Miles of smiles

Some days are just made for riding; today was one of those days.

On a clear day with incredible blue skies, I took a few hours to wander the countryside on my BMW R 1150 GS. My primary goal was to document a mileage mark -- hitting 170,000 miles on the odometer. Four miles from my house, I stopped to record the moment (right).

I've never ridden one motorcycle that many miles before. In fact, the most I've ever put on one bike was about 67,000 on a K 75 RT years ago, so every day is a new record for me. My eventual goal is to eclipse my vehicle record, 187K and change on a 1991 VW GTI, then head for 200K.

With that duty out of the way, I headed west to spend a couple of hours in the saddle. Riding through the town of Orange, I decided to go ahead and cast my vote for the November elections. Early voting started in Virginia last week, and I may be out of the area on election day, so I dropped in at the registrar's office and recorded my vote.

From Orange, I continued southwest on Virginia Rt. 20, a beautiful route through the Virginia Piedmont, and made a brief stop to note the location of The Wreck at the Fat Nancy, a state landmark.

The Fat Nancy was a railroad trestle spanning the area shown at right. Fat Nancy was a name given to an African-American woman who lived nearby and kept watch for problems at the trestle site. As the Piedmont Airline, Virginia Midland Railroad's Train 52, crossed the 44-foot-high, 487-foot-long trestle on July 12, 1888, the bridge collapsed, killing nine and injuring another two dozen passengers. Among the survivors was former Confederate Lt. General James Longstreet.

A little farther south on Rt. 20 lies Montpelier, the home of Virginia native and American President James Madison. The road is called the Constitution Route in honor of Madison's key role in creating the document that governs our nation.

Montpelier is also the site of an original freedman's cabin, a home built and lived in by former slaves of the Montpelier plantation.

George Gilmore built the cabin in 1873 from remains of a Confederate camp nearby. His story is an inspiring one, and you can read the details here.

Also in the area is Montpelier Station, a railroad depot and post office that has been restored as a fully-functioning post office and museum on the days of segregation.

The exterior of the building is beautifully preserved, and the post office occupies the far end of the building as seen in this picture.

The near end includes separate "white" and "colored" entrances and waiting rooms, as was the norm before the end of racial segregation in the 1960s.

Inside the waiting rooms are exhibits explaining the sordid past of our American apartheid. For those not alive during that time, it must be a real eye-opener.

I remember the department store we frequented when I was a child in Alexandria, Virginia, having separate drinking fountains, but I don't recall seeing the level of apartheid preserved here, other than on TV news.


Though I lived in the South, I was still sheltered from the worst of life as a black American.

Across the highway is another nicely preserved building, this one an Esso gas station. For those too young to remember, Esso was the previous name of Exxon, and was created by using the initials of the original company, Standard Oil -- S.O. becomes Esso. If you're riding in the area, you almost have to stop for a photo.

After roaming the countryside for a bit, I found my way to Madison, Virginia, named for -- of course -- the former president.

One of the attractions of that small town is the Pig 'n' Steak restaurant, a well-known purveyor of BBQ and other tasty meats.

Today, I chose a pork BBQ platter with macaroni salad and cole slaw, accompanied by the only beverage allowed to be consumed with BBQ in Virginia -- sweet tea. I'm joking, but it almost should be the law; it's certainly the overwhelming practice.

Combine that meal with a good book (currently Means of Ascent, the second volume in Robert Caro's biographical series on Lyndon Johnson), and you have a recipe for a nice, relaxing lunch in a cozy setting. Just be careful about the sauces on the table. A couple of them are pretty hot!


After lunch, I headed out on Rt. 231, one of the finest country roads anywhere. Known locally as the Old Blue Ridge Turnpike, it's a Virginia Scenic Byway and well worth a trip just to experience it.

After spending Sunday doing yard work, it was great to spend some time in the saddle on a perfect fall afternoon. The crisp air and scattered leaves in the roadway are proof the season is changing, and we're entering prime time for real motorcyclists. Maybe that's why I'm smiling so much tonight...

Lyin' Ryan

Well, there he goes again.

Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan has been caught in yet another lie, this one acutely personal. Ryan, a fitness buff, had previously claimed his best time in the marathon was around 2 hours and 50 minutes, a very good time for even elite athletes. A little too good for Paul Ryan, as it turns out.

Runner's World magazine did a little poking around, and discovered that Ryan's best time was actually 4 hours, 1 minute, and 25 seconds. Oopsie.

As a former athlete -- bicycling, tennis, and volleyball -- I can tell you nobody who cares about competition would make a mistake like that about a world class marathon time. I can also tell you only the worst of athletes lie about their supposed accomplishments.

If this was the only time Paul Ryan confused fantasy and reality, it could be dismissed as merely a braggart boosting his own self-inflated ego. But this falls into a familiar pattern for Ryan. For years, he's been lying about his own positions and those of his political opponents, and this year's election campaign has only served to highlight his mendacity.

For example:

Medicare
Ryan and the Republicans claim President Obama "steals" $716 billion from Medicare recipients. In reality, President Obama's plan for Medicare saves over $700 billion in wasteful payments to hospitals and other providers over the next ten years, but does not reduce care for patients at all. And Ryan's own plan for Medicare starts with the same $700+ billion savings, then cuts more from actual programs, like prescription "donut hole" costs.

Welfare
Ryan and the Republicans claim President Obama is "gutting" the workfare system, an outright lie that has been rebuked by literally every independent arbiter in the business.

Jobs
Ryan spoke movingly about a GM plant in his native Janesville, Wisconsin, being closed despite promises by candidate Obama to keep it open. Couple of problems with that -- Obama gave a speech there in March of 2008 and GM announced in June 2008 it was closing the plant. Obama wasn't even president when GM announced the plant closure!

Speaking of GM
Ryan and ticket-leader Mitt Romney don't seem to mention the auto industry turnaround very often. Perhaps it's because President Obama oversaw the successful salvation of the American auto industry and saved millions of jobs rather than letting the companies go bankrupt, as Romney very publicly advised.

Simpson-Bowles
Much has been said by Paul Ryan about the Simpson-Bowles Commission and its suggestions for ending the deficit impasse in Washington, to wit:

"He [President Obama] created a bipartisan debt commission. They came back with an urgent report. He thanked them, sent them on their way, and then did exactly nothing."

Ryan leaves out the part about him being on the commission, about him voting against the report, and about him leading the House opposition to its conclusions. Perhaps if Ryan had been more interested in helping the country than his narrow political interests, we might have made more progress on our economic situation.

The Republicans are now pushing the question, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" They figure this is their key to winning the election, and they'll do everything they can to convince American voters we're on the road to disaster.

You won't hear the Republicans pointing out that President Obama staunched the bleeding of jobs lost under Republican George W. Bush. When Obama took office, we were losing hundreds of thousands of jobs per month. In January 2009, the last month under Bush, we lost more manufacturing jobs than any month since October 1982! Under President Obama, America has added more than 4,000,000 jobs. That's not enough, but it's a beginning of a turnaround from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

The Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) has added 30 million or so Americans to the ranks of those covered by health insurance. As time passes, it will help bring down costs while increasing coverage.

Democrats are usually criticized for being soft on national defense, but under President Obama, the leadership of Al Qaeda has been decimated, including the death of Osama bin Laden, public enemy #1. Obama has ended the war in Iraq, and is working to bring home our troops in Afghanistan,. For the record, neither conflict was deemed worth mentioning during Romney's nomination acceptance speech.

America is demonstrably better off now than under George Bush. We're not where we want to be, but we're on the way. We'd be further along if Republicans had not vowed in the first days of President Obama's presidency to oppose everything he attempted, solely to deny him any chance at a second term. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell admitted that on national TV.

At least he wasn't lying...