Playing catch-up here, I didn't realize I never wrote a post about our brief trip to Zion National Park! Rewind all the way back to some random day in December of 2019; a friend of mine happened to post on facebook about a great deal he found on a plane ticket to Florida. For no good reason at all, I started perusing the value airlines, and eventually I found an unreal deal on flights to Las Vegas for a long weekend in February. I booked them right then and there. $55, total, for both of us to fly roundtrip to Vegas and back. We only had 48 hours there, it was the middle of winter, and we were reduced to a "personal item" each; all issues we could easily deal with. I found us a deal on a smallest-available rental car and booked that as well. The rest of the details could wait!

Fast Forward to a couple weeks before the trip, when weather could more accurately be predicted, and I began researching again. We've been to Vegas before and didn't need to spend anytime in the city; our goal was to grab our car and head to a park. Death Valley was the surest bet for good weather; even in February the high temperatures are in the 70s. But we'd been there not too long ago. There are tons of killer hikes and it is an international dark sky recognized area, so going back is absolutely not out of the question, but if I could manage it, I'd prefer to go somewhere new.
Zion National Park was the next best option, both for driving distance and weather potential. Further research revealed two of the greatest hikes in the USA reside in Zion, and that quickly became our ideal candidate. Weather was looking good, so we went ahead and booked our stay. 
We scored such a great deal on the flight, I splurged just a bit on the hotel and we stayed in downtown Springdale. It's a fair bit cheaper to stay at the highway exit in a chain hotel, but Springdale is a beautiful little town at the entrance gate to the park, full of local restaurants and lodges. We chose the Zion Park Motel, and it was just perfect! The weather forecast continued to look perfect, and eventually we were off! Remember when I said we had 1 'personal item' each? I found a deal on a very nice mid-sized hiking backpack for each of us, and we crammed our 3-season hiking gear, clothes, toiletries, and anything else we needed for the weekend in them. I even packed our hiking poles and micro-spikes in my pack.

We landed mid afternoon, but the time change and 3 hour drive after landing worked against us so we arrived at the motel late and immediately hit the sack.
We woke up early to find our motel surroundings were stunning walls of red and white sandstone. It was around 40 degrees, but was expected to be in the 50's and sunny all day. We walked across the street to Deep Creek Coffee Company for a bite to eat before heading off on our first big hike. The food was absolutely top notch, and it's a must-do before a day of adventuring. It was the perfect combination of healthy, hearty, and tasty to power us through a huge day, without feeling overly stuffed to begin with.
Their Southwest Quinoa Breakfast Bowl has become a staple in our household.
The hike to Angels Landing is consistently listed as a top hike in this country. It's about 4.5 miles round trip, but can easily be extended, and about 1400 feet of elevation gain. Some sections of the hike were quite physically demanding, but the true challenge is all mental: the last half mile or so is a thin ridge of sandstone, with a 1500 foot sheer drop-off on both sides. Often so narrow or steep, the park service has installed chains to hold on to. This last bit proved too much for Alicia, so she stayed at the first overlook and enjoyed people watching and the perfect weather. I proceeded across the narrow ridge to the very edge. The final reward is a nearly 360 degree view from 1500 feet high in the center of the canyon. It was absolutely stunning, and so completely worthy of the sky-high ratings. Worth mentioning, winter was so absolutely perfect for this hike! I honestly could not imagine attempting it during peak crowds. Since we were here to hike all day, we did not head back after reaching this astonishing turning point, and rather continued hiking on the West Rim Trail another several miles through the stunning landscape.
We made it back to town after something like 12 miles of mountainous hiking, and promptly headed to a local Mexican restaurant to gorge ourselves on fantastic food. We made one stop on the way, at Zion Adventure Company to pickup our rental gear for tomorrows hike!

The next day we had another world-class hike planned, and our flight departed that evening so we had no time to waste! Another great breakfast as early as we could, and we were off to the trailhead! As you'll recall, we picked up rental gear from Zion Adventure Company for this hike!
The Narrows is the other "Best Hike in the USA" in Zion National Park. The trail is the Virgin River, as it passes through a 2000 foot high slot canyon. Without a wilderness permit, you're only permitted to hike about 4 miles up river through the canyon, plus an additional half mile up a side canyon. In the summer this hike can be done in shorts and great shoes, but in the shoulder seasons, and this, the heart of the off-season, far more protective gear is necessary. We rented complete drysuits and waterproof canyoneering boots. cheaping out on waterproof pants and shoes only was an option, but not worth it to me. One slip and we'd be cold and miserable. I planned to hike as far as I was permitted, so we splurged for the full suits and I don't regret that decision one bit. The hike is flat for the most part, but there were a handful of large rocks obstacles that you could climb over (in the raging water) to proceed as far as we did. For the most part the water was lower than knee level, but occasionally it would go to waist high, and even a few times nearly up to our armpits. This is very strange feeling in 40 degrees (air and water temperature)! The extra difficulty of hiking in water (and often on loose/slippery stones) becomes apparent towards the end of the hike, when we could feel the extra levels of fatigue in our legs.
The summer temperatures and clothing would be a definite plus, but as with yesterdays hike, with the summer temperatures bring huge crowds. We had this hike nearly to ourselves. I believe we saw half a dozen others over the entire 9+ miles. I 100% recommend this hike in the winter months. An additional bonus is the far lower likelihood of being closed due to high water or flash flood potential in the winter months. The hike was the absolute definition of adventuring. It was stunning, a riot, and a challenge! It was so much fun, I cannot recommend it enough.
We added a small additional hike to the end to bring our daily total around 12 again, and headed back to town for another giant recovery meal. We packed and compressed our bags to 'personal item' size once again, and hit the road back to Vegas. 

A bicycle ride in the 'Past Trips' blog?! I know! Crazy stuff! So Labor Day Weekend was a few days away and like always, we hadn't made any plans whatsoever, but couldn't stand the thought of staying home for a 3-day weekend. I began looking into long bicycle rides, somewhere more interesting than the usual paths we've been traveling around central Ohio. I found several options; one outside Pittsburgh, a couple in West Virginia, one in Indiana, and one in Michigan. The common trend seemed to be 'crushed limestone'. Rather than paving the long trails (60-400 miles), they lay a hard-packed surface of crushed gravel. I have a mountain bike, but the others only have road bikes with tiny road bike tires; worrisome. I did as much internet searching as I could, which very frequently mentioned things like "fatter tires are easier" and "I saw others on road bikes, but I was glad I was on my mountain bike". The optimist in me took that information and determined: It's possible on a road bike!
We took a couple road bikes to a nearby park with a a few miles of crushed limestone trails to get an idea what we're going to have to deal with. We were pleasantly surprised; the gravel tends to be so hard packed, we didn't have an issue at all.
I found a deal on my new favorite 'lodging website' AirBNB, near the center of the 80 mile long Greenbrier River Trail. This Rails-to-Trails path seemed to be in the Appalachian Mountains, but followed a river and was quite flat. There were also mountain bike rentals available in town, just in case our road bikes weren't going to cut it in the end. We loaded up the van with bicycles, beer, and a little bit of luggage, and headed southeast.
The apartment was just outside the tiny town of Marlinton, a full 300 miles from Columbus. (I've actually been through Marlinton before on the motorcycle, but I had no idea there was a long bike path nearby.) It was setup like a large studio apartment, with one main room plus a full bathroom. It was brand new, and we were the second folks to stay there. The apartment was above a large garage, on a private 7 acre lot. David maintains, it's the nicest place we saw in West Virginia.

We arrived Saturday afternoon, and stopped in the local outfitters on our way into town. They offer a one way shuttle anywhere along the bike path, which works out perfect for anyone trying to see more of the path (so you don't have to ride out and turn around and ride back). We stopped into the apartment to get checked in and unload our stuff, and then headed back to try out the path. We headed north, in an attempt to reach the nearby tunnel. The road bikes were holding up well, and we made it to the tunnel, ten miles north of town, without issue. The tunnel was just long enough to be completely pitch black. Let me tell you, it is a mind bending experience riding a bicycle in an enclosed, absolutely black space. You simply maintain a level of faith that you're not going to hit... anything. Because, anything could have been in there! With pumping adrenaline, we all emerged sans issue.

We made the ten mile return trip without issue, and we grabbed some dinner in town before heading back to the apartment. We dragged the cooler down to the fire-pit, and enjoyed a small campfire under the stars.
Sunday morning we found one flat tire, but quickly swapped out the tube. We headed to the outfitters once more, and chose to ride 43 miles. The southern end of the trail was about 53 miles away, but a chance of rain in the afternoon convinced us that 43 mile route would be a better idea. They shuttled us and our bikes down to the trail-head, and we hit the trail northbound. About 5 miles in, we disappointingly had another flat. It was the same tire we fixed earlier in the morning. Upon inspection, it appeared to be a manufacturing defect in the new tube! We swapped another new tube in, and kept cruising. It wasn't brutally hot, but we took advantage of the river since we were there. Unfortunately, it was only ankle to knee deep in most places.

About 5 miles from the end we passed a family on the side of the path; they told us they were alright, but we turned back to double check. It turned out they had a flat, so we put our last tube in for them, and sent them on their way. We made it back in time for some dinner in town, and we headed back to the apartment once more.

• Our bike experience after riding almost 65 miles on the trail: a road bike can handle it just fine, but, a crossover, cruiser, mountain bike, or even cyclocross bike may be a bit more comfortable. Small road bike tires don't absorb much vibration, and they sink in the gravel a little in some of the deeper spots, but they'll manage. Riding the gravel path takes a bit more effort than pavement, so keep that in mind before heading out for a personal record ride. No matter what bike you ride, carrying a spare tube and pump is an absolute necessity; mainly due to a lack of cell service. There are a few places along the trail to refill water bottles, but it's worth the weight penalty to carry more than you'll need, especially if it's hot.
  

Back at the apartment, we got cleaned up and joined the birthday party that was happening out back. We didn't know anyone there, but it was out back of our apartment, and we were invited, so of course we joined in! Did I mention we bought a bunch more beer? Well, we bought a bunch more beer, and hung out by the fire-pit all night telling stories and drinking away the sore muscles.

Monday morning we packed up the van, cleaned up the apartment, said goodbye to the hosts and residual party-goers, and headed out. We weren't dying for another bicycle ride, but we needed to find something to do for half the day. The original plan had us canoeing or kayaking, but the river level was too low. We ended up taking some recommendations, and doing a little hiking. We visited a cranberry bog, and then hiked a waterfall trail.

It was a great long weekend, thanks mostly to our great hosts (and their perfect apartment), and to the local outfitter for the advice and shuttle service. The riding was enjoyable, and the area was beautiful.

Helpful Links:
Our Apartment on AirBNB
Greenbrier River Trail Info
Appalachian Sport Outfitters

The Hatfield McCoy system in West Virginia consist of over 700 miles of ATV/Dirtbike trails in 8 different locations. A small group of ADV guys decided to head down and rent a place for a couple nights to explore one of these locations. We opted to ride weekdays to avoid the crowds, and headed down Wednesday super early morning.
One other rider and I left central Ohio (with the bikes loaded in his truck) at 3:30am Wednesday. That's right!  3:30 in the morning! We met the rest of the group around 6am in Southern Ohio, and rolled out as a big caravan shortly thereafter. A stop a Walmart in the middle of WV for some essentials, and we arrived at our rental around 11am. We unloaded the bikes and gear, and paid for our trail permits and lodging.
We stayed in Unit 3 of the Browning Fork Trailhouse. It was a very clean single-wide trailer, with three bedrooms, 6 beds, a pull out couch, and all the essentials (coffee maker, washer/dryer, heat/ac, tv/cable). It served our needs perfectly. It was also only 2 miles from the Rock House Trail Section.
Soon enough, we were suited up and we hit the trails. 2 miles up the tiny back road, and a whopping one mile in on the trails and we had our first 'incident'... and it was a freaking good one.
We're blasting up an easy trail. Fairly wide, fast paced, and one shallow water hole after another to blast across. I was in the middle of the pack, with two guys ahead of me and three behind. Blasting along, when all of a sudden I had no power. It felt like the bike had most likely stalled. It's quickly coasting to a stop, I'm looking down at the speedo, and decide to hit the starter. About that time... POW! Full on impact to my left side. I'm instantly running up the trail trying to keep from falling on my face. I recover, and turn to see a pile of three bikes and two riders in a water hole about 15 feet behind me. Apparently, as I was looking down and restarting my bike, I had drifted left across the trail. The next rider had come up and, with fully locked brakes, T-boned me. The third bike also slid into the wreckage. I haven't a clue how I went from sitting on my motorcycle, to running forward up the trail after impact. It seems like the handlebars, or something, would have kept me entangled, or sent me flying. I never saw or heard the next bike coming.
We picked up the bikes, and evaluated everything. I hit my knee into my tank, but had large knee guards on, so didn't feel too bad at all. The other guys had a couple sore spots, but also, nothing worrisome. The bikes looked, amazingly, completely unscathed, with the exception of my foot peg which was folding in half. Using a Tire Iron, I was easily able to bend it back.
We rode on!
We eventually tackled about 50 miles of trails this day, including some Green (easy), Blue (medium), and Black (difficult), as well as some medium single-track. I went down fairly hard once more, when my front tire instantaneously washed out. There was no warning at all, and it threw me down pretty good onto my right side. It must've been the perfect combination of wet/slimey rock surface and a hard compound tire, because I never even felt it slide; everything was going normal, and then I was body-slamming the ground. Bruised but not hurt, we moved on once more! A couple other guys had run-ins with gravity, but we ended the day without any injuries or bike issues.
We learned that the green trails are fast paced and fun, but the blue trails seemed to be our collective favorites. They are very doable, but come with some challenging sections. The occasional black trail is great fun, in that sort of, if we work together, we can tackle this obstacle, sort of way.
We threw some burgers on the grill, and eventually called it a night.
The next day, one rider had to leave to get home, so we were down to 5. We set off to tackle every remaining blue trail in the network, and whatever greens and blacks we may run into. My front tire threw me down once more; same thing, slick wet rock, with no warning whatsoever. This time at a good 30 or so miles per hour. I vividly remember sliding across the ground on my stomach/face as if on a rough and ugly slip-n-slide. The bike and I both ended our separate slides in about 6 inch deep water. I was a muddy mess, and my left thigh was stinging a bit, but no bike damage, so we moved on. Worst part about this one was nobody was close enough to see it. To bad, I'm quite confident it would've been spectacular. (About this time, I'm seriously questioning my front tire. It looks aggressive, it's wearing fantastic, and it works great on pavement, but it has let me down, hard, twice now. IRC TR8 Battle Rally for what it's worth).
One bike in our group, an older Yamaha 2-stroke, was only pulling around 10 miles per gallon, which meant, it would burn through it's fuel supply in a record 30 miles. This started out as a major concern, since ever other bike would get about 3 times that (or more) out of a tank of fuel, but we only had to transfer gas between bikes once, it simply wasn't an issue.
We were all waiting patiently for the racer of our group, a 16 year old on a 150cc, to go down. He was the last holdout to hit the ground, and generally, the better the rider, the better the crash. Finally he gave in on a black trail, when he loop the bike trying to climb a rock face. It was spectacular, and worth the wait. He seemed fine afterwards, but apparently bent the monster rear sprocket on his bike so it promptly threw the chain, which became wedged by the motor. After about an hour of fighting it, we free the chain and bend the sprocket back. We push, pull, and drag the rest of the bikes over the rock face, and continue up the rocky hill.
We had lunch at the house this day so we opted to have dinner out. We ended our day of trails in Gilbert after about 100 miles. Gilbert's food selection was quite poor, and we ended up at the only non-fast-food place we could find open, a small Mexican restaurant. Without getting into too much detail here, lets just say, the refried beans that 4 of the 5 of us ate, did not sit well, and we all had an almost instantaneous response of... TIME TO GET BACK HOME! It was not good... not good at all.
But we worked through it.
The house had a washer and coin dryer ($1 per load), that became well worth it at the end of each day, It was nice starting each day with fresh riding gear and socks, even though our boots remained soaked the entire time. The Rockhouse trails were full of water holes, but overall remained fairly dry. There was almost no mud, although we found a few slimy sections. The trails were full of loose, rocky hills, challenging, but doable. We investigated a couple of the double black diamond trails, as well as the most difficult single track trails. It was extremely impressive to see what, apparently, good riders can tackle, because, these trails were insane. Absolutely nuts.
The next day we were set to head home, but not without another half day or so of trail riding. Having rode everything we wanted to at Rock House, we headed up to Bear Wallow, which was on the way home anyway. Bear Wallow introduced some muddy trails, and even a bit of sand (in addition to the rocky trails similar to Rock House). We were able to ride all of the Blue they had to offer, along with several green trails and a black in our half a day here. It was another 50 mile day. I dropped the bike once on a rocky uphill, but overall, nobody hit the ground in a significant way.
A hundred miles towards home we stop for gas in Ravenswood WV, and discover it would be about an hour less time for me to head home from here, rather than our planned departure location. We pull my bike off the middle of the trailer, and throw all my stuff into a pile for some reorganizing before loading it on my bike. Eventually the rest of the group hits the road, and I finish sorting my stuff. About this time, I decide it would be a good idea to check the oil level, since I've put 200 very hard miles on it. I find the oil level is still adequate, but there is noticeable oily slime/residue on the bottom of the motor. I hit the road. About halfway home I stop for gas and find oil covering a significant amount of the bottom of my bike. I fill up, and put a half a quart of fresh oil in it, and hit the road again. Home was about 60 miles away, and I stopped half way once again to check the oil level. It had dropped, but was still fine, so I blasted the rest of the way home.
On numerous occasions, I could hear rocks smacking the bottom of the bike while riding the trails. Occasionally they would even hit the bottom of the footpegs and my boots. I do have a large metal bash guard to protect the bottom of the motor, but it doesn't cover the sides well, and a large flying rock could still have managed to hurt something. I make it home fine, and clean the area with degreaser, hoping to spot the crack. Nothing was obvious, but the plastic engine case guard had some interesting scratches on it. I popped it off to find a fairly significant crack in the engine side case cover. I assume it had to have happened when I dropped it on the rocky uphill earlier this day (which is the only reason I mentioned it above you see!). If it happened on a previous day, I'm fairly sure we would have noticed (or I would have run out of oil). I cleaned the area, scuffed it, and applied a couple layers of Quick-Steel metal epoxy (which I had in my tool kit, so I could have repaired this on the trail/road if needed). It appears to have sealed the crack, and after a brief test-ride, I'll put the plastic cover back on and call it good.

The Hatfield McCoy trail system is fantastic. Since I now have a year permit, I will head back. The two closest section are less than three hours from my house, near Charleston WV. The trails are well marked and maintained, and the rating system is very helpful. The easiest trails are equivalent to the Wayne National Forest trails here in Ohio, so WV most definitely offers more challenging terrain, as well as 5 times more mileage.
I'm quite bruised up and have a couple strawberries, despite wearing substantial gear. This is not a place to ride in lax armor. My heavy dual sport (with mediocre tires) was adequate on the Green and Blue trails, but a lighter more purpose built machine would've been a bit more enjoyable, especially on the black trails and single track.
I will be back! Hopefully sooner rather than later!

I believe it was the very next day, after returning home from Louisville, I get a text from my father about a ride the next weekend. I think I'm free, so why not. He texts back some crazy idea about visiting a Distillery and Mammoth Cave. I laugh it off, assuming it was some sort of snide remark because he wasn't invited on our previous trip.
The next day, the girlfriend is pestering me about what we're going to do next weekend, being a holiday and all. Gears start turning and a glaze comes over my eyes. Light Bulb. The next weekend is Memorial Day Weekend. Which means it's a 3 day weekend. Which means, perhaps my dad wasn't joking! And he wasn't!
My brother is in, my dad is in, I'm in, and eventually I convince the girlfriend to join us (sigh, women), and a plan is set in motion. I revisit AirBNB, and find a small house (!) to rent, this time, in downtown Lexington.
Because of how great a guy I am, I put my Make-A-Passenger-Backrest plan into fast forward, and the Friday before our trip I get it welded, painted, and installed.
Saturday morning we all meet up, and eventually head south. Being the only efficient option (outside of the interstate), we once again head down US-62. And being the obviously more enjoyable option, we once again cross the Ohio River on the Augusta Ferry. My brother, riding my dads newly acquired V-strom, decided to make the trip more entertaining by continuously dropping pieces off his bike. First it was a license plate bolt... not a big deal. Then it was the center stand... kind of a big deal. And finally he dropped one of his side boxes... definitely a big deal. Each part was easily dealt with on the road, but it was a bit comical. After the ferry is where the route changed from last week, still, small meandering roads took south until we rejoined US-62. Russell Cove road was our last long stretch, which took us through endless horse farms and rolling hills into downtown. We bee-lined it for the Visitors Center, and made it just before closing. With maps in hand and a new level of knowledge/confusion, we headed to the house.
The place was about 2 miles from the center of town, and, while comically small, served it's purpose exceptionally well. We walked back downtown, and began, what became a long and drawn out process, looking for dinner. One place after another seemed to have fancy food. Unnecessarily fancy. Like, why must every burger have 6 ingredients I've never heard of, and cost fifteen bucks? One place after another had us saying, does anything on this menu sound good? I guess we're just not fancy-food-eating types. Don't get me wrong, I'll try anything, and I'm sure most everything would've been great, but, well, you know... moving on.
We find a place, and end up ordering 4 flatbread pizzas and splitting them. We walked around a bit and visited a bar downtown before hopping the free trolly up to a brewery closer to our house. We ended up back home, and all crashed for the night fairly quickly.
The plan the next day was to ride to a distillery (Makers Mark is the right direction) and proceed to Mammoth Cave. First, we visited a breakfast place that came highly recommended. I hate being mister negative... but the food was, to me, just way to over the top again. So now we had a later start. We made it to Makers Mark, and took the distillery tour. It was enjoyable, but nothing particularly special about it (after taking the previous tours). In the end, if you buy a bottle, you can dip it in the signature red wax yourself. Unlike Jim Beam's do-it-yourself bottling feature, Makers offered a lesser expensive option, so I opted to give it a go. We all had a good time, but quickly realized we weren't going to make it to Mammoth Cave in time to see anything. Instead, we opt to zig-zag back to Lexington, while hitting every other distillery on the way. Most will be closed for the afternoon, but we no longer needed to take a tour, the distillery grounds are simply worth stopping to see. We headed to Heaven Hill first, as it's just up the street, and made it in time to get in, but too late for any tastings. A quick walk around the store, and glance around the campus, and we moved on. Next stop was Four Roses, followed by Wild Turkey.
Back in Lexington, and hoping not to revisit last nights finding-food-fiasco, we do a bit more research this time. I found the perfect place, a local bar and grill, highly recommended, and with normal food! It was a heck of a walk, but was to be well worth it! Until we got there, and they were closed on Sundays. As were several other places near by. We find an open bar, and learn that this is normal here, Lexington mostly shuts down on Sundays. Great. Eventually we find another dinner option, and got a good meal. We headed back to the bar for a round, and then walked back to the house.
The next morning we headed out early, but shortly after leaving town, we find a Waffle House! Holy-Moly-Big-Piles-Of-Normal-Amazing-Food!!! I'm not saying it's better food than any of the fancy stuff we had, but it sure hit the spot more so! Give me a giant waffle! And next to that, a pile of hashbrowns, and cover it with stuff! But not stuff like the previous meals; fancy masticated, drizzled, long words, unknown things, mystery stuff... stuff like, Chili! And Peppers! And Cheese and Onions! MMmmmmm down home, stick to your bones, buttery sugary chili-y goodness.

What the heck was I talking about?

Oh, so then we rode home. The end.

Kentucky Bourbon Trail Ride Planning Page

For a sort of 'guys-weekend', I headed to Louisville with George and David to check out the town and visit a few bourbon distilleries. We stayed in a downtown apartment we rented from Airbnb.com, walking distance to the bars and restaurants.
We left Columbus Saturday morning, headed down US-62, and crossed the Ohio River on the Augusta ferry. Arriving in Louisville around 3pm, we quickly realized that the short hours of the distilleries were going to stifle our big plans just a bit. The only one open late enough for us to visit was the Evan Williams Bourbon Experience, in downtown Louisville. We hit the Visitors Center on our way, and made it in time for the last tour of the day.
The Bourbon Experience was more of a touristy, history of the brand and how Bourbon is made tour, rather than a large scale distillery tour. It did end with a few tastings, and was a good time. If you've done other distillery tours already (especially the parent company, Heaven Hill), then this one may not be worth your time. Since it was our first tour, we enjoyed it thoroughly.
From here we began our task of earning our Urban Bourbon Trail T-shirts and certificates. To do this, you must visit at least 6 bourbon bars in Louisville. Not a difficult task, but also not cheap... for me at least. I suppose, if you were so inclined, you could simply ask for a stamp from the bars without ordering drinks, or perhaps only ordering a cheap beer of some sort. But I felt, in the land of Bourbon, on a Bourbon Trail trip, I wanted to drink the drink of the land. I tried one or two different featured bourbon cocktails at each stop. In Louisville, this generally meant about $10 per drink. In most bars, beer was over $5 a glass anyway; we weren't in hole-in-the-wall bars here.
Speaking of the bars. I'm not exactly sure how to put this next part. But Louisville was... well... let's just say, we didn't fit in, anywhere we went, in Louisville. Every place we entered was either too fancy, or, too trendy. I'm fairly confident, in all the bars we went to, we were always the only ones in T-shirts and/or non-skin-tight jeans. One after another, it was white table cloths and a fancy (old) band, or freaking hipster havens. Nothing wrong with either per say, but it would've been nice to have found one bar that, the next day, we wanted to go back to. Also... all the bar tenders were dudes. Again, nothing exactly wrong with this... but, well, nothing right with this either. DOWN WITH DUDE BARTENDERS!
Where was I? Eventually we had dinner. I tried the Hot Brown, a famous Louisville plate. It was delicious, and small. I could've eaten two, easily. We all left dinner hungry, not good when we're spending the night out drinking hard liquor.
We finished our Urban Bourbon Trail goal and headed back to the apartment. We picked up a case of beer on the way back, and ordered 2 large pizzas when we got there. The pizza was amazing, as was the sleep. It was a long day.
Day two, we're up early for some reason, but moving very slow. The plan was to hit a bunch of distilleries, but a priority was the Buffalo Trace Distillery in Frankfort. It's unfortunately not on the official Bourbon Trail, but absolutely worth the visit. The tour is free(!!!) and fantastic. If you're ever in the area of Frankfort or Lexington, this should be a must do! After the long ride to the distillery and the lengthy tour, we were once again stuck without enough time to get to another distillery before they all closed up (mid-afternoon). We decided we could make it back to Louisville in time to catch the last tour of the Louisville Slugger Factory. We made it by about 5 minutes. The tour was enjoyable, even for non-baseball-loving folks.
We weren't so excited about hitting all the bars this evening, so we walked to a brewery-restaurant not far from our apartment. We ordered the flights, to try all of their beers. As is fairly typical, I didn't find a new favorite beer, but I enjoy trying local and new beers, so it was a good time. As is not typical, we left, once again, wishing we got more to eat. Another case of beer and 2 large pizzas was in order for the evening.
The next day we headed south to visit the Jim Beam distillery. This place was huge, and the tour was very hands-on. The monster assembly lines were incredible. The tastings were done with fancy electronic cards and dispensing machines. They had around 20 products to choose from, but you were only allowed two tastes, with no option to add more. Unfortunate, I would have gladly paid a few more bucks to try a couple others that sounded interesting.
On our way home we passed right by Wild Turkey, but it was late afternoon so they were already closed. The rest of the ride home was uneventful, and we got back around 9pm.

On this trip, I learned that I don't mind Bourbon one bit. It's not my beverage of choice, but I can certainly drink it. I do think it all tastes just about the same though. There is a bit of a difference between wheat based and rye based bourbon, but reading these descriptions about "hints of vanilla and toffee in this one" always had me laughing.

Kentucky Bourbon Trail Ride Planning Page

I loaded up my little 250 with overnight gear, and was set to meet a fellow ADVrider at a campground attached to Wayne National Forest for some serious trail riding Tuesday morning. Unfortunately, I had serious tire trouble, and didn't arrive till around 1pm. He also didn't have an ideal morning...he missed a turn and rode 40 miles out of the way... and was hit by a car in a parking lot. Yup, you read that right! Needless to say, some trail riding to forget the morning was in order for both of us!
This was my first attempt at loading up my little bike, and it worked out very well (tire trouble was unrelated). My large camping duffel bag (with sleeping bag, tent, sleeping pad, and a change of clothes) strapped to the luggage rack, and I strapped my small trail bag (with tire tubes, tire irons, tire pump, tool kit, folding saw, rope, and first aid kit) on top of that. It didn't take up any seat space, and was hardly noticeable when riding. The bike had no issue taking the major roads, and cruising between 65 and 70 miles per hour.
I met Chaz at Begley's Campground in New Straitsville around 1pm. He rode a Suzuki DRZ400 with almost the exact same packing setup. We threw our tents together, strapped our trail bags back on the bikes, and hit the trails at 2pm.
The Monday Creek section of Wayne National Forest has around 75 miles of marked trails. It differs from Perry State Forest Trail System in two significant ways:

• Perry is more of chopped up sections of trails, and is much more technical (with steep hills, mud pits, and some tighter trails). Wayne has 'flow'; longer and wider sections of trail, that are much less technical. Perry uses almost exclusively first gear... Wayne utilizes almost all second and third gear. There were not many sections I would be hesitant to take my big bike on.
  
• Perry is free with a Ohio License Plate, whereas you must purchase a permit to ride Wayne, whether you have a license plate or not. Our two day trip was going to cost half as much as a year pass, and because the year pass is per person (not per bike) I decided to buy in. Now I can take either bike whenever I want... and the closest sections are only an hour from my house.

So at 2pm we hit the trails. We rode the New Straitsville connector from the campground to the New Straitsville loop. After taking the long way around the loop, we took the Main Corridor Trail south. We took the Williams Connector out and back, and then the Snake Hollow Trail. We eventually took the Main corridor trail to the end at the Dorr Run Loop. We turned back here, looking forward to playing around the Door Run Loop tomorrow. We blasted back up the Main Corridor Trail, and after many picture stops and breaks (and one longer delay when we attempted to help a KTM 2-stoke rider with a fouled plug), ended up riding about 45 miles of trails in about 4 hours.
We headed 2 miles north of our campground to Shawnee to fill up our gas tanks, pickup some campground snacks (of the alcoholic variety), and grab some dinner. We ate at Desperado's bar a grill, where we enjoyed inexpensive happy hour beverages and a fantastic pizza. We highly recommend this place! Shawnee is a very neat historic looking town. It reminded me of gold mining towns out west. Unfortunately, it appears mostly vacant and is aging rapidly.
Back to the campground, we finished a few beers, and hit the sack around 10:30. It was a cool night (low was supposedly in the mid thirties, but I was never uncomfortable. It warmed up quick in the morning, which was welcome. At 10am, we hit the trails once more!
This time we quickly blasted down the Main Corridor to the Dorr Run Loop. Things got a little confusing as we played in this area. In an attempt to keep track of where we've been, I tried to pull the map out and figure out where we'd been at about every other intersection. Unfortunately, I didn't carry a writing utensil, so our exact route will forever be lost in the dust. I can say, we rode about 65 miles of trails this day, and landed back at the campground just before 3:30. We hit small bits of Door Run, the Timber Road Trail, the Bowl Trail, the Paramount Loop South, the Purdum Loop, the Deer Stand Loop, a couple dead end legs and these:

The 1985 Loop starts wide and graded, but ends with the best hills we found. Fantastically rocky, and just the right amount of challenging. It also has nice views of the new US-33 Nelsonville Outerbelt. It is a difficult to explain feeling; riding a trail along a hillside, looking down at the traffic flying by on an interstate.

The Mine Shaft Trail was muddy, tight, and technical. This trail reminded me of Perry... All first gear, and tacking one obstacle after another. A day of this type of riding is taxing and difficult, but mix some of this in with the rest of the wider flowing Wayne, and it's great!

In the end, we made it back up to Shawnee for gas with around 80 miles on our bikes, and my low fuel light had been on for about 17 miles. Interestingly, both our bikes took almost the exact same amount of gas... I'm talking, within .004 gallons of the same exact amount. I only netted about 42 MPG on this tank... which is the worst mileage I've ever recorded on this bike... but it was 70 some miles of 6000-9000 RPM in second and third gear, constantly abusing it.

I 'went down' once, but it was early in the second day and I was riding sloppy. I locked up the front wheel in an area that I had no business being on the front brake. A simple low side... All good... No bike damage, and only a small bruise on my left hip (about the only un-armored part of me). We both dropped the bikes a couple times when negotiating mud holes and/or logs.

Honestly, I know of more difficult 'trails' (abandoned roads) in both southern and northern Ohio, than what exists at Wayne... but Wayne allows you to ride seemingly endless dirt for as long as you can stand it. At only 1 hour and 5 minutes (riding the speed limit) from my garage door, I will be back soon.

This West Virginia Buell Rally was different from the previous several. Sure, we were still at North Bend State Park outside of Harrisville, WV. Mark and Family still provided a fantastic escape from the working life. The roads are still fantastic, and the weather was still hot. But this time, several of us showed up on Adventure Bikes (I had my Super Tenere), with intentions of getting them dirty. We attempted the Trans Eastern Trail, an easy backroad route with mostly gravel which runs south from very close to Harrisville, but we inadvertently ended up on a shortcut, I believe it was called "Impassible Rd". We crossed a river, and then spent hours pushing these big bikes over and under trees and through mud pits. Needless to say, we didn't come close to our expected mileage for the day, but we survived!

Utilizing our 3-day weekend, I set off with the girlfriend on my Buell Ulysses for a trip down the Blue Ridge Parkway. I'll be the first to say, we planned too many miles per day. Alone I can pretty easily travel 500-600 miles in a day, but with a passenger, 300-400 should often be the maximum. It was on this very trip, that I learned that lesson. Needless to say, we rode 1500 miles in 3 days. From home, we headed straight east, and down the Skyline Drive in the Shenandoah National Park. We then started on the Blue Ridge to a free national park campground. It was here, that I learned another lesson... the girlfriend would rather have an air mattress and no changes of clothes, rather than vice versa. Live and learn... and bring an air mattress.
The next day we traveled the rest of the way down the Blue Ridge Parkway. Towards the end it began raining, and a chill sunk deep into us both. A hotel room was in order for this night. Monday we simply traveled home, but that was still near 500 miles. In the end, it was almost 1500 miles in three days. It was beautiful and enjoyable... but 'uncomfortable' also comes to mind.
Skyline Drive was beautiful, and the northern and southern end of the Blue Ridge is always nice. The large middle section isn't as exhilarating, but it is a nice ride. I gave the Camera to my passenger, and let her take as many pictures as she wanted.