Outstanding ride with awesome weather the whole weekend. Great group even the prick that poured my bed full of popcorn and covered it back up ( whoever you are ) if I had known for sure who did that I would have took vise grips and pulled your valve stems out that night ( that would have been funny ha ha the next morning wouldn't it ) can't understand why someone would do that after using our room for the party hole to stay warm from the cold it was like sleeping in sand even after I cleaned the popcorn up. I was over it the next day so its all good.
Back to the ride report.
Had a good crowd of folks ride into my hometown the night before the ride I still wasn't sure if I should make the ride or not after the chainsaw deal with my knee I knew I sure wanted to go. Got up Friday morning and said to my self " let's do this " . Having a problem with getting my pictures from my phone to my computer it will load some but not all DAMNIFIKNOW
We made a stop outside Pennington Gap Va. the politically correct name for this is The Great Stone Face however you stop and ask any local older folks they will not know it by that.
Folklore says that the face was carved by Cherokee Indians honoring their chief at the time. The name of the Chief is unknown. Others believe that the face has evolved over time by wind and rain. Nevertheless it’s a great photo opportunity for a visitor looking for something different! Stone Face Rock is located just outside of Pennington Gap and can be seen from 421 North.
Thought I should add that Ali has reached 601,000 miles and counting. Bruce left us in Kentucky and was heading out west to watch the cactus bloom. The man and bike are awesome very proud to call Bruce my friend.
My ridin' bud Larry had his lady friend Rita take some pictures inside Dingess Tunnel in West Virginia known as " The Bloodiest Tunnel In America " however those pictures are the one's I can't get from my phone to computer.( UPDATED ) I had to post these two pictures from my phone to Facebook then copy them to my computer in order to get them on my computer ....Again DAMNIFIKNOW
Couple pictures from my friend Larry who had his lady friend take some pictures on the ride.
Dingess is widely known for an approximately mile-long tunnel situated on a county road south of town. Originally built by Italian immigrants, the tunnel opened for rail traffic on September 25, 1892. It has been opened to one lane vehicular traffic since at least the mid-1900s. Another much shorter tunnel is located between Dingess and the Breeden.
The community was named after William Anderson Dingess, a pioneer settler.
As of 1894, Dingess contained two hotels, eight boarding houses, four restaurants, four groceries, four saw mills, and a school with two teachers and about 100 students. 133 coal miners lived in Dingess.
The community once garnered a reputation for being a lawless land. In his book They’ll Cut Off Your Project, Huey Perry, wrote “Old-timers there said it was common practice to have a killing once a month. As ‘Uncle’ Jim Marcum described it, 'Why, a colored person couldn’t think about riding through Dingess. They would stop the train, take him off and shoot him, and nobody would say a word. Why, they would even stop the train and take all its cargo. It was a wild country then, and it ain’t much better now.’”
From 1900 to 1972, approximately seventeen lawmen were shot to death in the area which stretches fifteen miles along Twelve Pole Creek.
In 1901, robbers raided the community, dynamiting a large safe. According to a November 23, 1901, edition of the Bluefield Daily Telegraph: "Citizens were on the scene almost immediately after the heavy report, and the burglars hadn’t time to gather up their booty as a number of citizens opened fire and probably forty shots were exchanged. The burglars, who secured a lot of valuable jewelry, escaped on a hand car which was recovered later four miles from Dingess, and on which blood spots were plainly visible.
On KY Rt. 80, near Elkhorn City, in the Breaks Interstate Park, a historical highway sign marks the gravesite of an unknown Confederate soldier who is "Known But To God." In May of 1865, the soldier, who was on his way home after the close of the Civil War, was struck down by unknown assailants and killed. Four men of the community, namely Henry and George Potter, Zeke Counts and Lazarus Hunt, fashioned a coffin for the soldier, made of boards rived from a great oak in which he was buried at the spot where he had died. The Potter family kept the soldier's cap and watch in hopes to be able to give them to family members in search of their loved one. Sadly, nobody ever came to look for him. Years after, the keepsakes were lost in a fire. In 1900, a rose bush was planted at the gravesite by Harve Potter and in more recent years a historical highway marker was placed in order to keep the memory of this unknown soldier alive.
On our way home we went around our elbow getting to our thumb making a nice ride through the backroads of Kentucky with a stop at Martin Forks Lake.
Martins Fork Lake is a 340-acre reservoir in Harlan County, Kentucky. The lake was impounded from the Martin's Fork in 1979 by the United States Army Corps of Engineers. It is named for James Martin, an early pioneer in the area.
" The Money Shot " I should have took the luggage off but I was burned out after trying to sleep in popcorn salt the night before
