I'd been reading their forum and asking questions of their memebers for some time, but now I was going to get to meet them. John (XTRM) who really created the group and is the webmaster for theiir site happened to live near me at the time so we met up at the Safeway. John is an upholsterer by trade and is currently in college working on a degree in nuclear physics - yeah definitley not a judge by the cover kind of guy.

John lead the way onto 70 and we took off to meet up with the rest of the group at the McDonalds off exit 42 in Myersville. As we were getting to the off ramp I noticed John futzing with the left side of his engine. We got just off the ramp and we're almost up the hill to the McDonalds when John suddenly pulls to the side of the road and stops. No Gas! I rode my bike up to the Exxon next door to MickeyD's and then ran back down the road to help John push his bike up to the gas station. I may have been a little chilled before but I was sweatin now. Thank goodness we were that close to a gas station.

We refueled, and I got some fuel in my belly while waiting for the rest of the crew to show up from Glen Burnie. While waiting a group of Wings came in. A number of them were hauling trailers and one guy had a really sweet looking trike with matching trailer. Seems this little group of retirees had been out riding and camping around the US for the past 4 months and were now on the last leg of their trip heading home.

The rest of the gang showed up, refueled and we were off on our little jaunt to Deep Creek Lake. Seeing as how we were in no hurry we didn't go far before stopping for a minute at a scenic overlook on 70. The view was great and the morning was finally starting to warm up a bit. Rich (Greazman), who's standing in the middle of the pack of 3 in this picture, leadi the way and had us going at a nice steady pace. When we could we stayed off of 70 prefering old US40.

As we got up past Cumberland and started up into the mountains the temperature took a quick drop. By the time we got off of 68 and on to 42 I was starting to wish that I had some leather chaps on.

We stopped for lunch at the Uno's which is on the lake. I'd never been to Deep Creek before and the views of the lake were spectacular. What was even better was getting a hot bowl of Clam Chowder as well as a cup of coffee in me. I finally warmed up again and I could feel the circulation returning to my butt.

Feed, warmed up and with the bikes refueled we started what actually is the most fun part of the ride - heading into Wild and Wooly West Virginia. We got onto Rt.7 to start heading back East. A nice twisty two lane black top, nestled in the mountains with lots of 6% grades thrown in to make things interesting. Of course things got a bit too interesting as every sharp inside turn had a bunch of gravel tossed up from trucks cutting the corner to sharp. Norm (daBeast) apparently had a mishap last year and so was especially concious of this hazard.

After winding half way back down the mountain, Rich decided a quick break was in order to see how everyone was doing with the pace.

After a short break we continued making our way down thru Berkeley Springs where we inadvertantly became a pre parade attraction at the annual Apple Butter Festival. It was a real hoot to see all these kids waiting for the parade waving to us because they thought we were it. Luckily we just got thru the area before the real parade started.

When we got to Leesburg, John and I broke off from the rest of the group and decided to take Whites Ferry across the Potomac and head back to Rockville thru Poolesville. I hadn't been on the ferry since I was a kid so it was kind of nice to take the short break while we waited for the ferry. The rest of the ride home was thankfully uneventful and I got home with an additional 360 miles having been added to Big Red.