After a restful night in the Rocky Knob Cabins at Mabry Mill, I wake up to this.

Yes, rain. All night long. A deluge.

But the sun breaks through the clouds, we saddle up, and head North on the Blue Ridge Parkway for a 198-mile day.

Somewhere on the outskirts of Roanoke (a real city!), we find a 3G cell signal and yesterday’s e-mail makes its way into your cyber-mailbox.

78 miles up the Parkway from Rocky Knob Cabins, we stop in Vinton, Virginia — for gas and lunch. Different places. Lunch was at “Smoqin Odie’s” … yes, a BBQ place. A docent at the Blue Ridge Parkway Visitors Center near Roanoke suggested Smoqin Odie’s. We’re glad she did.

Ray indulges his sweet tooth, as the photo shows. I have a pulled pork sandwich, consistent with my desire to eat Southern on this trip.

After lunch, we continue through the Jefferson National Forest — home of both the highest (3,950 ft) and lowest (649 ft) points in Virginia on the Parkway. No need to look this up on The Google; the high point is Terrapin Mountain (which probably should be in Maryland) and the low point is where the Parkway crosses James River.

Eventually, we reach milepost 0, the Northern end of the Parkway. With the exception of a minor detour (I’m over it) yesterday, we traveled the Parkway’s 469 miles from Cherokee, North Carolina to milepost 0 with no problems, other than a little rain (I’m over that, too) and a temporary technology blackout.

Now what?

Well, no need to decide yet. So, we head to Waynesboro, a few miles West of milepost 0, to park the Harley for the night.

We get another dining recommendation, this time from the front desk clerk at the Comfort Inn. What could this kid know?

He sends us to Shukri’s, a hole-in-the-wall rib place on Main Street. On the way to Shukri’s, we encounter our second detour of the week: Main Street is closed. F#%#ck!

So, we park the bikes on a parallel street and take a closer look at Main Street.  What we see is an awesome slice of Americana: the regional Soap Box Derby finals, right there on Main Street. From our table at Shukri’s, we watch the kids whizzing side-by-side at 32 mph.

After the race ends, we find out that Front-Desk-Boy knows what he’s doing. For me, it was a home run.

What will tomorrow bring?