Enjoying great weather, great roads, great scenery

Our plan for today was to take a ride around the western parts of Virginia and eastern parts of West Virginia. The route is essentialy a rectangle, in which the east-west sides cross the mountains and the north-south sides run along the valleys. The day dawned bright and clear.

The first leg from Lexington took VA 39 through Goshen, Millboro Springs and  Warm Springs to Minnehaha Springs. The author of our motorcycling guide confidently claims "There is no finer road for motorcycling in Virginia than Route 39." He won't get any argument from us. It was a stunningly good ride. (Once again, we have run out of superlatives to describe how good it was).

Once clear of the farms on the open rolling hills, we began the climb to Goshen Pass. In the shade of the trees, the temperature dropped and our spirits soared

We stopped to refuell in Millboro Springs, where the Service Station is adjacent to a river, and found dinner sized fish swimming quietly below.

At Minnehaha Springs we turned north and headed along the valley, which was again open rolling country speckled with farms and barns The road was mostly straight, but in a few placeswhere the road crossed ridges the riding got exciting, with the bike working the edges of the tyres fairly hard.

We stopped for lunch at Dunsmore before continuing north for a few miles. We took a left turn on Route 66 |(not THE Route 66, but VA 66) to the town of Cass, hoping we might be able to ride the Cass Scenic Railroad.

Unfortunately, the next trip was an hour and three quarters wait, and being a 2 hour trip this would have taken too much time out of our day. Returning to our original route we continued a few miles north to visit the National Radio Astronomy Observatory at Greenbank WV, where the 110 metre wide dish is claimed to be the largest moveable object on land in the world.

The NRAO has at least 6 dishes in addition to the Green Bank Telescope. We took a quick look around the Visitors Center, where we had the opportunity to see ourselves imaged in infrared light. Talk about scary!

We took the guided tour that started with a 10 minute film about radio astronomy in general before concentrating on the NRAO and Green Bank Telescope.

This was followed by a talk about how important it is to minimise radio interference around the dish because of the sensitivity of its receivers and the effort they go to to create a radio “dark sky”. Our guide used a Faraday cage and oscilloscope to how much radio “noise” digital cameras emit when they take a photo, to explain why only old fashioned film cameras can be used within a mile of the dish. All the vehicles are diesel powered so as to eliminate noise from spark plug ignition systems.

We were taken on a bus tour past many of the smaller dishes on our way to a close up look at the Green Bank Telescope. Men climbing on the structure were absolutely dwarfed by it. Not one person on our tour was able to take a phpto of it.

We continued our ride north to Bartow, where we turned east to cross the mountains again. Once again the riding interest picked up as we rode up and down across four or five ranges. At the top of Lantz Mountain we were afforded a spectacular view over the Blue Grass Valley.

On the other side of this valley we climbed Monterey Mountain before descending into the town of Monterey. Here we visited the Gallery of Mountain Secrets.

This is a gallery selling the very fine work of local artists including a blacksmith. It also happens to be run by a couple who are mad-keen motorcyclists according to the guide book. Unfortunately, they were away at a race meeting for electric powered motorcycles so we never got to introduce ourselves.

We continued east to Churchville, then turned southwest for the run back to our motel. Our route took us down country back roads, which meant we had to slow down quite a bit. Having the sun dipping ever lower in our faces didn't help, and it was fairly late when we arrived back at the motel.