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WORMS Recent Rides 2006


Whitt's Harley-Davidson / Buell Demo Day, June 24th

Allen managed to ride over to Whitt's in Manassas under the fear of impending rain, but the rain didn't come, and the sun came out instead! It was a wonderful ride through Clifton and over to Manassas via the Prince William Parkway. Allen test rode two bikes, ate a hot dog, and spun the 94.7 wheel (but didn't win a prize). Fun day!


Short Father's Day Ride up GWP, June 18th

Allen took advantage of having no chores on Father's Day by going for a 2-hour ride up the George Washington Parkway. He started at Mount Vernon, off of Route 1, and proceeded to Gravelly Point, which is just north of Regan National Airport. This was a good place to stop and take some pictures of the airplanes coming down to land. After taking in some water, Allen proceeded up the road and stopped again at a nice lookout point to see the Potomac River. Before reaching Great Falls though, Allen got onto 495 and headed back home. It was time for rest.


Ride to Cameron Street Coffee House in Culpeper, June 10th

The Cameron Street Coffee House (110 E. Cameron Street in Culpeper, VA) sounded like a great place for coffee lovers to visit. It was located in the historic downtown area of Culpeper, and we had great weather on tap for Saturday, so why not? This was also slated to be a shake down ride for new luggage. Allen strapped a big luggage bag to the Fat Boy and stuffed it full of sweaters and things of this nature.

The ride to Culpeper was a windy one, and when we arrived, the place was closed. Closed as in closed for business, period. Well, that's not something we had taken into consideration. You see, we had a newspaper clipping from last November, and it talked about a nice coffee shop in the old district of Culpeper. We missed it by a week. The place closed for good a week ago. Oh well.

So what were we supposed to do now? Window shop? Wait a minute - most of the stores are closed too. What's the deal with Culpeper - half the town was closed. Lots of WORMS members have passed by Culpeper on the way down to Waugh Enterprises Harley-Davidson, but never before was the old town area of Culpeper our final destination. Two couples made this ride - Kathy / Gary, and Sandra / Allen. It was a tight schedule because Gary had just come back to town from a job in Texas early Saturday morning. Sandra and Allen went and saw an exhibit on the artist Grant Woods and his "American Gothic" painting at the Renwick Gallery in Washington DC on Saturday morning too.

We ended up dining at a 1950's style diner, so it was fun anyway. We broke out our maps and plotted some roads for the coming July B&B ride. Then we went our separate ways, Kathy & Gary heading down Route 17 to Fredericksburg, and Sandra & Allen going north up 229 to 802.

There was a close call for Sandra & Allen on Dumfries road, heading over to the Prince William Parkway. Allen was following two cars, maybe 20-30 car spaces back, when a teenage girl (yep - on a cell phone) pulled out to make a left turn across Allen's path. Allen slammed on the brakes - skidding the rear tire. The girl kept coming, she was determined to complete her turn. She cleared the center line just a few feet ahead of Allen. Shaken, yet not stirred, the Fat Boy continued on down the road. Experience paid off - no damage done, and hopefully the teenager will think twice about pulling out into traffic again. The strange thing here is that she didn't intend on stopping. Allen would have cleared her front end if she just stopped after pulling out. Allen couldn't come to a complete stop before she crossed the bikes path. The lesson here is that you should aways expect those cars to pull out of driveways / streets / or even to come out of a left-turn lane back into traffic. Trust no car to do the right thing.


Ride to Sugarloaf Mountain (Maryland), June 4th

Sandra and Allen took advantage of the beautiful weather and rode up to Sugarloaf Mountain. We went up Route 123 to Vale Road, took that over to West Ox Road, and then headed up into Reston, eventually linking up with Route 7. On Route 7 we stopped at a Caribou Coffee for some java and a scone / blueberry muffin. Then we got onto Route 15 and crossed the Potomac at White's Ferry. The WORMS crossed this ferry before, and our timing was perfect. We pulled up as the cars were coming off, so we only waited about 20 seconds before riding down the ramp onto the ferry. Once across the Potomac and into Maryland, we headed up to Dickerson, and up on Mt. Ephraim Road we found the entrance to Sugarloaf Mountain.

There were some very interesting roads between the Potomac and Sugarloaf Mountain - concrete in the center, with ashpalt on both sides; it gave you the feeling that it was built for a stagecoach, rather than car traffic. Anyway, we rode up Sugarloaf Mountain and saw some beautiful scenery looking towards Baltimore (we could see some buildings) and then out west. Naturally we took some pictures, and we even saw a Skink. The little guy kept running around, but we finally took a few good pictures.

The ride home was Route 28 to Route 15, where we crossed the Potomac again at Point of Rocks. We rode down Route 15 to Route 50, and then over to Route 28 again for a ride over to Jamie's General Bean where we had a nice lunch and iced americano's. Overall it was a 135 mile ride, taking about six hours.

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