I-35 southwest from Kansas City and darkness fell as we rode on to Ottawa.
After some fumbling, we rode through Ottawa and found a Day’s Inn at the west end of the city. We were fried from a 660-mile first day on the road and were glad to stop at 9:30 p.m.
We got on the road the next day a little after 7 a.m. The Weather Channel showed a well-defined line of showers about 30 miles to the west and we figured it was just a matter of time before we got hosed.
Riding out of Ottawa, we met an old guy on a /5 BMW with a Luftmeister fairing. He wore a baseball cap and his headlight was off, but somehow I felt he was perfectly safe on his early Sunday morning summer putt.
We were pleased to see U.S. 50 break away from the interstate at Emporia where we gassed at a Flying J and had a leisurely breakfast, hoping the rain might pass us by while we sat in the comfort of the truckstop restaurant.
By the time we resumed our ride, the rain had still not found us. We rode through an area that looked like it had just received a good soaking rain – puddles everywhere and water in the centerline reflector depressions – but we only felt a couple of sprinkles.
The sun was out and it was getting warm by the next gas stop at Kinsley, Kans. Rich led us through Dodge City on the U.S. 50 business route past Boot Hill and all of the cowboy touristy stuff. This being the route of the old Santa Fe Trail, it felt more like the Old West than does the country along I-70 up at WaKeeney and Hays.
We had a late lunch at a Burger King in Garden City, noticing that Anglos like us are a minority in this heavily Hispanic community.
U.S. 50 follows the Arkansas River through western Kansas and eastern Colorado and there are a lot more towns and villages here than up on I-70 or U.S. 36. By the time we entered Colorado, the bank time and temperature signs were reading 95, 100 and 101 degrees.
I was leading into Lamar, Colo., when I spied a Conoco station and convenience store on the right side of the street. I signaled a turn and dived for it. Rich entered the station via the sidewalk wheelchair ramp on the corner and pulled up on the other side of the pump I was studying.
I swiped my VISA card and pushed the button for premium gas, but nothing happened. I finally figured out that I had to lift the pump nozzle before selecting the grade of fuel – something not in the pump instructions. I was pumping gas when Rich’s helmeted head popped out from the left side of the pump.
“I’ve had it with this fucking station and this goddamned fucking pump! It’s rejected one credit card and I can’t get the other one to work!” he said, his eyes flashing fire.
Rich, normally calm and unflappable was coming unglued in a confrontation with a recalcitrant computer chip, bad instructions and an hour of 100-degree heat.
I showed him what I’d figured out about the pump and he got gas flowing into his tank.
I went inside the air conditioned convenience store and drank about a quart of Gatorade.
Rich stayed outside the station, drank water from his cooler and calmed down.
Hoping for mountain coolness, we set our sights on spending the night in Cañon City, Colo. and rode on west.
Rain forced us off the road at the east edge of Pueblo, where we took a much-needed break and let the storm blow on past.
The sun was setting over the Rockies as we cut through Pueblo and rode up the slope to Cañon City.
We found the Sky Valley Motel – and overpriced mom-and-pop place on the east end of town, unpacked and rode a short distance down the frontage road to a sub shop for a late dinner.
We covered 599 miles before bagging it at 7:30 p.m.
We gassed the next morning at Cañon City got on the road about 6:55 a.m. U.S. 50 led us up into the mountains on this chilly, bright morning. I had the liner in my jacket all the way to breakfast at Salida.
We crossed the Continental Divide at Monarch Pass and stopped for a breathless photo in the thin air to commemorate the occasion. Coming down the western slope, we encountered a road construction project that held us up for a few minutes. Down on the flat, Rich led me to the spot where a mutual friend, Archey, got nailed 11 months earlier. Archey and some companions got caught in an intense hailstorm and pulled off the south side of U.S. 50. As Archey sat on his bike – a twin to my pearl silver '91 K100RS – a good six feet off of the traveled portion of the highway, an eastbound car skidded out of control on about 2 inches of hailstones and slammed into the rear of his motorcycle. Archey was hurled over the roof of the car and landed on his back. Although his bike was destroyed, he suffered only minor injuries. Rich and I scanned the roadside for familiar-looking debris and I picked up a couple of fragments of Archey's red plastic taillight lens.
After swooping past the lake and the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, we gassed at Montrose and considered our goal for the day. We decided to have a late lunch at Green River, Utah, and make the decision then.
U.S. 50 joins I-70 at Grand Juction and we were soon out on the sun-blasted desert of eastern Utah. We picked up a strong crosswind from the south that seemed to bother Rich a bit more than it did me. I ran 90-100 mph most of the way as I led us on to Green River.
After a Mexican lunch at Ben’s Restaurant, we decided to try for Ely, Nev. I phoned in a Motel 6 reservation and secured it with my VISA card.
We gassed at the Texaco station on the west end of town where the lady at the counter told me about the trips she and her husband used to take on their motorcycle.
The crosswind continued until we got into the canyons west of Green River and gained some altitude, which also brought the temperatures down. I led to Salina, where we stopped for water and chatted with a guy from Reno who had just come across the desert from Nevada on a Honda ST1100. He was headed for Virginia and reported it was hot and very windy between Ely and Delta.
I took us to the Chevron station at the north end of Delta, struggling with crosswinds. I insisted on a strawberry-banana smoothie – the reason I chose this station, based on previous visits – before we saddled up for the hot, windy run to Ely.
Keeping an eye out for cattle and deer, I led out across the desert. The setting sun blinded us off and on until we put a mountain between it and us. Again, the Schuberth’s internal sun visor was a welcome addition to my riding gear and I flipped it up and down as needed.
A short distance into Nevada, we stopped for a break at a bar/restaurant/casino/motel and took photos of the bikes in the descending darkness.
Inside, some grizzled locals at the bar tried to scare us about the night ride to Ely. They warned of deer and elk on the road. One old guy warned of herds of elk in the passes.
“Those elk are the toughest ones,” he admonished, conjuring up an image of elk spoiling for a fight with hapless motorcyclists.
I took the lead and rode cautiously through the night across expanses of desert and brushy mountain passes. I wove from side to side occasionally to give my headlight a wider sweep of the scene ahead. I remember glancing up and noticing how bright the stars were. I could only spare a second at a time to look, but I was struck by how this is a detail the average car driver would never catch as he sped across the desert.
Finally, the lights of Ely came into view, but it soon became apparent that distances are deceiving in the desert at night. We were still more than 20 miles out.
About six or seven miles east of town, I spied a deer on the left side of the road, but it made no move to cross. Rich said he never saw it, even though he noticed me tap my brakes to alert him.
We found the Motel 6 easily and noted several BMWs in the parking lot as we unloaded. We were clearly on one of the preferred routes to the BMW MOA national rally.
The day’s ride ended about 10:30 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time, but our nervous systems were still on Mountain Daylight Time where we had started this morning, making it feel like 11:30 p.m.
We covered 685 windy, hot, dusty and sometimes scary miles and were ready for a good night’s sleep. Realizing we’d missed dinner, we finished Rich’s flask of vodka with motel Cokes and dined on the cache of cheese crackers Rich carried in his cooler.
We’d hoped to make a reservation at a Motel 6 in Sacramento the next morning, but nobody in the office knew how to handle our request.
As we rode out of the parking lot, we passed an older couple in a car. The woman had her door open and was smiling and waving to us excitedly.
She seemed to know something about the adventure of seeing America on a motorcycle.
We gassed and checked tire pressures in Ely, then tore off across the Nevada desert.
I was leading at about 95 mph when a group of 11 BMWs flashed past us. I fell in behind them and we cruised at 100-110 mph until we reached a mountain range. This was terrain with brush that could hide a deer, so I slowed and let them run on.
We overtook them at Eureka where they were stopping at a café for breakfast.
I considered joining them, but Rich suggested we keep going, since they would doubtless overwhelm the kitchen and servers of the place and make for a prolonged stop.
Instead, we decided to ride another 75 miles to Austin where we gassed and had breakfast at another small café. After breakfast, I used a nearby pay phone to make a motel reservation for the night.
We made quick work of the remaining desert, blowing past the Loneliest Phone and a brothel before stopping for refreshment at a Baskin-Robbins in Fallon. We gassed again at Carson City, then rode past Lake Tahoe and into California.
The Sierras were magical and there were some heartbreakingly beautiful views of the American River as we descended into the Central Valley.
After Placerville, U.S. 50 became a hellish rush-hour freeway and we rode to its end at the west side of downtown Sacramento We celebrated at a Mexican bistro where they drove us out with cold stares and a loud jukebox.
Our obligation to U.S. 50 met, we cruised south to our Motel 6 in Stockton, then a rode the Pacific Coast Highway south through Big Sur the next day. Vowing to do the eastern leg of U.S. 50 in the fall, we split up at Paso Robles – Rich stopping to visit a cousin there and me heading north for the ‘MOA rally in Oregon.
We completed our U.S. 50 trek the third weekend of October. We were blessed with a true Indian summer weekend with lots of sunshine and warm temperatures when it counted.
Since we had too many miles to cover in just two days, we blocked out a Friday-Saturday-Sunday ride.
We picked up U.S. 50 at Seymour and soon settled into the rhythm of the two-lane highway that winds through the undulating southern Indiana countryside, interrupted every few miles by a small city or town. It was still early enough that there was commuter traffic on the road and I followed Rich as we leap-frogged around the slower cars and trucks.
As we made our way east, past farms and through towns and villages, I was struck by how many folks were flying American flags. This was just weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks and the flag was everywhere – fluttering from flagpoles, hanging from porches, lining driveways in miniature form, displayed in windows.
I’ve heard visitors from other countries comment that we Americans seem inordinately proud of our flag and that such displays just aren’t seen in most other nations. In fact, there are laws prohibiting such private displays of the national flag in India. I’ve long been aware of this peculiarly American trait as I’ve ridden around the country, but clearly things have intensified since the events of Sept. 11.
Soon after crossing into Ohio, we caught sight of the Ohio River to our right. The U.S. 50 approach showed us a seldom-seen side of the city where rural fades into a mix of residential and industrial development. Somewhere along the way, we caught sight of yet another American flag image – fashioned from colored Styrofoam cups poked into a chain-link fence.
Also, it seemed that everyone who had a sign with moveable type was displaying a patriotic message. There was “Pray for our country,” and “United we stand,” and a few others, but the overwhelming majority proclaimed, “God bless America.”
Some mixed the sentiment with advertising and it was a café announcing, “God bless America Chicken Fricassee” that sucked us in for a late lunch shortly after refueling at Hillsboro, Ohio.
I couldn’t recall exactly what “chicken fricassee” looked like, but I ordered it anyway out of a sense of whimsy. It turned out to be the sort of chicken stew-ish stuff you’d expect to find inside a pot pie. I opted to take it over rice, rather than a biscuit. It made a decent lunch, especially when followed with a second cup of coffee and hot cherry pie a la mode.
By the time we got back on the road, the overcast had dissipated and we were in sunshine with temperatures in the 60s. This part of southern Ohio reminded me of the rolling hills of southern Indiana, where the glaciers left untold tons of earth and rock scoured from the northern parts of both states. I’d not seen this part of Ohio before and now understood why so many of my friends enjoy riding here. We took a break about 100 miles down the road, a little east of Athens, then forged on toward the Ohio River and West Virginia.
We entered the Mountaineer State at Parkersburg, fumbled our way through evening rush hour and rode east on a swoopy U.S. 50 four-lane freeway. We watched the setting sun in our mirrors and gassed again before the four-lane ran out at Clarksburg. East of Clarksburg, U.S. 50 gets narrow and twisty as it threads its way into the mountains, through forested hollows.
Night was falling and, in the half-light where our headlights seemed as feeble as the fading illumination from the sky, we strained to see details of the road. Complicating things, it seemed every curve in the otherwise smooth road was well-sprinkled with gravel. I watched with concern as Rich braked in odd places, reacting to surprises from his back tire.
Down in the hollows where direct sunshine is limited, it was cold and getting colder. Approaching a gas station/general store, I flashed my high beam to signal a stop and Rich seemed more than ready to pull off for a bit.
Our room at the Mohawk Motel in Winchester, Va., was still hours away. We took a few minutes for a comfort stop and I bought a bottle of Aleve to quell the nagging little aches and pains of a day in the saddle. I also peeled down to my denim shirt and added a Gerbing heated jacket liner to my layers of protection. Expecting a long cold ride, I also donned my Gerbing electric gloves.
By the time we got back on the road, night was upon us and our headlights came into their own. I was running a Blue Plasma H-4 bulb that had a low beam intensity equal to most high beams. The high beam is absolutely blinding, so I held it in reserve as I followed Rich’s taillight through the Appalachian night.
The night reduced our field of view to the cone of light projected by our headlights. Without the distraction of the roadside, I found myself fixating almost exclusively on the taillight of Rich’s R100RS, glancing occasionally at the road surface to check for gravel. It was like flying through space, the wind and engine noise muffled by earplugs and my upper body encased in a heavy warm cocoon. “This is like an exquisite video game that can kill you,” I thought.
Many of the tiny mountain communities we passed through were completely blacked out, as if abandoned. Others were full of life, especially around the taverns and roadhouses. I recalled that this was a Friday night and I hoped we’d be off the road by the time the drunks lurched onto the highway in their pickup trucks.
Cresting a hill, I was startled to see a “Welcome to Maryland” sign. I hadn’t studied the map closely enough to know that the serpentine state lines hereabouts interpose a seven-mile notch of Maryland into our route before U.S. 50 crosses, again, into West Virginia.
Finally, with less than an hour left to go before we reached Winchester, we stopped at a 7-11 in Romney, W.Va. Realizing it was after 8 p.m. and we hadn’t had dinner, we split a submarine sandwich in the parking lot.
We were more than ready to quit when Rich signaled a left turn into gravel driveway of the Mohawk Motel on the western outskirts of Winchester. I’d covered 605 miles this day – a real handful, considering how much of it was non-freeway riding.
The motel office, which linked with the manager’s living quarters, reeked of cigarette smoke. When Rich went looking for the ice machine, he discovered the ice had to come from the manager’s kitchen refrigerator. The resulting ice-maker cubes also smelled strongly of smoke, adding a murky character to our Sprite and whiskey nightcaps.
I awoke about 6 a.m. to the sound of Rich opening the motel room door, trying to get a little cool air into the room made intolerably stuffy overnight by the radiant ceiling heating system.
We stumbled around, showered and packed, all the while keeping an eye on the Weather Channel for today’s regional forecast. The news was good – we were headed for Washington, D.C., where temperatures were expected to run 6 degrees above the seasonal normal high, making for a high in the upper 70s.
But it was still in the cool 50s as we rode into Winchester with the rising sun in our eyes. We settled on a Waffle House breakfast, a ham and cheese omelet for me with lots of cheesy hash browns and whole wheat toast and coffee, while we waited for the day to warm and the sun to climb away from the horizon and out of our field of view.
As we descended to the plains of Virginia, we found ourselves in gorgeous horse – and money - country. We crossed the historic Shenendoah River and rode past the entrance to the Shenendoah Valley Balloon Festival. The two-lane road was flanked for miles by picturesque stone walls, including one that ran for about 5 miles with a screen of trees that partially hid spectacular country estates. The villages along the route exuded history and character and the streets of Aldie were choked with visitors looking for a good time at the Aldie Harvest Festival.
After pausing for a restroom break in Fairfax, we rolled on into Washington, D.C., crossing the Potomac and finding a shaded parking space on the south side of Constitution Avenue a short walk from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. This was my third visit to Washington: my parents brought me here around 1951 – Dad was a big admirer of then-President Harry Truman – and I returned in November 1963 for the funeral of Pres. John F. Kennedy.
I hauled out my Nikon N90S and we strolled down to the memorial. If you haven’t been there, I’m sure you’ve heard enough about it to know this is an emotionally charged place. While there were plenty of youthful gawkers who had no recollection of the Vietnam War, there were also many family groups and individuals searching the black granite panels for the name of a loved one. As I walked down into the cleft, I was struck by how connected – yet disconnected – I am to this place and the men and women it honors.
So far as I know, none of my friends or classmates died in Vietnam, so I’m not sure I’d recognize a single name on that 246-foot wall. Nonetheless, these honored dead are my generation and, had it not been for the fateful intercession of three U.S. Air Force doctors who authorized my medical discharge after 41 days of USAF basic training, I could have ended up in ‘Nam and had my name among the more than 58,200 engraved here.
We paused to watch a group of young girls strike Spice Girl-like poses in front of Frederick Hart’s sculpture of three U.S. troopers south of the Memorial and then made our way back to the bikes.
The day was warming and I stripped down to my denim shirt and bicycle shorts to remove the Gore-Tex lining from my pants and jacket before we got moving again. We continued on down Constitution to the Capital Building, rode south behind it to Independence Avenue and back west to complete our circuit of the government/monument area.
We followed U.S. 50, getting lost briefly and then picking it up again to head east out of town. We spent a sweaty half-hour crawling through a construction zone in 80-degree heat, waiting our turn to creep ahead as barricades pinched four lanes down to one.
The air felt deliciously cool once we broke into the clear and got moving again, now well into Maryland and headed for the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.
Rich was in the lead and picked up the $2.50 toll for both of us.
We soared up and over the smooth waters of the bay. On either side of the span, we could see the blue waters of the bay sprinkled with white sails and power boat wakes as Saturday sailors reveled in the perfect late October sunshine and salty breezes.
“What a picture!” I thought as I looked in vain for a place to pull over and shoot some photos.
In a few minutes’ time we were back on land, this time on the Del-Mar-Va peninsula. As we rode south through farmland with ready-for-harvest fields of soybeans, I wondered about the geological origins of this piece of land.
When we pulled over for a late lunch at a farm market/deli in Easton, Md., Rich explained the peninsula is part of an ancient coastal plain, rather than some prehistoric pile of sand built up by the Atlantic Ocean.
“The East Coast is sinking and the West Coast is adding land,” Rich said. “That’s why, because of the erosion of rivers and streams, the subsiding East Coast is where you find more marshes and wetlands.”
Although not the fastest or most direct route to Ocean City, Md., U.S. 50 is a four-lane divided highway all the way down the peninsula and it made for a relaxed, easy ride.
We arrived at Ocean City in late afternoon, crossing the causeway to the spit of land that holds the resort attractions, boardwalk and beach of this town at the end of the road.
Overhead hung a sign marking the beginning of westbound U.S. 50 announcing, “Sacramento CA 3073 (miles).” A similar sign listing the same distance to Ocean City stands at the other end of U.S. 50 just west of downtown Sacramento.
We parked near the boardwalk and hiked up and over to the beach to dance with the waves and wet our boots with the waters of the eastern sea, just three months after we dipped them into the cold Pacific in Big Sur.
Rich had appropriately worn his “I survived U.S. 50” T-shirt and we found a camera-savvy Maryland guy, vacationing down at the shore with his family, to take a few pictures of the two of us grinning into the golden afternoon sun.
Up the beach, we noticed a girl helping her boyfriend into a Santa Claus suit. We suppressed our curiosity and adjourned to a boardwalk Italian café for iced tea and Aleve.
The sun was setting and we still had a few hours to ride to our room at the Red Horse Motel in Frederick, Md.
Since we had once again discharged our obligation to U.S. 50, we charted a more direct route back to the bay bridge, following U.S. 113 north into Delaware, the Del. 13 and Del. 404 back toward Chesapeake Bay.
As we crossed into Delaware, I did a quick mental inventory and concluded that this was the only state in the lower 48 I had never visited. Now only Alaska and Hawaii remain in my lifelong personal tour of the United States.
I also reckoned that I’d ridden a motorcycle in 39 of the lower 48 states and realized that I was only a day away from picking up Pennsylvania, raising my state count to 40.
We were surprised to discover there was no toll charge for westbound traffic on the bay bridge and in fairly short order we picked up I-97 north at Annapolis and headed toward Baltimore. Somehow, I had envisioned Baltimore being 100 miles or so ahead of us, so I was startled and delighted to see a white-on-green sign reading, “Baltimore 25 mi.” Almost before we knew it, we were on I- 695, zooming around the southwest side of Baltimore and looking for I-70 west.
Again, I expected a long, dark, cold slog to Frederick, only to discover it was just another 33 miles down the road.
Tonight was certainly a different experience than last night’s epic ride through the mountains of West Virginia.
Rich led us to the motel where we found the night clerk watching the Who performing “Won’t Get Fooled Again” as their part of the benefit concert for New York. It was inspiring to see an aging Pete Townshend – actually he and I are the same age – windmilling his way through those familiar old power chords.
Rich and I checked into our room, secured the bikes and strolled next door for a steak dinner, washed down with Beck’s Dark Beer, to celebrate our conquest of U.S. 50.
Back at the room, we watched the rest of the New York benefit concert and bagged it about 1 a.m. local time.
We took our time about getting up and out Sunday morning, enjoying the decadently powerful shower spray. It was a bright sunny day and we decided to get some miles down before breakfast.
We followed I-70 about 50 miles north and west. A few miles east of Hancock, we noticed a line of Chevrolet Corvettes streaming onto the Interstate. They were traveling in convoy and I counted more than 30 of all years and descriptions before we reached the head of the line.
About that time, Rich signaled a stop at the first Hancock exit. Checking my mirrors, I noticed the ‘Vettes were following us. We pulled over at a truck stop café and I watched the seemingly endless parade of Corvettes roll past as I filled my tank.
After a cheap but indifferently-served breakfast, we rode down Hancock’s main street, passing a restaurant swamped with the Corvette crowd, before regaining the freeway at the west end of town. I-70 shoots north from Hancock to become the pothole- and traffic-ridden Pennsylvania Turnpike, so we picked up I-68 and continued west along the neck of Maryland.
Rich had warned me he wanted to make a photo stop west of Hancock for an unusual geological feature.
A few miles on, we passed through a cleft in the rock at the crest of a high hill where the road builders had blasted their way through.
Rich explained the road cut exposes a section of folded rock strata.
“In geological terms, this particular type of structure is called a ‘syncline.’” He said.
“What makes this particular site remarkable is how completely the structure is exposed by the road cut, as well as the symmetry of the structure. It’s also unusual because it is a synclinal hill. It is more typical for a hill to be underlain by an ‘anticline,’ that is strata that are draped over the axis of the fold.”
Ignoring “no stopping” signs, we pulled over. Rich fumbled with his saddlebag, pretending to be dealing with some mechanical emergency, while I dug out my camera and photographed the syncline. I also shot a couple of frames of Rich, just for good measure.
At Morgantown, W.Va., we picked up I-79 for the run up to I-70 at Washington, Pa. This was the first time I’d ridden a motorcycle in Pennsylvania, so my total of motorcycle states jumped to 40.
Night fell as we made our final gas stop at Dayton, Ohio, and we crossed the Indiana state line at Richmond about 7 p.m.
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