Stanley Steamer met me at my house at 8am Friday and we met Ross
at 178/11 an hour later. I had some sniffles when I woke up, but I
had my own room, so I went for it.
A quick run up curvy 178 followed by another quick run up 215 is all it
takes to get to the Blue Ridge Parkway...
We rode the Parkway up to Spruce Pine. The new span of the Parkway over I-26 is
really weird to see as you pass by. A giant concrete roadway sticking out halfway
across the Interstate, 50 or 70 feet in the air.
The Parkway from around Asheville to Spruce Pine is mesmerizing. As in
dangerously hypnotic. I was glad to get back to the real world.
We used the same route to get to Sparta as we did when we met there on
the way to InZane this year. It misses all the awful Tourist places you wouldn't
want to be on your motorcycle on Labor Day (Boone, etc ...). There's one road
on 421 near Mountain City Tn that I'm pretty sure I don't want to take
20 Valkyries down. It is paved all the way, but steep, switchbacky, and off
camber. It Intersects with a similar road in a gnarly right angle turn at the
top of a hill... that's the specific place I wouldn't want to take
20 unsuspecting Valkyries through... I'm real surprised the street view
man went up there...
There was a good crowd there when we got there. I turned in early and I
skipped riding on Saturday. Later in the afternoon me and Keith did some
Linux hacking
...
Here's the view from my room at dawn... the Alleghany Inn is a great
motorcycle gathering place...
Randy and Sue joined us on the way home today. We used the same
route I used coming home from InZane. Not a lot of twisty roads, but
not much traffic (even on Labor Day) either.
We stopped for Ice Cream and I got some of the last peaches of the year
at Strawberry Hill on 11 and this car was parked beside me when we
came back out. I need at least two of these.
Everyone in our group got home safe...
-Mike
