We decided to take three days to go home and to take back roads. There was no rush to take I-95 to get home. I plotted routes to Conway, SC, Brunswick, GA, and home.

The weather reports for the week forecast a lot of rain. The reports showed low probabilities in the mornings rising to 80% in the afternoons.

Thursday

Assuming the reports were correct, we got up early and were on the road by 6:30 a.m. The weather was cool and overcast, but it wasn’t raining. The moisture, however, encouraged some mushrooms to get up early and wish us a safe journey.

We said goodbye to Mimi and rolled silently down the driveway.

We took the Jamestown-Scotland ferry across the James River.

Our route took us down US-258 and US-701 through eastern Virginia and North Carolina. The scenery was a sharp contrast from the mountains and wide-open spaces out west. Everything was green. The trees, the grass, and the crops were all green, except for the corn. We saw many fields of brown corn. The plants were not the expected height, and they appeared to not have any ears. I suspect they were drowned by too much rain.

The speed limits on these roads were 55 and 45 mph. There was almost no traffic. There were interesting things to see throughout the day. We saw a couple of thriving towns; Farmville, VA, was exceptionally well-kept. There were many stores along the downtown streets. Sadly, most of the other small towns have not survived the loss of jobs and the invasion of Walmart, and Amazon. Most stores are abandoned. The occupied stores are home to CPAs, attorneys, and resale shops.

We took a quick break at a gas station. (no picture) We ran into some light rain, so we had lunch at the McDonald’s at this Speedway gas station.

Our afternoon break was also at a McDonalds.

We rolled into our Bunk-a-Biker host Max’s place around 3:30 p.m. and shoe-horned our trikes in her garage.

It turns out Max is also a Motor Maid. You can see just a bit of the orange tank on her bike in the background.

We went to an Italian restaurant that had great pizza.

After dinner we said on the back patio and had some great conversations. (We also checked our phones. Shame on us!)

Total for the day: 324 miles.

Friday

Max fixed us a full breakfast, and we headed off into another overcast day. Our route took us south on US-701 and US-17. We rode through mid-day Charleston traffic. We stopped for a break at Waffle House. Our server was very nice, but she couldn’t believe we wanted only coffee and toast. Beth had to explain that this was our second breakfast. She laughingly replied, “Oh! You cheated this morning!”

To avoid going through downtown Savannah traffic, we made our way over to I-95, just north of the Georgia border. We stopped for picnic lunch at the Georgia welcome center.

We had about 90 miles to go to get to our hotel in Brunswick, GA. The traffic was typical for this stretch of I-95 — three lanes of high-speed traffic salted with several trucks. At the 50-mile point we could see that we were headed for a downpour. We got off the highway and ducked under the awning of a gas station to put on our crab claw gloves. We were just in time as the rain fell in buckets.

We waited about 20 minutes. The rain let up just a bit. The gas station was on US-17. Beth suggested we continue on 17, rather than get back on I-95. That was an excellent idea. We had 40 miles to go, and it rained steadily the first 30 miles. We were able to go about 50 mph through most of it. When the rain let up, we found a Walmart and Beth got us a salad and little pies for dinner. We made it to the hotel without getting on I-95 by following GA-303.

Tomorrow, we head for home and hope we don’t encounter too much rain.

Total for the day: 298 miles.

Saturday

We woke up a little before 6 a.m. and checked outside. It was not raining. Hooray! Then at 6 a.m. sharp, it started raining heavily. Boo! We got ready, had breakfast, and waited. About 7:30 a.m. the rain stopped and the clouds lifted, but there were still many dark black clouds around.

Taking advantage of the break, we packed the bikes, checked out of the hotel, and headed south.

We took US-17, not I-95 just in case the rain stared again. We can ride back roads at 50 mph if the rain is not too hard. Going that speed on a 3-lane highway would be treacherous. The clouds continued to lift, so we got on I-95 for 4 miles, then picked up our usual route at FL-200. The weather continued to improve, and the temperature rose correspondingly.

For a break we decided to go to Grannie’s in Starke, FL. We haven’t been there since before they put in the us 301 bypass around Starke. Google says the bypass opened in September, 2019. Re-routing the traffic hasn’t hurt Grannies — all the tables were full.

The decor is very eclectic. In addition to all the objects, there were ads for local business posted on the walls and embedded in the tabletops.

We stopped for lunch at a rest area on I-75. The rest area is pretty new and has lots and lots of covered picnic tables.

Three miles from home we ran into solid rain. We zipped up and put on our crab claws, but we still got wet when we stopped at the red lights.

It’s good to be home, but we miss the adventure as well. Our next adventure is in a month as we go to Pittsburgh for Beth’s 50th high school reunion.

Statistics:
Total for the day: 277 miles.
Total for the trip: 9,535 miles.