For the last few weeks, a group of friends and myself had a motorcycle trip planned to ride up to New Hampshire and Maine. I was looking forward to that ride, as I have never been up to that area, about a week before we were set to depart plans changed and we ended up going to the Mid-Atlantic part of the Appalachian region. It ended up being an amazing week.
I have been to the western part of West Virginia that borders Ohio plenty of times, but have never been to the eastern peninsula, there are some amazing views there and great motorcycle roads.
We got to visit our Washington D.C., I have never been before and a few weeks shy of my 48th birthday it was nice to finally go a few days before our Republic celebrated its 249th anniversary.
We stopped by the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, which had some really cool exhibits, the highlight for me was seeing the 1972 Harley-Davidson XR-750 that Evel Knievel used for his Kings Island jump in 1975 and as a Trekker seeing the giant replica of the Original Series Enterprise was cool as hell.
There were a lot of great exhibits at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History as well, but the highlight of my trip (other then being able to flick off the Capital Building and the IRS building) was visiting the National Archives and seeing our founding documents in person. To see one of the four surviving originals of the 1297 Magna Carta and of course the Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights and Constitution in person finally was awe inspiring. I just wish our elected officials would go back to honoring those documents.
The day after we visited DC, we rode up to the Gettysburg National Battlefield in Pennsylvania. To stand at the top of the hill where Confederate soldiers marched up to battle the Union army, 162 years to the very day, where despite being outnumbered, the Union held their ground until reinforcements arrived to bolster their lines was something else.
On our last day, riding home to Northeast Ohio, we made an impromptu stop at the Flight 93 Memorial. Being there in person and hearing the park ranger tell the story of that flight and the days events, brought back a whole lot of emotions and memories of the way I felt in the days and years after that horrible day.
9/11 was the event that caused me to stray from my libertarian beliefs and fall into a “we’ll put a boot in your ass. Its the American way,” period of neocon madness. Thankfully I have since come to my senses, but the profound impact of that day remains.
Seeing some of the small towns in Virgina & West Virginia that stretch back to the colonial days was really awesome, while Ohio is pretty old, our old towns just don’t compare. All in all it was an awesome road trip and I can’t wait for my next motorcycle adventure vacation.
