"Interesting thing: The bike's odometer told me that I had travelled about 10% further. The speedometer is about 10% fast. I've been telling many folks that I travelled more than 1200 miles in 23 hours, but it would appear it was not quite 1200."

"Imagine my sense of growing hopelessness as I find myself led to another through-way, US 29-BR. How grateful I was to discover my exit was only a little more than a mile, but I jiggered my way through slower moving traffic in a manner than I didn't know I knew how to do. Seeing the Quality Inn, I knew I should be in a hurry, but took a moment for one more picture of my GPS stat's so that the Rally folks would have it with the photos they would download from my digital camera."

"Well, Virginia is all about increasing revenue off of 81. Expect signs for fuel to take you to Hell-and-gone. Perhaps it was a wrong turn but I found myself going West to Christiansburg and had no choice but to ride it out. At the turn-off from 81 it was still an hour of riding to the finish line. 29 took me into town, gave me an exit where I saw lots of hotels. Good I must be there. No, GPS told me to keep going. I needed to find a QUALITY INN and there were none in sight."

"I knew I was getting close to DNF'ing. Highway 81 in Virginia was two hours of boredom and frustration. 65 mph? Why? And aggressive law enforcement. Looking at the map, now, I see that I could have picked up a couple of bonus points and rode through some interesting scenery and made better time. The GPS told me the ETA and I knew I was not going to be setting any records. I could not make up any time on 81. All I could do would be to lose more and I needed one more fuel stop."

"After KFC, I planned no further bonus stops until I saw this one. Riding Hwy 25 E was a bittersweet treat. It was a nice bit of two-lane following a winding river. However, a four-lane was quickly being built atop of it and I suspect the two lane will soon be a bit of esoteric history. Glad I got to ride it, first. Sometimes human progress really sucks."