Brunswick MD – Isle of Palms SC
Sun Oct 15, 2023
(~597 miles)

Up for 06:00 and feeling pretty well-rested, with our bones warmed up from a good night’s sleep. Took a while to get ourselves ready for the day, including re-positioning our gear in front of the heater to continue drying out while we headed to the diner next door for breakfast. It was chilly outside, but the rain was GONE, and we were treated to beautiful clear skies dimly lit by the coming sunrise. Got a few photos of the hotel, diner, and cornfield across the street before we headed in to eat. Nice quiet stretch of road.

Penny’s Diner looked and sounded awfully familiar to me. Sure enough, after a quick search on my phone it turned out to be part of a small but nationwide franchise that includes the greasy spoon in Nebraska where my friend Gerry and I ate on our trip back from the 2022 LDX Rally. There are only two in the eastern US including this one on the backroads of Maryland… what a small world it seems, sometimes!

Business was slow at this early hour. The waitress was apparently doubling as the night cook and seemed friendly enough. She seemed happy to have something to do! We used the QR-code menus to select our food, similar to in Nebraska. I got  their breakfast scramble while Char opted for a pancake to take in some carbs for what was likely to be another chilly, albeit drier day of riding. The food was decent, nothing special, but provided the necessary fuel for the machine.

After breakfast, we somehow kicked around the room for another 45m or so, hitting the road around 08:30. That allowed more time for the sun to start warming things up outside, while we assembled our mostly-dry gear and layered up (Char) against the morning chill. We’d discussed her wearing my heated liner if need be, but for now I would keep it on since I tend to block her from most of the wind. If I got too cold, then we’d need to stop more often. For now, she did it the old fashioned way, bundling up like the Michelin Man. This worked out fine to get us through the cooler part of the morning.

For me, it was perfect riding weather, crisp and clear! it always feels good to start the second day of a road trip, being away from home with new roads and places to explore, knowing you’ve gotten through that first day’s travel routine just fine and can just rinse and repeat. We headed a mile down MD 464 into Brunswick and turned left through town on MD 17 to cross the Potomac River into Virginia, where it became the Berlin Turnpike (still just a two-laner).

Skirting around Purcellville, we continued in a curvy but fairly direct overall path SSW towards the town of Marshall via state routes 690, 611, 713, and 710. Though we’d only been on the road for an hour, I insisted on a coffee stop here on Main Street at the Red Truck Rural Bakery, another gem I’d happened upon via random online search along our intended route.

Initially, I’d hoped to include a stop for coffee and pie further south at Floozie’s Pie Shop in the town of Luisa. I’d stopped there for a bonus slice of pie during my first Rock ‘n Ride Rally and still dream of that pie to this day. Alas, Floozie’s is currently closed for renovations, so I’d found Red Truck as a consolation prize. I am determined to stop in to get some pie for a mid-morning break!

Not much happening on Main Street in Marshall on this beautiful Sunday morning – the bakery seemed to be the only open business at this hour. Locals were stopping in pretty steadily for their morning coffee or to pick up brunch pastries to-go.

After drooling a bit over the showcase of baked goods, I ordered a slice of their Harvest Apple pie while Char got a spinach/feta pastry. The pie was tasty with a decent crust, though I’m not sure I’d order the Harvest Apple flavor again. We enjoyed our coffee break on stools in the sunny front window, reveling that we were not in a hurry to do anything at this point.

We left town crossing under I-66 and picked up a small farm lane called Scotts Road, which quickly and unexpectedly turned to gravel. It was pretty and scenic riding however, and the surface well-graded. With the next turn only a couple miles away per GPS, we continued onward enjoying the backwoods exploration and autumn foliage. Walnut trees seem to be a lot more common around these parts, and we began to notice that walnuts on the roadway are a tangible hazard, rolling like marbles under motorcycle tires! I quickly learned to slow down and respectfully pick a path around whenever I saw piles of them lying in the right-of-way (especially later on pavement!).

Scotts dumped us out onto the paved Carters Run Road (CR 691) which led us a merry chase south for several miles through a scenic valley of wooded hills and horse farms. After crossing the divided US 211 west of Warrenton, we hit another short but graded stretch of gravel on Harts Mill Road, another lovely country lane.

A series of rural roads took us in a curvy fashion due south, where we hit US 15 again just east of Culpeper. I was surprised to see a route 666 here in the eastern US, knowing that the famous US 666 out in New Mexico (Devil’s Highway) had been re-numbered in years past due to theft and vandalism. Seeing no obvious signs of demonic activity or other mischief, we plodded on our way.

Based on signs we’d been seeing along some of the primary roads, we learned that since yesterday we’d been traversing the Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area. This is a corridor under the National Parks Service with which we were unfamiliar and apparently spans a large swath of countryside from Gettysburg PA to Monticello in Charlottesville VA. We passed by many historic markers posted by the roadsides, marking the spot of this battle or that famous building no longer present. Lots of history to be explored in these parts.

We fueled up in Orange and would keep to route 15 for the remainder of the state now. The highway kept mostly to rural areas now, rather than hitting every big town or city, which I’d purposefully routed around to our north. The weather and scenery through the Virginia countryside continued to keep us engaged. The older architecture in the few smaller towns we passed through was interesting and provided an historical complement to the natural and agricultrural landscape.

Of note: Apparently, there is a pocket of Amish citizenry living in parts of central Virginia, as we passed by at least one buggy on the main highway outside Dillwyn.

As we moved south through Virginia, the landscape gradually changed, as we started seeing large tracts of pine tree lumber lots lining miles of the roadway here and there. After spending the whole morning in Virginia, we were finally getting close to the state border when we entered the bustling little town of Clarksville, on the shores of John Kerr Reservoir, around 14:00. Also known as Buggs Island Lake (which I like better), the reservoir was created by damming the Roanoke River, and is crossed via a long causeway bridge.

Apparently, this is the largest lake in Virginia. Boating and fishing are the big draw around here, making Clarksville a bit of a regional destination town. Such places often have decent dining options, so I’d dropped a lunch stop waypoint along our route here, based on some decent online reviews.

Just over the bridge we pulled over into the lot for the Bridgewater Bar & Grill and parked next to a few other touring bikes. The exterior looked a bit plain and dingy, but when we walked in, we were greeted with a fresh, clean & modern restaurant with Covid-era spacing between the tables. Our server Tory was extremely attentive and asked us about our trip, saying that they mostly tended to get a lot of locals at this time of year (and time of day).

We were surprised and really pleased with the quality of the food – seafood seemed to be the main focus so we stuck to that. Char ordered blackened mahi mahi tacos while I went for blackened catfish served over some delish lumpy mashed taters, with a New Orleans cream sauce, shrimp and grape tomatoes. Wow, so good! Had to split a piece of key lime pie for dessert (hey, its vacation!) which was also wonderful.

After a damn fine meal, we were feeling much better and more alert back on the bike. Clarksville was definitely one of the busier towns we passed through today, but still not all that large, so we were through it and back into the countryside pretty quick. We headed southwest out of town on SR 49, breaking away from US 15 for the moment to cut a wide swath to the west of the Durham and Raleigh metro areas. No cities for us today!

We crossed the state line in the tiny village of Virgilina and shortly after left the state highway for Dirgie Mine Road, which kicked off a series of other local roads that took us more directly south to avoid the downtown of Roxboro NC. We continued to wander SSW, seeing even more pine lumber lots, and now more signs of tobacco agriculture as well. We crossed I-85 in Efland, threading the needle between the several cities that straddle that interstate.

Once we’d given Chapel Hill a nice wide berth, we drifted back gradually to US 15 again, picking it up just north of downtown Pittsboro and crossing the Haw River. Another hour and a half riding 15 took us down through Laurinburg, where we left our “guiding” highway behind us for good on this leg. Taking US 501 several miles southeast to US 301, we made our final fuel stop for the day in Rowland, near the I-95 exit for the South of the Border tourist trap.

It was past sunset and getting more difficult to see and enjoy the landscape, so our focus now became simply to eat up the remaining miles down to Charleston. We had 175 miles to go, but that’s what cruise control is for after all. The setting sun had stolen warmth from the air, so we layered up at the gas stop in preparation for highway speeds.

Quickly onto the slab, I opened up the throttle, taking 95 all the way down to I-26, then straight into North Charleston. The I-526 loop brought us east over the unfamiliar rivers and suburbs of this southern city, masked in darkness. Reaching the highly commercialized suburb of Mt. Pleasant, we found our way onto NC 517 for the final run out across the bayous and creeks to our accommodations in the beach community, Isle of Palms (IOP).

My employer was putting some of my work colleagues and I up at the Palms Oceanfront Hotel for a couple nights this week, while others were staying together at a nearby AirBnB. The hotel is (as the name suggests) smack-dab right on the beach. Char and I had arrived early and were paying for a some extra nights out of our own pocket. While the location is primo, I wouldn’t really classify the Palms as “fancy” by any stretch. It was comfortable and seemed comparable to the Choice hotels we usually tend to frequent on road trips, though the location certainly raised the price tag.

The temperature felt perfect without constant highway wind, in the low 60s when we arrived after dark and checked in. After discussing the parking situation with the front desk (either find somewhere to fit in the hotel’s ground-level garage or pay for a town lot space), I managed to find room to park beneath the hotel, in between some of the concrete pillars that keep the main floors of the hotel elevated above any ocean flooding that must occur during the biggest storms in these parts. Everything had a dusting of sand on it and the beach vibe was already hitting us – this is gonna be a great week!

More photos from today’s ride.