Hey Everyone! How are you doing? Me ? Wet! LOL I’m sitting in a hotel in downtown Cincinnati right now and thought I would start this trip Blog. It has been a very interesting trip so far. And a wet one. If you have watched the news you know that hurricane Helene really did some damage to the southern Appicacian Mountains from Georgia all the way to Ohio. And of course it’s been chasing us and dumping rain everywhere we go. It’s early Sunday morning and we (my photography wingman Robert) have been rained on since Thursday. Our plans have been changed by this storm but it din’t stop it. The original plan was to make our way to Brookville Indiana for a bike race that Robert was to participate in. I just came along for moral support and to document the event. We would make stops along the way and do some photography. Well I now know that my camera is very much weather sealed because we’ve been shooting in the rain ever since we left home. LOL After the race we were going to spend a night in Cincinnati and then drive to the Knoxville Tenn. area to visit a friend of his then take I-40 home. Well... the hurricane messed up all of those plans . So here is what happened. 

We have had this trip planned for months with the hotels and the logistics that come with a trip plan to include photo stops along the way. The only thing that we couldn't plan for is the rain. When we left on our first day Helene barely had a name and was hundreds of miles off the Florida coast. Little did we know that it would affect our trip for the next 5 days 8 states and almost 2000 miles. When we left it was misty and a little bit of rain but this was another rain event not associated with Helene. As we headed north west the rain became more steady. We traveled through Virginia and West Virginia and arrived at our first destination Charleston West Virginia the state Capital. We checked into our Hotel and headed out to find some Mexican Food and to go to a shot that we had planned with Photo Pills. And when I say we I mean Robert. He did all of the Photo Pills stuff with the trip and did a great job! When we got to our first stop it was misting a little but the scene was just as Photo Pills said and we were in the perfect spot to get the shot we were looking for. After we got the shot we headed to the state capital and it looked amazing! Well done West Virginia! We headed back to the Hotel to get some sleep before the next day.

Day two we are in bike race mode. Today our main goal is to drive to Brookville Indiana register for the race and do all the things we needed to do for the race. When we woke up guess what? Yes still raining. This rain was apart of the Helene system but it still had not made landfall yet in Florida. The predictions were that it was going to make a left turn and maybe Indiana would be spared. We Passed by Cincinnati and headed to Brookville a small town about 30 miles north west of Cincinnati. It was raining really good by now. We stopped and had some Skyline Chili. Robert had been talking this up for months so I was ready for the treat. I guess it's an acquired taste because it did not live up to the hype but I could use this to rib and make fun of Robert the rest of the trip. LOL We got to our hotel and chilled out while the rain continued to come down. We then went into town and skipped and jumped through puddles to get to the registration. Robert registered and got the bag of goodies that comes with the race. The place we registered in was a German Beer hall and we ate German food and listened to a Polka band that played. It was really cool. Everyone was saying that it was going to clear up by race time. 500 people had signed up and paid for the race. The beer hall was not crowded though . ( a sign of things to come)  The weather map did not look good...

Day three I got up early as usual and it was raining outside. I looked at the radar and it was all green not a good sign. Robert woke up later and asked how it looked I told him he didn't want to look at the Radar. He went downstairs to get a charger for his phone and when he came back he had a very sad face and said that the race was off for him because it was pouring down and even if it stopped the roads would be very slick with water and leaves and just not worth going down. He was not alone. We went to the start of the race and there were maybe 40 riders starting the race in the rain. We took some shots of downtown in the rain. The " in the rain" will become a theme. We headed to Cincinnati to start a new chapter of this trip. We also found out that damage was happening to the NC mountains and that I 40 was closed in a couple of places around Asheville where we were planning to go through would not be reasonable. So we got in touch with Roberts friend and cancelled that part of the trip and had to re-route our trip to the east. We booked a room in  Harrisonburg VA and headed to Cincinnati. This would be our busiest day yet. We headed to Cincinnati and found our hotel but it was way too early to check in so we went to a parking garage across the street. We called the hotel before we arrived because they had over 100 thousand power outages in the area in the morning prior. We called the hotel to make sure they had power and they did. There was suppose to be a festival in the downtown area but it got canceled because the storm that made all of the outages also tore up all of the tents and things they had set up for the festival. So we got out and walked and took photo's "in the rain" and surprisingly had a great time walking the city. We walked down by the baseball and football stadiums and the waterfront. We stopped and had lunch at a Korean Chicken place. Another theme is food from different countries. It was pouring outside so we decided to do something inside and took a Uber to a Sign Museum. This was a cool place with all kinds of Neon signs but upon our arrival I see Robert patting himself down. He can't find his phone! We finally demised that he left it in the Uber! Long story short we couldn't get with the Uber driver so Robert locked and wiped his phone and went to ATT and got a new one. We continued our trip and went out to eat at an Irish Pub and had fish and chips. Later that night we got with the Uber driver and she brought Robert his phone. Now he has two. Of course since he wiped out his old phone he had to set up the new one. We all know what a pain that is. So Robert stayed up late trying to get the new one set up.

Day four would be our longest driving day at almost 8 hours. We got up it was still raining and headed to a diner that was recommended to us for breakfast but when we got there it was closed. So we went back to the hotel checked out and headed toward Columbus. We stopped at a Bob Evans and had breakfast (much better than the Skyline Chili) and hit the road. We started in Ohio, then Pennsylvania , Maryland, West VA, and then Virginia. We took backroads thru most of it so we got to see the country not the interstate. And it was very nice we stopped a few times and took photos "in the rain". We finally make it to Harrisonburg and checked into our hotel which ended up being the best hotel and cheapest that we had the whole time. We went and got a Pizza " Italian food" and went to bed it was a long day driving in the rain. 

The last day of our trip we had about 4 hours of driving to do and of course it was raining when we got up. We packed up and drove home on backroads all the way home. When we got into our home county it finally quit raining but the roads were wet from a recent rain. All in all it was a fun trip. We got some good pics and had a ball like we always do. Good discussions, jokes and food make a great trip. You always have to look for the silver lining. I found out how to shoot in the rain without getting specs of water on my lens and that my camera can take quite a bit of rain and still function properly.  It was sad that the storm tore up the NC mountains that I love so dearly. Please pray and support this region that was devastated by the storm. We got rained on but the storm changed the landscape of our mountains and changed lives forever. Until next week get out and shoot !