Kali has been apprehensive about riding to Asheville, since our route will inevitably include a jaunt over US-129.
Coincidentally work sent out an e-mail last week saying that due to Covid-19, people haven't been taking enough vacation days, and it's messing up their accounting stuff, so please take some vacation days as soon as you can.
Looked at the calendar, popped in a request for Monday and Tuesday of this week, and told Kali we're gonna do a Talimena run.
While the Talimena is no US-129, for being able to leave the Dallas Metromess in the morning and have lunch in the mountains, it's about the best we've got that close.
Monday morning got up early, and the weather had rolled in. Looking at the radar it looked bad the whole way to Mena, AR, but I looked at the hourly forecasts and everything seemed to say if we just wait an hour or two it'll be okay. So an hour or two were waited, and off we went. We had a few light sprinkles the first half hour and then textbook wonderful riding weather the entire rest of the day.
The ride to Mena was mostly uneventful, about half superslab then the rest progressively less-straight 2 lane rural highways, helping to ease her into turning the bike.
Made it to our lunch destination in Mena (If you're in the area, be sure to check out the Branding Iron BBQ & Steak House in Mena, AR! Good food, fair prices, and friendly staff, and it's about a block over from the start of the Talimena Scenic Parkway.)
Had a wonderful lunch, gave her her final pre-ride pep talk (The whole "Ride your own ride, I won't leave you, enjoy, have fun, look where you want to go, practice delayed apex cornering, etc.) and off we went...
We decided we'd do the 54 miles west bound without stopping, then stop at some of the overlooks on the ride back. So the first pics I have are from the western terminus after she'd just successfully done the ride the first time.
And then we turned around to do the Talimena east bound. It's kinda funny, all the times I've done this ride over the last 20ish years, I've never driven it east bound, I've always one it west bound and then went straight home, but since we had a hotel in Mena, we got to slow down and enjoy it a little more.
The first overlook I planned to stop at doesn't have a sign on the west bound side, so I didn't notice it until I'd passed the entrance. If I don't tell this part of the story, Kali will probably come on here and do so, so..... I told her to go ahead and turn into the overlook, I'd do a u-turn and meet here there. Went up a steep hill, two cars passed, and I slowed to a near stop and started my u-turn in the highway.
Almost completed the turn, noticed there was no shoulder and a steep drop off on the edge of the road that my front tire was just about to go off of, so I grabbed some brake, and..... tunk, over she went, laying down hill in the middle of the road 50 yards from the peak of a blind hill.
Lovely. Anyway, with a little huffing and puffing (That Interstate is heavy, and even heavier when she's laying downhill on a steep hill!) I got the bike upright, and made it back to the scenic overlook I was trying to get to in the first place....
.....and the views were worth it.....
After that, we stopped at a few other scenic overlooks, but not many, mostly just enjoyed the ride. I noted that the ride back went much faster than the ride out, I think she was starting to get the hang of this cornering thing...
We made it back to the hotel, she went solo to the Mall of Warts to pick up some snacks and pick up dinner, and she did fine.....
The next morning, we had planned on riding the Talimena one final time and heading home from there, but the weather had other plans. We decided that twisty mountain roads are not nearly as enjoyable with low visibility torrential downpours with frequent thunder and lightning, so we elected to take the more direct route home.
Barely thirty minutes after rolling out the skies opened up so hard visibility went nearly to zero, we found the roof of an abandoned gas station, pulled up under it to ride out the worst of the storm.
After that we had occasional rain but not bad enough to stop us again, eventually it mostly dried out and made for a pleasant ride home.
We stopped for lunch in Broken Bow, OK. Evidently they don't do Covid-19 there. NO ONE was wearing a mask, no distancing, the seating in the restaurant was normal, they had real menus, salt and pepper shakers on the table, everything was just like it as in The Before Times.
Honestly, it kinda freaked me out a little bit.
(She's not as grumpy as she looks in this pic, just caught her in an odd moment.)
This trip kinda completes a loop for me. I've done the Talimena ride many times before and after, but I specifically did it many years ago on her due date, 9/15/2002. Kali was born 8 days later. And now here I was riding that same ride with the daughter that wasn't even born yet riding the same bike I'd ridden all those years before.....
She's still a little apprehensive about riding to Asheville, but I think she's at least a little better prepared to do it now.
