Day 28 - Marietta, OH to Home

Last night the band finished around 10:30pm after many audience chants of "One more song!" They were loud, but played songs we liked so it didn't bother us. At some point in the night we briefly heard intense thunder, rain and wind. After that we had a quiet nights' rest in our nice room. 

In the morning we mentioned to each other that we both woke from the thunder and hoped the bike was okay outside right before falling back asleep. When Rob stepped into the hallway to pack a few bags in the trailer, he noticed it was sprinkling. Dang WeatherBug did not forecast rain. By 8am it was pouring! We did an awkward dance of holding the umbrella while partially opening the trailer to try to get bags in. Rob said had we known we could have left earlier and beat the rain which started around 7:30am. 

We brought our rain gear inside and changed in our room, then finished packing and went out. It was raining even harder. Normally this is not an issue but with the trailer lights not working, it would make us difficult to see. Based on our route and the rain on the radar, Rob figured that we'd have just an hour of rain as we moved eastward. 

As we got ready to leave the hotel, Rob noticed two police cars parked under the drive-thru Bank across the street. We picked a less visible exit from the hotel so they would be less likely to notice us and our dark trailer. We got fuel on the edge of town. Right as we were finishing up the sheriff showed up to fill up his car and get coffee inside. Rob signaled to Michele to quickly jump on so we could sneak out without him seeing our lack of lights! We got away free and clear!

Since it rained hard for an hour, Michele didn't take any photos. We made our way east on US50 to I-79. We crossed the Ohio river and were in West Virginia within minutes of starting our trip. About an 50 miles into the morning, the rain let up and the clouds gave way to sunshine. Temperatures were still mild in the low 70s so we decided to stop later to change out of our rain suits. Once at I-79, we proceeded north towards Morgantown and then west on I-68. About 180 miles away from home, we were just east of Morgantown and picked a nice Sheetz to fuel up and get out of our rain gear. This is the alternate exit we took instead of the Bruceton Mills exit that doesn't have nice facilities. The temperatures were starting to climb and we didn't want to overheat in the rain suits. This would be our final fuel up for the trip.

We continued along I-68 east crossing into Maryland. We stopped at Buddy Lou's Eats for lunch in Hancock, MD around 1pm. Michele loved these garden ornament pups and wanted to take a pair home. It's a quirky restaurant/ice creamery/antique store.

Buddy Lou's is right on the C&O Canal so it is a convenient stop for bicyclists and walkers. We haven't visited this part of the Canal this far west before and it looked like a fun area to spend more time.

The rest of our trip was uneventful and traffic was heavy on I-68 and I-70. Thankfully, without any incidents. As we descended from the Maryland mountains, the heat really kicked in as did the humidity. As we were approaching the US340/US15 split, traffic slowed way down. Turns out there were three Maryland police units on the side of the road dealing with a single vehicle. As we slowly rolled by (along with everyone else doing a looky-loo), we could see that one of the two occupants was in handcuffs. Not a good day for him! The remainder of the short trip south on US15 was smooth. 

Today started off wet and cool and ended warm and humid. The high today was 91 degrees. 

Here's our entire trip route:

Trip stats: 

• 6,073 miles traveled
• 28 continuous days on the bike
• 14,200 feet at highest elevation reached (in Colorado at Mt. Evans)
• 99 degrees in highest temp experienced in Kansas
• 42 degrees in lowest temp experienced in Colorado on top of Trail Ridge Road (RMNP)
• 14 days where we got rain
• 14 states visited (VA, MD, WV, KY, IN, IL, MO, KS, OK, NM, CO, WY, NE, IA)
• 9 parks or monuments visited (federal and state)
• 17 hotels/inns stayed in
• 30 miles of hiking
• 177,000 mileage reached on the Goldwing's odometer by trip's end
• 44,000 miles we have now pulled the trailer behind the Wing on all our trips
• 5,000+ pictures snapped.

We really loved this trip and being in Colorado. Rocky Mountain National Park exceeded our expectations. Each hike was very different, and we loved taking a relaxed pace to see wildlife and amazing scenery.

By far this is our longest trip/vacation in terms of the number of days. As we always do, we talk about where we want to go next. The entire Blue Ridge Parkway might be a spring trip. Since national parks book up a year in advance, we need to start thinking about 2024 already and a return trip to Jasper/Banff and Canada looks exciting.