I skipped work today
and went riding instead...
I planned to do this:
http://tinyurl.com/lfeln3 <--- google route map
I tried to round up the regular suspects and get them to go with me, but they had all manner
of lame excuses (take care of wife who just got out of hospital, have to get up at 3am to
go to work, blah blah blah) so I went alone...
While I was headed up 178 I remembered that 6jugzz mentioned riding up the road to
the top of Sassafras Mountain, which is the highest point in South Carolina (3560 ft)...
I'd been up it once before when we were camping, it was pretty much like I remember,
barely paved, switchbacks, gravel, narrow...
What I hadn't done before was to take a road that connects to the Sassafras Mt. road
near the top... I figured it was more of the same, but what the heck...
It lead to a network of
AWESOME roads, by which you can go back and forth between
178 and 276, and go up to Rosman...
M R COWS on that hillside. I had no idea all that was back in there, and you still get to
ride a whole lot of the curvy part of 178 before you branch off, the best of both worlds...
I eventually ended up in Rosman, NC, and took 215 up to the BRP. There's some nice
rock outcrops near where 215 connects to the BRP, and around there I began to
reach the clouds, it was eerie... I pulled off to get a picture after I got on the BRP...
Of course, a still picture doesn't do it justice
I have been on the BRP between 215 and 276 several times, but never between 276 and
Asheville, and my plan was to come back down on 191... soon after passing 276 I saw
1
51 and wondered if I had misremembered the number... but I kept going,
it's not like going too far on the BRP is a bad thing. Anywho, now that I've googled for
151, I can see that it might have been fun (anyone ever been on it?), but would have landed
me on I40 outside of Asheville, bleghh... so, there's a bunch of tunnels between 276 and
191, I'm glad I went through them, some of them are even curvy - sunglasses inside of
a full face helmet inside of a dark curvy tunnel can be a small problem
but not so bad...
then I got to 191 and headed down to Brevard... 191 is kind of bleghh too, but not like
slogging down the Interstate on Friday afternoon.
Tons of rich retired people have bought up all the land around some lakes up near Brevard,
and rich people like to support Bistros and other fine eating establishments,
so there's some pretty good places to eat in Brevard... I had a crabcake at a table out in the
yard of this old house, surrounded by retired Yankees talking about their golf swing and
poodles... then down 276 towards home. As I was headed down 276 I saw
that end of one of the new roads I had found earlier, and took off down (up?) it. Lots of
steep curves and switchbacks, and a pretty good road surface...
Back home safe and happy... Carolyn cooked fried chicken and macaroni and cheese
and there's a tomato from the garden and a cantaloupe mmmmm...
I flubbed the setting on the little camera, so when I thought
I was making a video through the tunnels on the BRP, I was actually snapping a photo
in the overlook
.. some cool shots were missed... I was in the clouds when I came to
the first tunnel, and popped out on the other side in full sun...
Oh yeah - I hope Bonita's leg is feeling better and that Stanley Steamer gets
a full night's sleep tonight
-Mike
