This article is part of the series Postcards to Dad, a five-week motorcycle journey from Savannah to Maine highlighting the Appalachian Trail, with postcards home to Dad from each state on the trail.

I’d heard about the 45 mile an hour speed limit on the Blue Ridge Parkway long before I ever rode it. After 35 miles an hour on Skyline Drive in Shenandoah, I was bracing for another day of holding the bike back. On paper, 45 sounded draconian.

But first, breakfast.

I walked into the Blue Ridge Diner in Floyd, and the host greeted me instantly with a warm smile. True Southern hospitality. Once I sat down, I flagged her back over just to say thank you. If there was any doubt I was in the South, that welcome settled it. I’m learning that community and social is as important, if not more important than the road I’m riding or things I’m seeing on longer tips.

A few blocks away was Kathy’s Journey Designs. I didn’t exactly know where the front door was; the building was all shop and production. I walked in a bit sheepishly and found one of the staff. Turns out Kathy’s business makes motorcycle case liners and yurts. Two things that have nothing to do with each other, other than the fact that they’re both made of fabric. I had walked into the yurt side.

Kathy came out to meet me. Tall, slender, 70 give or take, with a great wit about her. I’d been impressed with the fitted case liners I’d bought from Wunderlich, but the GIVI cases on the GS out west still had little more than glorified heavy trash bags inside, sold as case liners by GIVI,. Wunderlich didn’t make anything for those cases, so I wondered whether Kathy could. She was inventive, very direct, and open to exploring it. But without the bike in front of her, there was no telling whether it would be easy or complicated. I will circle back with here when I’m back in the Bay Area.

Her bags are lighter than Wunderlich’s and made entirely of Cordura, with the tag to prove it. According to Kathy, Cordura only hands out so many of those labels, based on how much fabric she buys. That’s how they make sure anything wearing the tag is actually made of Cordura. I had no idea.

I got on the Parkway at Highway 8 near Floyd and pointed south.

A few miles in, I stopped at the Rocky Knob Information Station and walked up to a ranger mid-conversation with another visitor. The visitor was complaining about the vegetation: too much growth, too many views lost to trees. The ranger didn’t get defensive. The answer was honest: there are funding gaps, and they can’t do everything they’d like to.

On the souvenir rack, I fell in love with a postcard: a black bear. Maybe it’s how I see myself in the community, maybe it was just the art. It clicked. I’d been hunting for a home run for the Blue Ridge Parkway, a card worthy of a national treasure, and this one was clearly it.

Mabry Mill came next, said to be one of the most photographed spots on the Parkway. The weathered wooden mill sits beside its pond with the water wheel still in place, and it’s easy to see why people stop. I added to the count.

For the rest of the day, I noticed what the ranger was talking about. Some of the overlooks had grown in, with trees standing where the view used to be. They could use some work. I also understand the current realities of government investment in parks.

And still, the road went to work on me.

The rain from the day before was gone. Temperatures were in the mid-60s, and the air was dry. The pavement was clean, nearly perfect for miles at a time. Traffic was light. The Parkway would open up to farmland and split rail fences, with a double yellow line running off over the next rise, then close back into tunnels of trees going gold and red. Every few miles it ducked under one of those old stone arch bridges, each one built like it was meant to last a century. Stone walls lined the curves. A couple of riders came around a bend the other way, and we traded waves.

There wasn’t one big moment. It was the whole experience. It was what I needed, at the moment I needed it.

Somewhere in there, I stopped thinking about the speed limit. At 45, the Parkway isn’t a road you attack. It’s a road you take in. The curves are gentle, the views come one after another, and the speed lets you actually see them instead of just collecting them. The sun was out, the leaves were turning, and everything lined up. 45 miles an hour and all, the Blue Ridge Parkway was wonderful motorcycling.

Late lunch was at Freeborne’s in Laurel Springs. The experience was decidedly cold, a complete 180 from breakfast that morning. It was clearly a Harley-Davidson crowd, and it’s always a little weird being the one BMW guy. As I was gearing up to leave, a V-Strom pulled in. I always have a soft spot for that bike; mine carried me 117,334 miles. But I was on my way out and he was on his way in, and the moment just didn’t line up.

I was expecting Boone to be a small country town. It’s not. It’s a university town, home to App State, and after a couple of weeks going from small town to small town, being surrounded by 18 to 22 year olds was just different. Most of my world is my age and up. The bar was packed with students. App State was playing at Coastal Carolina on ESPN2 that night, which may explain it, or maybe that’s just Friday night in a college town.

I’d spent more than usual on a room at The 1850 Hotel, and I meant to get my money’s worth. The rain came while I walked around town, light at first, then heavier, bouncing off the brick sidewalks under the streetlights. I ducked into Ben & Jerry’s for a small bowl of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream and carried it back to the room.

Then I used every amenity the place had. I ran the tub hot, poured in the milk + honey bath soak, and sank in while the rain raged on outside.