Halfway 8,522 Miles from Home (May 24, 2024)

 May 24, 2024

We've arrived 8,522 miles from home Metuchen, New Jersey.  8,500 is the theoretical halfway point in the charity ride.

On our last ridinng day together, we dodged the rain comoing out of Winchester, Virginia.  The ride up I81 from South Carolina is beautiful, rolling hills, green, lush, pastures, dense broad leaf  forests, and a few confederate battle flags!  

Two days prior, we left Mount Airy, North Carolina just before 6AM to beat the forecasted rain in the early afternoon.   We arrived in Winchester, Virginia just before noon and rested a bit.  Despite the potential of rain, we decided to do some local activities.  Our first stop was the Museum of Shenendoah Valley. 

During our visit, we were advised that the adjacent garden was closed as there were lightening strikes, so we decided to leave.  The parking lot was situated in a large depression with a high ridge line about 200 feet beyond it.  As we were approaching the motorcycle in the parking lot, there was a loud noise seemingly coming from every where in the sky.  There was a large metal box next to the motorycle that looked like it might be an HVAC exhaust and at first I thought it was the sound of of exhaust from the building behind us.   The noise continued to get louder as we were taking the helmets off the bike, and suddenly we realized what the noise was as a torrential rain and hail breached over the ridge line and raced towards us in the parking lot.   And before we could run, we were getting pelted with hail and rain.  

Only Charlene was able to get her helmet off the bike as we both turned and ran back  toward the museum.  I lost Charlene by the time I got to the building as she dropped all the contents of her purse onto the ground.  We waited out the storm and 15 minutes later rode off into town where some of the streets were already dry while the sewer openings were spewing water as a sign of how much rain had fallen in just 15 minutes.