I headed out for the Memorial Day ride on Friday... to get to Knoxville, I went up 28 and over the
Cherohala, up 360 and 95... screwed up the last little bit and went to Maryville on 321, instead of
Lenoir City on 321... It is hard to look at your map in the rain... it started raining in Robbinsville
and never let up much, there were some awesome views of cloud filled Valleys from the over
looks on the Cherohala, it was especially dramatic from the viaduct (sort of a bridge through the sky
cause there was no place to build the road)... I only have this picture from lower down...
On the ride on Saturday, I rode "sweep" - at the end of the line... Joe could look back and see
my red bike and know everyone was still with us... there were so many of us it was hard for
everyone to stay together at lights and stop signs... it got to where it was just me and Wimp and
a two-up couple (what are y'all's names?) and we rode along until we came to a place where we had
to make a decision... I saw Britman waiting at one of the choices, he saw us and took off, and then
Wimp went a third direction... I imagined Britman mumbling a bunch of British swear words, actually I
imagined that several times during the ride...
A lot of the time Wimp, Britman and or Coot would be sort of co-sweep riders, but I always knew where
everyone was but them... Wimp stopped to look at a Mean Streak, the others disappeared a couple
of times... they all have minds of their own
I spent half the time on the way home humming "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" and
thinking about Military helicopters...
Besides all the cool roads we went on, we rode over this dam (Norris Dam)...
Took a short hike to Ozone Falls...
Big Al came way out in the middle of nowhere and took all our pictures on a gnarly curve...
We all met up here for pictures down the hill from where Al was waiting for us... the entrance
to a 100 year old prison, closed now I think...
We went to the Tree House... pictures just don't do this thing justice, but I tried anyhow... there's like
a million rooms and balconies and hallways in that thing... some rooms are cavernous...
These folks are in the sanctuary area, I'm up above the choir area...
I poked my head out one of the windows on like the 14th floor and this family was playing on this
giant swing...
It's built all whacky and on-the-fly and not level or square....
I took this picture of the bikes from way up near the top...
I was coming down one of the stairwells and this little girl was calling for her parents to
take her picture. So I told her I'd take it, the flash really lit up the stairwell... I told her
parents I was going to post the picture on the Internet on the VRCC web site, hope they
can find us...
Nice blue striper...
The guy that bought the "Hoppe-like" fairing from France off eBay was there... it looked
real Hoppe-like to me...
I stopped to take picture of these hay bales on 360 up in Tennessee... D'OH... then some "sunday driver"
riders went by... they nailed it when I was passing them and so did a few others on the Cherohala...
why do so many people creep along and then punch it when they see you're passing? Some guy in
a pickup tried to pinch me off at a rise on the Cherohala...
I left Knoxville around 9:00 and got to Franklin around 1:00, all on dry roads... a big storm was
ahead of me at Franklin so I preemptively put on the rain gear... the storm seemed to come and
go, and I stopped at Dillard to... take the gear off...
As I was leaving I met some folks that had just come from SC over 76 (that's where I was headed)
and they said they came through a big storm... it started raining when I got to the Chattooga river,
but not bad, and I was almost home so I figured no need to stop for rain gear. Then I got up to
Longcreek and could see the sky panoramically... it was
scary looking, black as tar...
when the rain hit, it was the kind that causes flash floods, but I was almost home...
Hope everyone else gets home OK...
-Mike
