Wow! I never thought that Rt 299 or the Bear Tooth Pass from Dan’s and my trip out west in 1999 would ever be topped, but I do believe that the last two days have topped all other roads I’ve ever driven. Heidi and I started out from Washington on Lord’s Day with five others and headed out towards the Blue Ridge Parkway. Four of us are on bikes while Heidi, Melita and Candace are in the car … and boy, are we thankful for the car. Lord’s Day was beautiful and we made it down to Buena Vista. Setting up camp was fine, and because most of us were up that day at six or seven, we turned in early. By three o’clock in the morning, it started pouring … and I mean pouring. Mats’ $40 tent that Melita and Candace were in, was only worth that – $40. It was about as effective as a garbage bag. With soaking wet sleeping bags and clothes, they finally headed for the car at 05:00. By the time we got up at 09:00, the sun was out again. Yesterday should have been a good day, but 60 miles down the road in Roanoke, we stopped to throw everything in the dryer at a laundromat. Reg’s bike took this time to decide to quit (fixed by evening) and we ended up camping last night on Roanoke mountain. It was a wonderful night to cook over the fire and we sang and read and played Rook till 23:00. Guess what? Sometime around 03:00 in the morning, the heavens opened … It poured like I have not seen it pour in a long time. It was still raining when we finally packed up at noon today, and we headed out on the road in full rain gear. About two hours down the road, the skies cleared and the roads dried and we encountered the best roads I have ever rode on. Wow! The scenery? Wow! Definitely enough to make one smile. And so here I sit at the Council’s … tired, and ready to hit the bed. But with roads like this, methinks the smiles are still going to plastered on.