The Blue Ridge Brood

It's been a really noisy summer in these here parts. Thanks to a whole bunch of cicadas.

I'm not real fond of bugs. Especially big bugs that fly. Because they can potentially run into me. And crunchy bugs. Because the crunch when you kill them, if you find yourself in a situation where you HAVE TO kill one, totally grosses me out. Since cicadas are big, flying, crunchy bugs, they are not my favorite.

I haven't seen many live ones, but I suspect that's because the dogs get to them and eat them before I see them.

I have seen quite a few of these, though.

Apparently, as periodic cicadas go, there are 17-year groups and 13-year groups.

This particular group is called The Blue Ridge Brood. It's one of the 17-year groups.

For a complete list of broods along with dates of emergence, CLICK HERE.

And if you are yearning to know all there is to know about cicadas, here's the home page for the web site housing those links.

There's not much of interest happening around here of late. Can you tell?

Oh, and I do need to mention that it was Hubby who stumbled across the cicada info first.

Things to Come

Not a lot has been happening around here.

That's actually an understatement. Nothing has been happening around here.

Riva del Garda Waterfront

After our return from San Diego, Hubby was sick for an entire week. Then the crud hit me. It's still lingering, but WAY better.

The good news about all the downtime is that I FINALLY started making some vacation plans. I couldn't decide if we should wing it and just stop when we got tired and find lodging. Or plan ahead.

The inner tightwad in me decided to plan ahead. Things in Europe are expensive enough. I figured we'd get off much cheaper if I scouted out and booked rooms in advance.

I didn't have that much booking to do since we'll be spending quite a bit of time with Annelies and Yves. And Annelies was kind enough to find a house for us to rent. It's in the hills not too far west (20 miles maybe?) of Venice.

After a week there, which follows the motorcycle adventure portion of the trip, we'll be headed over to Switzerland to stay with, Tammi, a friend and former co-worker, who lives in a town she described as having more cows than people. 

Now I guess I should start working on stuff we need to do before we go. Like figure out how much cash to take. Check out the weather. Stuff like that.

Huh, look at that. Now I have something to do!

Besides daydream about this, that is...

Perfect Way to Travel on the Cheap

I don't know why I haven't written about this before.

Maybe because I have no firsthand experience?

I'm not sure.

I DO know why I am writing about this now. It is Bob's fault. He just did a post on being homeless on the road and traveling on limited funds. There's a great, cheap, way to travel, which I think would be perfect for a solo motorcyclist. Especially for someone like Bob who seems to be quite friendly and outgoing.

This method of which I speak is Couchsurfing.

Basically, it's a global social network of folks who are travelers, hosts, or both. As a traveler, you are seeking lodging in someone's home. As a host, you have a sofa, spare bedroom, empty corner, whatever, someone can use for sleeping. Of course, you'd need to share your facilities, too.

It doesn't have to be fancy. But remember, it's a social thing. It's not just about crashing anonymously in someone's house. You're expected to interact at least a little bit. But the thing is, the host and surfer establish the "ground rules" as they go. You do have to do some advance planning to identify hosts in a particular area when traveling. 

It sounds sort of cool, but sort of scary, right? Let total strangers into your home? It actually is an established network that works quite well. There are local chapters where you actually meet other couchsurfers. They have get-togethers. You establish a profile by going to local events and actually traveling. Hosts and travelers rate each other. So while there's no official security check, there's enough intel available to know if someone is legit or not.

I wrote about Shannon's trip around the world a little while ago.  In case you didn't read about it, Shannon, our oldest daughter, traveled solo around the world for about 10 months. One of the things that made her trip possible is Couchsurfing.

She didn't surf the entire time, she also stayed in hostels and even hotels on a very rare occasion. She met some very cool people along the way. And even now, when she's not in travel mode, she's hooked up with the local Couchsurfing contingent. Of course she hosts people, too.

I'm not sure how it would work for couples as space is usually limited. It's not a dating service or hook-up scheme, it really is a social travel network, but two people can't share a couch very well. And it's usually solo travelers who are more open to interaction with others. If you are traveling with even one other person, you have your own little circle people are hesitant to intrude upon.

If my husband weren't so painfully shy, I'd sign up to host people. I think it would be fun. A great way to meet new people from around the world.

Sound interesting? Have you ever heard of Couchsurfing? Would you consider surfing yourself?

Well-timed Ride

I guess it was around 2:00 or so on Saturday when I left Skyline Drive and headed for home.

Flowery meadow under passing clouds.

On the way to the Drive, I'd intended to shoot video. Alas, as I am still getting the hang of this helmet cam, I shot pics instead. Which was okay. Except I wanted y'all to see Thornton Gap.

Lucky for you I rode the Drive back north. AND I remembered to start the video.

It's nothing super-exciting. Just a leisurely ride down the mountain. I was pleasantly surprised that there was so little traffic. I mean, it was midday on a Summer Saturday. And US-211 is one of the few routes across the mountains for all traffic.

I was lucky not to encounter any vehicles until I was almost at the bottom of the run.

The road at Thornton Gap is notoriously dangerous.

You can't see the sign in the video. It says, MOTORCYCLISTS High Crash Area Next 3 Miles.

If you watch the video you'll see that it doesn't look particularly dangerous. What gets folks, I think, are the decreasing radius turns. They catch people unaware. In a decreasing-radius curve, the curvature gets tighter as you go. They're challenging because you have to continuously increase steering pressure and lean throughout the curve. Many riders get freaked when they enter too fast and are then surprised when they have to turn and lean harder.

I've been that way many times and am aware of the danger. So I just take it easy and have fun. 



I hope you enjoy the virtual ride.

The Weekend Double

I actually got out for not one, but TWO rides this weekend.

Imagine that!

I only took pics during one ride, so you'll just have to trust me.

Saturday morning I was faced with a dilemma. Hubby was still under the weather. He caught a cold en route to San Diego and had pretty much been coughing and sneezing all week. Coughing and sneezing is no fun under normal circumstances, but it is REALLY inconvenient when wearing a full-face helmet. So he didn't want to ride.

He said I should go without him. I felt guilty abandoning him, but he said he would've felt bad knowing I'd stayed home because of him.

Who am I to make the poor guy feel worse? So off I went.

I had enough sense to leave early since it was supposed to be hot. Again.

I had not planned a route. With the impending heat in mind -- it was already around 80 F (26 C) as I was leaving town -- I decided to head toward the mountains.

“The mountains are calling and I must go.” ― John Muir

All I could think of was finding shady roads. Then I remembered that my national parks pass was still good through the end of August. And Skyline Drive, which is in Shenandoah National Park and pretty much traverses mountain ridges for 100+ miles, is always cooler than the valley. So that's where I went.

Knowing I'd to get to ride US-211 through Thornton Gap was an extra-added bonus.

Because 211 is one of the few highways crossing the mountains, it does have to handle all sorts of traffic, such as trucks, campers, buses, etc. Fortunately, the road widens to three lanes on both sides of the summit, with two lanes for ascending traffic and one lane for vehicles on their way down the mountain.

Which is good, since so many American drivers are complete boneheads and cannot (or will not) comprehend the concept of Keep Right Except to Pass (KREP). They think the left lane is the "fast lane" and believe that their speed, no matter how fast or slow, is just fine. Even when climbing mountains and the right lane is specifically designed to accommodate slower-moving traffic, you get asshole drivers like this guy from Ohio...

... who is not only going slower than me, but is also having a hard time negotiating the curves and keeping to his lane.

That's dumb. Not to mention unsafe.

Wouldn't you rather stay as far to the right as possible to give opposing traffic, which could easily be careening downhill out of control, the widest berth possible?

Lucky for me, I got around him.

And before I knew it, I was at the park entrance. There was a line -- boo! -- which really sucked in the sun. But I only cooked for about five minutes.

And then I was greeted by this happy gal.

I love US Park Service rangers.

I hopped onto Skyline Drive headed south. Elevation at the gap is about 2,300 feet. From there, the road starts climbing immediately, but gradually, to about 3,400 feet.

The higher I got, the cooler it got. I was a happy girl.

I'll take blue skies and temps in the mid-70s (20-25 C) any day.

Alas, mountain weather is fickle.

What's that I see ahead and to the left? Clouds?

Yep. Thems definitely clouds.

It actually looked quite interesting. Blue sky everywhere else except for this one mass of clouds rolling in. They didn't look like rain clouds, but it was definitely getting cloudy.

Check out the view from the next overlook.

Looking a tad to the right, I could still see a bit of blue sky.

But not much. Weird, eh?

Temps dropped to about 70 F (20 C?) for a while, which was fine by me. Cool chicks like me do what we can to maintain our coolness.

But, soon enough, this is what greeted me...

Can't complain about that!

I really like that riding into the sky image.

There was lots of shade, too. But the big, blue sky shots are more-interesting. In my opinion.

As an aside... I'm trying to decide if I should adjust the helmet cam more so as not to catch any windshield in my picture. Some shots are better without the windshield. For some, the windshield lends that rider-point-of-view feel. I can always crop the windshield out, as I did in many of the pics in this post. But that just means more editing time required.

What do y'all think?

With windshield?

Or without?

This is the exact same image as above, but with the windshield cropped out.

I kind of like how the crop makes the image feel really wide.

Decisions, decisions...

Do let me know what you think.

Once I hit US-33 and refilled my gas tank, I'd hoped to hop over into West Virginia across that 7.6-mile stretch of US-33 I told you guys about previously...


View Larger Map

...which is our new favorite stretch of road on the planet.

But the Weather Channel told me, via the smart phone, that thunderclouds covered that stretch of road. Adding another couple hours of riding to get to wet roads just didn't sound like a great plan to me. So I headed for home. The ride south along Skyline Drive was so lovely that I turned around and came back the exact same way.

Both of those decisions were good ones. Because in the valleys, it was HOT. So hot, that once I came down off the mountains at Thornton Gap, I took the speediest route home.

After stopping here, that is.

I just had to investigate the "Complete Restroom."

What a letdown! It was completely unremarkable. And teeny-tiny. But at least the place had A/C.

It was only about a 30-minute, high-speed run that was highway all the way (four-lane [two on each side], not interstate) to get home. Upon arrival, my head was drenched in sweat. Yuck.

I wasn't exactly comfortable in the jacket, but enough air moved through the mesh to make it tolerable.

Sunday, Hubby was feeling better, so we both left the house early enough that we did about 80 miles, stopped for lunch, and still made it home by about 1:00 PM. Which is good, because it had started getting hot again.

Yes, it's good riding if you plan properly, but am I ever looking forward to Fall!

Emotional Rollercoaster

I was very excited the other day to buy some ground beef at the local farmers' market. I'm a big proponent of buying local. I've been getting veggies there for a while, but never beef.

Note to my vegan followers... some of these images may be disturbing.

When I saw the beef guy at the market on Wednesday, I remembered that I hadn't bought enough ground beef at the supermarket during my shopping expedition earlier in the week.

That's when I figured what the hey. I'd give the local beef a try.

It was exciting.

Okay, maybe not jump-up-and-down euphoria, but I felt good about it.

I was happy to support the local farmer.

And the meat, as evidenced by these raw burgers, looked pretty good.

Then, last night as I was preparing dinner, it hit me.

It was local meat. You know, from land nearby.

Which meant that it could have come from one of these...

You know, my friends.

The animals I like to stop and commune with periodically.

I was momentarily horrified. Even speechless.

I was also hungry, so I kept cooking.

That's when the next epiphany hit.

Those local cows are all DAIRY cows...

 

Not hamburger cows.

All was well in my world once more.

Now, that dairy part may not be entirely true.

But you know what?

 

Those were some darn good hamburgers.

Color Commentary

I think I have recovered from our recent whirlwind tour of San Diego. It's really a nice place to visit. Our time there was far too brief.

Shannon moved to San Diego (aka SD) in June 2011. She'd been wanting to go to the West Coast for years. Initially she and her boyfriend at the time had Portland, Oregon in mind. Or perhaps Seattle. Then the economy tanked. And she broke up with her boyfriend.

She had an apartment of her own in downtown Baltimore for about a year. Jobs were hard to come by and she wasn't really happy so, having saved a bit of money over time, she decided to travel the world, solo, on a shoestring budget rather than stay in Baltimore being depressed. It was actually cheaper to do that than stay in Baltimore paying rent, utilities, car insurance, etc. She stayed on the cheap, of course, and eats like a bird. But she had a blast.

Shannon is the adventurer in our brood. She has a blog that chronicled her journey. There's also this map, maintained by yours truly, that shows where she's been.

View Shannon-Tracker in a larger map

All that by herself. See what I mean about being an adventurer?

She lived with us for awhile after returning to the US. But when the opportunity to move to San Diego presented itself, she decided to take the plunge. And she's been there ever since.

I just cannot bring myself to repeat everything I have said (trip details!) on my personal blog, so I'll just show y'all a few of my favorite shots, provide a link to relevant posts on that other space, and provide Flickr slideshows/links. Okay?

I actually broke Day 1 down into three segments. And so far have only done blog posts on two of them: North Park Living (tour of Shannon's neighborhood) and Life's a Beach (our visit to La Jolla). All of the pics have been uploaded to Flickr, as evidenced by the slideshow links far below.

I shared my favorite mural pic yesterday. Here are some of my other favorite images.

I caught a reflection out of the corner of my eye as we were walking home after breakfast. I made Hubby and Shannon stop, backtrack a couple of steps, pose, and voila. A way cool photo. I like the shot because it's colorful, reflections are fun, and the building even says San Diego. When I showed it to Shannon later, she laughed and said something to the effect of, "You would  manage to capture this shot in the window of the Eagle, North Park's only gay bar."

That's the view that greeted us every morning when we stepped out of Shannon's cottage.

Hubby and Shannon in La Jolla

Pacific Ocean

Colorful Lifeguard Truck

Pelicans

La Jolla Cove

Funny Zebras

Me

Hubby was glad Shannon was along as she was in charge of taking pictures of me standing beside strange objects.

Which brings me to another interesting image...

After La Jolla, we stopped by Shannon's favorite beach and then headed into the city, specifically an area known as the Gaslamp Quarter. It's old (dates back to the 1860s), full of bars, restaurants, and shops, and there are gas lamps on the corners.

One of the bars was named Dick's Last Resort "Shame 'O the Gaslamp." We didn't go inside. It looked like a tourist trap, complete with a large statue of its namesake. Which presented the PERFECT opportunity for me.

Me with a Big Dick

How many girls do you know who can say they had their picture taken in San Diego beside a big Dick? Huh?

None, I bet.

The slideshow/Flickr links are below. Enjoy!

North Park (Shannon's neighborhood)

 

La Jolla

Pacific Beach (Shannon's favorite beach)

Gaslamp Quarter (Tourist Spot)