Amy loves taking photos of fall foliage. Atwood Lake is not far from our house.

Last week, Amy suggested that we take a ride, as the leaves were at their peak color here in Northeast Ohio.  Amy wanted to ride her Honda CB650SC Nighthawk.  She has been riding it a lot lately and has not taken the truck to work in months.  She is finally getting comfortable being out on her own motorcycle, thanks in large part to the Motorcycle Ohio Motorcycle Safety Class that she took.  We did not really have any plans made on where to ride, we just started riding. 

We left East Sparta, OH traveling south on OH 800 to I-70 east in Hendrysburg.  We then took I-70 to the Belmont-Morristown exit (exit 208) and went north for about 500 feet to eat at Schlepp’s Family Restaurant.  We found this restaurant when returning from a skiing trip when I was young, and they have always had great food, so we make it a point to ride there a couple of times each year for lunch.  We had a great lunch.  I had their beer battered fish and Amy ate part of a huge chef’s salad.  This was one of the largest salads I have ever seen.  She had more left over than she ate.  I think the salad would have fed three people.  

After leaving Schlepp’s, we went north to US 40 and headed east on 40.  We were this close to West Virginia, and Amy has never ridden out of Ohio before on her motorcycle, se we decided to go 17 more miles to Wheeling.  We crossed the Ohio River into Wheeling, West Virginia and rode through town.  After riding around Wheeling, we turned around and headed home.  

Our route home took us to St. Clairsville, OH then north on OH 9 through New Athens and Cadiz.  We followed OH 9 to OH 151 to Bowerston, OH and OH 212 to Atwood Lake where we stopped and Amy took some photos.  We would have continued the ride, but I could hardly stay awake, as I had worked the night before.  Amy was disappointed that she could not ride more, but this was the longest ride that she had ever done on her own bike.  We left Atwood Lake and rode home, about 15 minutes away.  

We had a great ride, and the weather was PERFECT.  The high temperature was 85 degrees, unheard of for a fall day in Northeast Ohio.  There was not a cloud in the sky.  Amy was thrilled to have had the chance to ride in another state.  The day after this ride, the temperatures fell and have stayed low.  I have been riding to work in sub-freezing weather for over a week now.  There will be some more great riding days, but they will not be like our day last week.

We are on a trip right now.  We are staying with family in the Knoxville, TN area and we traveled to Atlanta, GA to see my sister for a couple of days.  We have been riding an average of 300 miles per day.  Today we rode 344.4 miles and nearly ran out of gas.  Anyway, here are some photos we have taken along the way.  I will post more stories when I have some time.

Honda CB550SC Nighthawk running on the freeway. Not bad for a $300 bike!

Here is a shot of my sister's Honda CB550SC Nighthawk with my BMW Boxer motor in the foreground.

This photo of our BMW R1200RT taken on the Cherohala Skyway looks like a BMW advertisement

Here is another great photo that Amy took of my Uncle Greg's BMW R1150RT on the Cherohala Skyway.

These butterflies were EVERYWHERE on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Amy took many photos of the butterflies, and of the bees, but she got both in this photo.

I will post more photos when I have some more time.  Our days have been starting early and ending late, so I must call it a night.  We will be going back into the mountains tomorrow to ride some more great roads, and probably let Amy take many more photos.