Saturday was bluegrass, HD wedding receptions, and ole friends all on the Valk. Because luckily the Valk can carry a birthday present and a wedding gift in the same tourer saddlebag. Baggers are addictive.
Sunday was dedicated to going to see the Terracotta Army exhibit in Atlanta. I had won tickets off of the local news contest. So our plan was to hop up, jump on the 1998 Tourer, and run to do a day in Atlanta at a museum and then come back home. Simple plan. Good day trip.
When we got up (later than we meant because of the party the day before) my wife checked the weather as she prepared herself. She kept telling me it was going to rain. She kept telling me it was going to be cooler. I kept tleling her we'd take whatever she wanted to take (Valk or Volvo was her choice). She didn't want to get to the museum wet and cold which is understandable. I kept telling her that the weather was wrong most of the time anyway, but we'd do what she wanted.
She said we could take the bike.
So I didn't ask again. We took the bike.
Honestly, she was on the cold side of being cool as we headed down I-85 out of Charlotte. In Gaffney we stopped for breakfast at a Waffle House and she was not happy at all. It was not shaping up to being a pleasant trip. I stuck a fleece neck warmer on her and offered her my gloves trying to make her happy. We spent nearly an hour eating at the Waffle House with her sipping coffee hoping it was going to wram up.
We were running behind already, but I figured we'd make up for it down the road somewhere.
As we left the Waffle House the clouds were dripping and dribbling. It was more cloud spit than rain. Again, my wife was not amused. All the pleasant conversation of the breakfast was gone from her eyes that were saying, "I told you so."
This was settling in to being a long day.
We hopped back on I-85 heading south as fast as we could. We ran in and out of cloud spit. It started to warm up. Around the Georgia state line I saw signs of drought in the lakes and dead grass and was hopeful that the sun would shine and that we'd run into a nice drought. The sun was coming out and getting brighter as the rain picked up.
Then the rain subsided. The temp started to climb. And we were heading toward Atlanta.
All I had to do was ride 85 into the heart of ATL where it runs onto I-75 then exit onto 10th street. That would be somewhere around the colleges, downtown, and the Varsity hotdogs. I thought a nice Varsity hotdog would cheer my wife up so I was going to weave my way over from 10th street when I got down town. I've been in ATL a lot, figured that shouldn't be to hard.
ATL is one of the worst cities I have ever ridden a motorcycle through. The more lanes of traffic that are provided on I-85, the faster the traffic seems to move, and the closer together it clumps. I am always careful to stay in the middle of the road, which puts my head on a constant swivel for danger on all sides. However, if you're not careful the right lanes will become exit only lanes and spit you out seemingly randomly all over the city. I'm used to the right lane with merging being shoved off as an exit only lane. However in Atlanta, the right two or three lanes might suddenly veer to the right and become another freeway or parkway with little hope of getting back around easily. I hate driving in Atlanta.
But the directions seemed easy so I fought my way through.
And as I was shooting out the otherside of Atlanta (85 and 75 split and somehow I wound up on 75 instead of 85) I realized that I had managed to miss my turn.
It was 2:00. My wife was content on the back, but I didn't want to let her get hungry because that would not have helped her mood. I hopped off the exit and looked for food. I must have hit the only exit in Atlanta without food off of it. I passed countless Chick-fil-as which would have been great, except that it was Sunday and they weren't open. We passed a MARTA station and crossed under 85, but were having trouble looking for food. I wanted to feed my wife before fighting Atlanta traffic again so I kept looking. I finally found a carry out pizza place that proclaimed espanol only and had no seats, and close by to it was a building with a cardboard sign out front that simply read, "Mexican Open." I whipped in there. I figured a Mexican resturant with no sign had to be good.
The museum was supposed to close at 5:00. It was 2:00+. We needed food. It was the last day of the Terracotta Army exhibit so we had to make it. Over lunch, me and my wife discussed our options. We looked at the tickets again and realized that the museum was near a train station and we had just passed another one. Our option was to fight and risk missing our exhit in downtown Atlanta, or jumping a train. We chose train.
After a great lunch I stepped up to the counter to pay. The owner shook my hand and asked about the service. Great place. Great food. My wife laid the envelope with the tickets in it on the counter while she put her jacket back on.
We walked out, hopped on the bike and I sped back to the train station. A police bike cop on a white Honda ST police special was out front of a church about to guide a funeral procession, this was the second time I had passed him in an hour going to fast. The way we approached the train station we couldn't turn left into the parking lot, I had to go past, do a U turn and come back. Fine. In the middle of the U-turn my wife asked, "Do you have the tickets?" Crap-freakin-tastic. I passed the train station parking lot speeding back toward the friendly resturant. Again in my haste I had forgotten about the white ST police bike and sped past it, this time it looked like he was giving me the evil eye (perhaps it was in my mind). My wife wanted me to pull over, she thought she might have put them in the saddle bag. So I pulled off the road in front a small church, and then had to circle the church because the church van pulled in behind me and I couldn't figure out how to get out of his way. We had the tickets. They were in the saddle bag. This time I slowed WAAAY down as I went by the cop, just in case, again glad he was busy with the funeral. I still couldn't turn left into the train parking lot. So I did another U-turn (this one faster than the last) and we hit the free parking lot.
The MARTA was only about 2 bucks for 2 round trip tickets on Sunday. Self serve automated machines that were easy to use. So as an extra perk, we got to ride a train! I love trains. This one is a subway style train that has clearly been built along some older commercial tracks in spots. So we hopped a train. Clean. Spacious. And the train dropped us off just under where we wanted to go. The museum's parking deck was packed and expensive so I'm glad that chose the train,which was cheaper and easier than fighting downtown traffic.
We triumphantly climb the steps to the musuem....and find the line. We had tickets, but they had to be exhanged for walk-up tickets. The line was 3 hours long. The musuem was going to stay open late to accomodate the crowd. We had been on the road for three hours, been lost, hadn't been terribly wet luckily, but we couldn't skip this. How often do you get to see the Terracotta army? So we got in line. My wife was not happy about that. But we made the most of it. The three hour wait passed fairly quickly.
We were one of the last groups of people to get in line before they closed it.
We got in at nearly 7:00 (keeping in mind we had planned on being on the road home by 5:00 in our ideal plan). The staff was great. They were professional and polite. They didn't rush us because they wanted to close. We got to see the whole exhibit and it was great.
The terracotta army was built by the first emperor of China to protect his burial site for eternity about 200 BC. So when the old testament was being written down these statues were being created. Amazing. The detail was great. The fact that they were built on an assembly line of sorts with several interchangable parts, yet were all completely unique was amazing too.
It was worth it.
So about 8:00 or so we got back on the MARTA and went back to the bike. It was where we had left it and our helmets weren't wet from any rain. What more could we ask for. Our dispositions were greatly improved. We headed home.
I stopped for gas. We weren't that hungry so we decided to ride until the sun ran out. Which we did. At 9:00 we were a little ways outside of Atlanta and it was dark, so we stopped at a Zaxbys to eat some chicken and relax. We were going to push for a late night return home so that we could make work on Monday. Then the real rain started. The other people were talking about tornadoes in Alabama heading our way. Great.
We hit the road.
It was dark. The rain was rough. And visibility began to become an issue. About 10:00 we pulled off the road because I was having trouble seeing well enough to maintain a safe speed on the interstate. I did what I had never done before. I admitted we couldn't make it. We grabbed a room and gave up for the night. We called our employers and said we weren't going to make it to work on Monday. In all my years and all the crazy day trips or long trips, I've never not made it home because of the weather. It was the safest decision, so I'm glad I could make it.
When we checked in the woman asked if we had any luggage (she was going to tell us what door dropped off closer to our room). I laughed. We had no luggage. We had no plans. All we had were the damp clothes we were wearing. My wife improvised a way to store her contacts so she didn't have to sleep in them. The next morning while she showered I ironed our clothes to make them feel fresher, luckily they had dried over night.
Monday we slept in ate the hotel's food and headed up in the sunshine. We ran fast in the sunshine. A beautiful day to ride.
In Greer we stopped at the BMW museum by the plant. I've always wanted to see that. It is only open M-F, but if you get a chance it is a great free museum of BMW. Cars. Bikes. The past, the future. It is a fun museum.
Then we came home. I dropped my wife off, took another shower and changed clothes finally and went to my evening job.
You can't take pics of the Terracotta army, so our pic is of us standing with a cardboard cutout of it. The pic was taken by an employee, but it came out blurry. Oh well.
The police bike pictured is part of the BMW museum, it followed the olympic torch, so it is an oddly colored police bike. The R50 (I think it is) has one of the oddest mirror/turnsignal set ups that I have seen. I liked it! The museum is fun if you're in the area.
So what do those things have in common? A long (unexpected) three day weekend of me, my wife, and my Valk!
