Chris' Ramblings

- Friday – September 18, 2009 -

At this point I was only about 4 hours from home, so I’d be getting home a day earlier than expected.  I had already hit a bunch of the West Virginia roads I had planned to hit today last night. So, I could do a couple more touristy thing today on the way home.

First stop was the Cass Scenic Railroad.  I got there just before the train pulled in for the first excursion of the day.  I could have hopped aboard but figured I’d wait until I could bring the wife along to enjoy the ride as well.

If you’ve never been to Cass the entire town is restored to the company town that it was at the turn of the century.  The company houses have been restored and now rent out as vacation cottages.  To read more about the town and railroad click HERE.

Here comes the train for it’s first run of the day..

Train Arriving from Chris Clark on Vimeo.

Train Leaving from Chris Clark on Vimeo.

After leaving Cass it was a short hop over the mountain to the National Radio Astronomy Center.

Here are a few pics of the GBT.  You can’t take digital pictures once in the facility due to radio frequency noise from the camera that could interfere with the telescope.  There is also a very nice visitor center that offers free tours year round. For more information about the GBT and it’s mission click HERE.

We were actually pretty lucky during our tour.  When we got to the base of the telescope they were changing out the receivers.  To do this the whole thing moves so that the dish is pointed straight up.  The GBT is the world’s largest fully steerable radio telescope.

Oh, and if you ever wondered why your cell phone, radio, and tv don’t work anywhere down this way, it’s becuase you are in the middle of the National Radio Quiet Zone.  More information on that can be found HERE.

After I left the NRAO i headed north.  I figured I would hit the highest point in West Virginia on my way.  Well, I didn’t really know how to get there so I just followed the road signs that led me up some cow path of a road that switch backed up the mountain. Coming around one of the left handers I lost the front end in some pea gravel and went down.  No damage to me and I only broke a turn signal and clutch lever on the bike.  Not too bad I’d say.  My real problem was the bike was nearly upside down due to the slope of the road.  Eventually I got it back on two wheels and got it started again.  At that point I was pissed so I headed back to the main road to go home.  Not far down the road I saw another road that goes up to the highest point and this one was like a highway.  Just my luck.  I decided not to go up.  I’ve got a reason to return now. So I headed for home.  On the way I passed Seneca Rocks.  A local climbing hotspot.

Then onward to home.  Took the highway instead of the back roads just because I wanted to get home a little quicker.

- Epilogue -

After all was said and done I’d say it was a pretty good trip.  After getting off to a slow start, I ended up getting to see a lot of things I thought I may not get to see on this trip.  As always, there’s really no better way to travel the country than on a motorcycle.  It’s the difference between watching a movie, and being IN the movie.

Final stats…

That’s all folks!

Tags: Motorcycles

This entry was posted by cablebandit on Sunday, September 27th, 2009 at 2:17 pm and is filed under Motorcycles, Road Trips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.