I’ve been wanting to share a trip my 14 yr old grandson, Kellen, and I made back in June to visit my brother, Bob and his wife Dee, who live in Blacksburg, Virginia. After much bike preparation that included installing engine and rear crash bars, a trailer hitch and the usual preventative maintenance we packed our gear and hit the road. Our plans included camping along the way which meant sleeping bags, a tent/hammocks and cooking gear. A good friend, Chuck Swenson, offered to lend us his Bushtec trailer. I’ve pulled trailers behind several Goldwings over the years. Probably not as common behind a ‘08 R1200RT which is about 350# lighter than a GL1800. The trailer certainly added weight to the RT requiring a good appreciation for that weight when braking as well as the general steering and suspension characteristics. The bike performed well.
Our 1200+ mile eastbound trip included several stops along the way. The first stop, 200 miles via interstate, was to overnight at my brother Bill’s place near Winterset, IA. Now I don’t know about anyone else but when someone pulls alongside you on I-80 frantically waving and pointing at the back of your vehicle it gets your attention. About the time I looked in my mirrors I heard Kellen holler in my headset “the trailer is gone!”. I’ve heard riders describing how they don’t even notice their trailer when pulling one but it was beyond my comprehension at that moment that I wouldn’t have known I lost my trailer. My next thought was did it cause an accident and next was, is our trip over and I’ve lost Chuck’s trailer.
We began to circle back and long story short, for upwards of three hours we searched for that trailer. My brother drove up 30 miles from his place and with Kellen searched the shoulders while I covered the opposite direction. Finally Bill spotted it down a steep slope resting on it’s top. I suspect the struggle locating it was a combination of being down the slope and that apparently it came unhooked crossing the adjacent on-ramp lane. Until Bill happened to come up that on-ramp it may have been lost until the DOT came along to mow. Wow what a very fortunate outcome. Definitely counting our blessings.
You ask how did the trailer come loose and also not impact the bike’s travel? The hitch was a receiver style very common on autos and bikes where the coupler insert slides into the receiver and is secured by a pin and a clip. Apparently that clip fell off/out of the pin allowing the pin and in turn the insert to fall out of the trailer hitch receiver. Much to our pleasant surprise the trailer survived the roll-over relatively unscathed. A nut and bolt replaced the pin once we hauled the trailer to Bill’s place. It was ready for us to continue our trip.
Day 2
Headed southwest traveling two-lane roads leading across Iowa in light rain. Made it to Albia, IA as the rain ended. We enjoyed a great breakfast at Highway Restaurant (yes that’s their name). Our next destination is St. Louis to visit the Gateway Arch.
We dropped the trailer (this time on purpose) at St. Louis West/Historic Route 66 KOA our overnight spot. Hot ride on the motorcycle getting here – 97 degrees – we took advantage of one of their air conditioned cabins in lieu of setting up a tent. Now onto the Arch! Gateway Arch National Park is the smallest national park in the US. I’ve been there many years ago but it was a lot of fun seeing it again with Kellen. Not to mention the excitement of bee lining 30 miles on I-44’s 4 lanes at 5pm to downtown St. Louis. Let’s just say rush hour traffic moves faster than the posted 65 mph. Kellen may describe the ride with additional adjectives.
Once we left the Arch some locals directed us to Ballpark Village adjacent to Busch Stadium for some supper. Katie’s Pizza & Pastaria offered a menu with many items beyond our Italian culinary vocabulary. With the help of our waitress we ordered some incredible Neapolitan Meatballs and a custom pepperoni, Italian sausage, jalapeño pizza. Needless to say we didn’t walk away hungry. We ate on their patio watching a friendly outdoor baseball game on the plaza. We made the 30 mile return trip with much less traffic although in the dark – the 1st of 2 times I violated my promise to myself to not travel after dark on this trip.
Day 3
Our third day, Friday, we traveled from St Louis to Mammoth Cave NP in Western Kentucky. We struck out doing many of the two-lane highways avoiding the interstate. We met my brother Bob Hawthorne at the NP campground setting up our hammocks. Bob traveled from Blacksburg on his Triumph Tiger 1200. Supper tonight would be a couple Mountain House freeze-dried meals. One was great – the other not so much! Unfortunately we arrived too late for the Cave Tours which then had to wait for Saturday am.
Day 4
We arrived at Cumberland Gap Historical Park and set up camp. Decided to ride into the nearest town, Middlesboro, KY, riding back through the nearly mile long mountain tunnel built to replace the dangerous Gap road. Cooled down and enjoyed a great supper at LaEsperanza Mexican Restaurant. Sorry no pictures of Kellen’s huge meat & jalapeños nachos plate he enjoyed.
The Cumberland Gap is a pass through the long ridge of the Cumberland Mountains, within the Appalachian Mountains. After supper we took the very wooded switchback road up to Pinnacle Overlook offering a panoramic view of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and a view of the Cumberland Gap from above.
Unfortunately as we arrived up top Bob’s Tiger was overheating and spraying a couple streams of hot antifreeze. The radiator cooling fan was rubbing & caused 2-3 pin holes. It was close enough to sunset that we made the short hike up to the overlook. We came too far to miss the view.
Now every motorcycle trip I’ve ever taken over the years has it’s adventure mishap to tell about and remember. I thought the lost trailer was that mishap for the trip but not so. We’ll call this Adventure Mishap #2. There wasn’t much we could do to remedy the leak on top of the mountain. So we headed back down and into Middlesboro in search of radiator stop leak and a jug of antifreeze. Walmart to the rescue. We headed back to camp – our 2nd night with plenty of trees to use the hammocks. A hammock is cooler than a tent.
Long story short the stop leak was only a partial solution and came with problems of its own that I’ll cover in Day 5. Judging by my photo above this is my 2nd time violating a promise to myself to not travel after dark.
Day 5
Not the ideal place to have the bike overheat, on a curve with little to no shoulder. We made it about 50 miles that morning from Cumberland Gap. We had determined by this time the stop leak was plugging the flow of antifreeze back into the radiator, not to mention it was not substantially stopping the leaks. We had another 175 miles to go to Blacksburg along with more mid 90s heat. Our original plan was to arrive at Bob’s place about noon. We had backup plans for Bob’s son-in-law, Mike, to bring a trailer if & when we couldn’t make any more progress. So Bob plugged along, occasionally getting a dose of hot antifreeze on his boots and riding pants. We stopped every 50-60 miles to add more antifreeze and eventually straight water.
We finally arrived in Blacksburg about 3pm. Great to be at our VA destination and some A/C! Below Bob & Kellen enjoying some 70’s air hockey (played a lot back then). No matter the problems we managed to have fun.
Day 6-8
These next 3 days don’t include any motorcycle riding but do include some bike maintenance. I had to redo part of the bike’s wiring for trailer lights. Wiring trailer lights on the RT required an isolation harness and a sub-harness to convert the single wire that carries the brake and running light to separate wires on the trailer. These were installed & working before I left home. On the road when Bob followed me he noticed the brake lights on the trailer weren’t working. I contacted the vendor and they figured out they had mistakenly sent me the wrong sub harness & suspected the isolation harness was malfunctioning. I also needed an additional module specific to the RT to make the brake & running lights function properly. Long story short, that vendor, Electrical Connection out of Knoxville, TN, overnighted the new parts without charge & included the additional module. Great service in a crunch time frame. I had the parts by 11am the next day and installed them on the bike that afternoon. Not counting this as an Adventure mishap as it didn’t really alter any plans. We also did an oil change – bit embarrassed as to why – but that’s a story for another time.
Besides bike maintenance we helped Bob load some debris and trash on his trailer to take to the landfill. Adventure Mishap #3 as I somehow lost my glasses while loading or unloading trash. I was wearing my Rx sunglasses and had my eyeglasses in my shirt pocket. I have no excuses to offer here! I wasn’t too worried as my eyesight isn’t so bad and I had my Rx sunglasses for the road.
What do they say about “best laid plans”? Well those were challenged the next day while kayaking 13-14 miles of the New River. I upset going through (instead of around) some rocky falls and lost both my favorite boating hat and my Rx sunglasses! Sorry no photos. Can you believe Adventure Mishap #4! They just keep on coming🫣. The kayaking was awesome even with the dunking. Kellen upset in the same area as I had but lucky for him he didn’t lose the hat he borrowed from Uncle Bob. We enjoyed lunch along the way. Bob’s neighbor’s son, Josh, came along.
Finally while at Bob’s we climbed his fire tower to check out the views. Yes, he owns a fire tower where his home is up on Brush Mountain adjacent to the Jefferson National Forest. I helped him take it down after he bought it on auction from the Virginia Forest Service in 2003. A couple years later brother Bill & I helped erect it up on the mountain behind Bob & Dee’s home. That is another story.
Day 9
Beginning our 1200 mile journey east we departed Brush Mtn riding US 460’s curves and beautiful forested mountains passing through Pearisburg and Glen Lyn following the New River of the New River Valley. We jumped on I-77 at Beckley, WV and followed it all the way to Charleston WV. We continued all the way to State Hwy 33 outside of Ravenswood, WV for our 1st sightseeing break at Washington Riverfront Park along the Ohio River in Ravenswood, West Virginia.
Our next stop would be the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum just outside of Columbus OH. I renewed my membership that had lapsed and we toured the museum enjoying the A/C and lots of bikes, racing gear & memorabilia, history and many really neat full engine cutaways showing their inner workings.
Our stop for the night was about 90 miles west to Dayton, OH. We opted for another KOA cabin to cool-down. This was a “premium” KOA with a cafe. We enjoyed a custom made pizza. We ate our dessert first, ice cream, while waiting for the pizza.
Day 10
Hit the road out of Dayton heading for Coralville, IA. We all know food is an integral part of great motorcycle rides. You’ve seen all the food photos. I think we both may have put on some weight this trip. This is the last food photo when we caught lunch at Chick Fil A in Normal, IL. As I said today’s goal was to get into Iowa and the forecast showed storms at the state line. Traffic was flowing really well and we made great time getting within 75 miles of Coralville IA when the wind & rain came. Winds were a bit challenging but the air cooled and our rain gear for the most part worked well. Knowing we’d get into quite a bit of rain we hoteled in Coralville.
Day 11
Last day of our IA to VA journey. We left Coralville that morning and stopped to visit my nephew Luke in Waterloo who was prepping for a motorcycle trip to Colorado. Next stop was lunch at Tom Thumbs Drive-In in Ft Dodge. Along with burgers, fries & chicken dinners they have a DQ around back, you can’t beat that. The finale stop was in Sac City to see the World’s Largest Popcorn Ball. They also have several old town buildings worth visiting.
I’ve done numerous 3-5 day trips with my daughter, Nicole (Kellen’s Mom), and with my granddaughter, Paige, in years past. We all have great memories. This trip, in particular, was an epic trip with a great companion. Thanks Kellen for sharing the adventure with me. Thanks Chuck for the use of your trailer. It’s about to get in the shop for repair 😎. Oh, by the way, no more Adventure Mishaps.
Jim Hawthorne