Mother's Day Ride (May 11, 2014)

 Pouring rain on Saturday, but Sunday was sunny and pretty warm (upper 80's) and a great day for a ride. Wanted to get a backroad ride. Starting on VA 1 I headed up through Petersburg (where I found this monument on the Bermuda Hundred Civil War campaign) and on up VA360 all the way to Stony Creek, VA where I had lunch.
After that, which was about 30 miles from the North Carolina State Line, turned back toward Richmond, going up VA165 (think that was the road). Was not sure where I was going for sure, as this was a real "thataway" ride. Like those, and was fun exploring some new routes, roads and sights.
Got back into Petersburg when I came across VA460. All those were two lane roads, with a few twists and turns. I ran along side of I-95/I-85 for much of it, but for parts of it was just out in the country seeing what I came across. It was a nice way to get out on a very fine motorcycle.  

 This is the bike, here at Blandford Cemetery, very cool, very big and very old. Dates all the way back to the Revolutionary War but a lot of Confederates are also buried there. The Petersburg National Battlefield is not far from there. Think this is the site also of the first Memorial Day.
Nice place to take a break and check out some history. The old church there is on the National Historic Cemetery and is something to see. I have some photos of that on my photo page. As far as history goes, Petersburg's history goes all the way to the Revolutionary War.   

This is Old Town Petersburg, love the cobblestone streets, and the old buildings. Much of the movie "Lincoln" was filmed here. There are a lot of good places to eat there...one of them "Croakers Spot" ( a very good fish restaurant) had people lined up out the door to get in.
Nice ride, a little closer to home in comparison to the last few weeks, but just a real good ride. Fun to see some new places, as well as some favorite old places. I enjoyed this a great deal.
After that, got the bike put up and relaxed for a bit. Went to a concert at Forest Hill Park that night.

There I saw these bikes. Red bike is a Honda ST1100, the one in the middle in a Kawasaki Vulcan 750 (no longer made but a really, really good motorcycle...those who still have them think the world of them) and the green bike is a Honda with a 50cc engine.
I talked the owner who built it for his dog (a boxer) which he put in with a harness and went motoring off. I have that photo (which I took with my cell phone camera on my photo page).
All said, it was a very good day (and the concert was good too) /