Preperations

Just the usual preparations, with some minor exceptions.  After last year's trip out west, I purchased a portable air compressor.   It is small and works well.  I have only verified it will add air to the tires but have not used it to inflate a flat tire.

I carry a few tools,  multi-purpose knife/tool, a multi-purpose screw driver and two allen wrenches.  One allen wrench is to allow the seat to be removed and the other is for the foot pegs incase that get moved somehow.  

I have a new helmet I got for Christmas.  Is a Shark Evoline like my old one (it was over 5 years old) and it is a little lighter.  However, it does seem to be a bit nosier than the old Shark.   The sunshade does appear to be better, optically (things appear sharp when viewing thru it, the old one was sort of "cloudy").  

Once the trip was laid out on the map, the next step was to figure out where to stop for the night.   

The first day is about 350 miles, the rest of the days are 250 to 280.  Thats what we have done in the past.  The only problem is that if you are traveling through rural areas, you may not be able to find accommodations that suit your needs.  So, if you cannot find a place on your route you might have to make some modifications.  

For instance, we are traveling near Monticello, KY and there is only one Hotel there.   Its well reviewed but its unusual to only have one hotel in an area.  

In another case, I modified the route to take us along the Ohio River and in into Ohio for one night.  We also travel thru a small part of Maryland.  Which brings me to the state count.  SC, NC, VA, WV, MD, OH, KY, TN, GA.   So its nine states. 

As in previous trips, I used TripAdvisor to help select accommodations, that and past experience.  On last year's trip out west, we stayed at three or four non-chain motels.   One we had used before.  The others were all based on TripAdvisor.  We were not disappointed.  We had the same results when we made the Nova Scotia trip.   

This time I did get a little carried away and tried to figure out where we might have breakfast, lunch, and dinner on the road.  In general, we look for non-chain places to eat.  There are three exceptions.  These are Waffle House, Cracker Barrel, and Texas Roadhouse.   If I cannot find a non-chain place that seems to fit our needs, and one of these three is in the area, its where we go.  

The other thing I like is BBQ and Ruebens so,   I looked for places that had BBQ on the way and Ruebens on the menu.  Most of your Pubs have Ruebens .   And we have found BBQ places all over the place.  I remember making a stop at a gas station somewhere in Pennsylvania that had a little lunch area and they had good BBQ.  One time on our first trip to Canada, we stopped at a BBQ place in the middle of rural New York and they had good BBQ (actually we ate all of the pulled pork they had ).  

I have used TripAdvisor in the past to find restaurants and places to eat when we were in the motel and used the GPS's information to find lunch spots (since the phone is connected to the GPS, I can call and ask about their menus while we travel).  I was talking about this with my daughter on a recent trip and she said she used TripAdvisor to lodging and Yelp for places to eat.  Since she works in the hotel industry, I figured I would take her advice and I consulted Yelp for eating places along the way.  I will let you know how it all works out.