hubcap's natchez trace pictures...

[hubcapsc]

I left Seneca SC around 7:30am Thursday morning, meetup time at Resaca was to be 11:30. Joe and Paul
arrived at Resaca about 11:15... I thought I was about to get there at 11:15, then I rolled into Ellijay, instead..
D'OH! That gave them a really good feeling about being led the rest of the way to Natchez by
me on back roads...  I was late to Resaca  ... we checked out the Confederate graveyard
at Resaca, and then Don and Tracy got there...



No more being led astray by me the rest of the day, one of the roads I wanted to use never showed
up, but it was easy to compensate...  Near Gadsden AL I glanced into my mirror, and I was
alone! I whooped it around, and everyone was stopped in a parking lot looking at Joe's bike -
the OEM valvestem had given up the ghost. We fixed it in the Sears parking lot in Gadsden, it
took all of us. Don had a bead breaker, I "found" a couple of one-bys for the C-clamps Joe bought
at Sears... eventually the mechanics (who couldn't let us into the shop without risking getting
fired) were outside helping, and they stretched their air hose out to seat Joe's tire when we were done...



we left backroads near Birmingham, the motel for Thursday
night was just South of there... I had showed Paul where it was on the map, he knew Birmingham
pretty well.... I lead us onto the crowded Interstate and towards our destination... I knew to head
in on 20, take the beltway, and the go North one exit when we hit the North/South interstate at
the bottom of the loop... but I didn't remember that there were TWO North/South interstates and
I almost lead us straight into "the heart of darkness" by heading North on 65, but Paul saw what I
was doing and headed me off - Thanks Paul 

The next morning Leon and Sid met up with us at our motel, and I lead us down past Tuscaloosa and
off into the hinterlands... I didn't get lost either...



... but you can't tell on the map if the roads go dirt  ... we took a break, and ate muscadines that
were growing in the big Hackberry tree in the picture... Leon explained to me next time I saw him that
he and Sid didn't split off because of the company...    Don and Tracy had told some folks they'd
be at the Motel around 1:30, when they realized that wasn't going to happen, they split off too,
and made it in around 3:30... we were headed down 13 in Mississippi and stopped at a gas stop and
realized that we were only about 10 miles from the trace, so we ditched the rest of my route
and went the rest of the way on the trace... the little camera took about 1000 pictures of the trace,
they all look like this:



... except the ones from the next day, they all look like this: 



I just realized that the little camera was turned on when we came upon Jeff, but I won't post
those somber pictures into this thread... we pulled into the motel like wet rats between 6:00 and 7:00...



The group ride was awesome, even though the trace is basically a 450 mile-long nice driveway... the
road from the Windsor ruins is a nice curvy road with lots of elevation changes...



There's actually an overlook on the trace...



And this cool bridge...



Guess which three guys were taking simultaneous pictures of three Red and White valkyries?



On the second day I had planned to hit US64 when the trace crossed it, but when Joe found out
he browbeat me into going the whole way  ... As far as I'm concerned it is my awesome good fortune
that Joe and the rest care one way or the other if I'm there or not  so on the rest of the way
I went. We went down to take a picture of the cool bridge at Franklin, and I split off from the group
there, technically six miles from the end, but that's the 96 exit, and 96 was the start of my
alternate route...



hey - did y'all eat at that famous diner when you got to the end? I found a little country
place to eat in Murfreesboro...



I took 30 out of McMinnieville, a better road could not be found - this picture doesn't near do it
justice...



I stopped at Cleveland TN for the night, at first at a Day's Inn... I asked for a park-at-your-door room,
and the lady gave me a room with handicap parking at the door, so I parked a couple of rooms down.
I was thinking how seedy the place looked, when a crazy lady busted out of the door where I was
parked and started cussing at me, told me she was with the Russian Mafia, and then she squirted
her windex bottle at me... the Comfort Inn down the road is real nice, with flat screen TeeVees
and no crazy ladies, and the Valkyrie was safe for the night in that parking lot 

I got a good Cracker Barrel breakfast and headed home on 64 and 76, home safe, lucky to
be a Valkyrie riding VRCC member - thanks for the good time everyone!

-Mike

[Gear Jammer]

Good pics and story-tellin' MIke.  Ya gotta watch out for those crazy ladies though.  Windex ROFLMAO !!

[Smokinjoe-VRCCDS#0005]

I enjoyed ridin' and talking with you Mike . I like your style of riding....Let's see where this goes...OK that did'nt work let's see where this one goes   I'll see you in Robbinsville, North Carolina for " The Fall Color Ride " next month if not before....If you had just took the gloves and helmet off I think we would have had a 2011 calendar shot right here.Great job with the ride report and pictures 

[Strider]

Good seeing you again bro and getting some wind man.....  

Thanks for sharing the pictures and ride report!

[Jess from VA]

Yeow, I take it you didn't get any pics of the crazy Russian mafia lady with the deadly Windex bottle?

Truth is stranger than fiction. 

So you actually checked out, got a credit and went down the road? 

[hubcapsc]

Yeow, I take it you didn't get any pics of the crazy Russian mafia lady with the deadly Windex bottle?

Truth is stranger than fiction. 

So you actually checked out, got a credit and went down the road? 

Shoot D00d - I got the heck out of Dodge! That place was creepy... there was seedier motels down
past that one, and cops with flashing lights stopped at the ones I passed on the way out of the
neighborhood... I told the lady at the front desk I hoped someone was going to take over for her
before it got dark...

-Mike

[Jess from VA]

That place was creepy... there was seedier motels down
past that one, and cops with flashing lights stopped at the ones I passed on the way out of the
neighborhood...

Man, some guys have all the fun....

[hubcapsc]

I enjoyed ridin' and talking with you Mike . I like your style of riding....Let's see where this goes...OK that did'nt work let's see where this one goes   I'll see you in Robbinsville, North Carolina for " The Fall Color Ride " next month if not before....If you had just took the gloves and helmet off I think we would have had a 2011 calendar shot right here.Great job with the ride report and pictures 

I was still sitting here, looking at my map or something, when everyone else rode by on the bridge and blew their horns,
that was pretty cool... I don't know if Preston blew his anemic little OEM horn or not, but we need more young folks
like him riding Valkyries!



-Mike

[Reb]

LOL Yeah i tried, that poor horn sounds like a dying cow   Great photo's Mike

[robin]

Im JEALOUS you guys have some AWSOME rides hope to see ya'll in october

[Thunderbolt]

as usual.  I like your narrations or whatever ya call it too.  I appreciate the trouble you went through, I know that takes time.

[hubcapsc]

as usual.  I like your narrations or whatever ya call it too.  I appreciate the trouble you went through, I know that takes time.

Thanks Mr. Bolt 

Sharing the pictures is part of the fun... I only just unloaded a few I took on the way home
Monday morning...

The folks I met at the Comfort Inn were lots nicer than the Russian Mafia lady I met at the
Days Inn...



I didn't know it until I was headed out of town, but there's a couple of nice lakes that go for miles
on 64 out of Cleveland, TN...



This spillway is near the head of the top lake... it was impressive, I had to stop and get some pictures...



Just above the spillway signs indicated that the 1996 summer Olympic Canoe and Kayak Slalom Competition
was there... it was a real gnarly part of the river, strewn with boulders...

-Mike

[JimL]

The folks I met at the Comfort Inn were lots nicer than the Russian Mafia lady I met at the
Days Inn...




-Mike

Great pics Mike.  I really like this BMW (is this in the R 1200 group???) ....but for whatever reason I would never have matched this dude to that bike in a lineup!  Just before I bought my first Valkyrie I almost bought a K1200 LT, but keep thinking about something I heard during that first week of training at IBM.

I walked into the classroom that first day with the rest of the folks and the instructor starts off with:

"How do you tell the difference between a BMW and a porcupine?".....silence in the classroom (either everyone else in the classroom was like myself and had not heard the punchline...or they were afraid to blurt it out)....."With a porcupine, the pricks are on the outside".

Glad I didn't buy the BMW and eventually bought the Valkyrie!

[Spirited-6]

)....."With a porcupine, the pricks are on the outside".

JIM, JIM, 

Was funny though. 

[hubcapsc]

.but for whatever reason I would never have matched this dude to that bike in a lineup!  

Me either...

Glad I didn't buy the BMW and eventually bought the Valkyrie!

well, yeah 

I thought it was cool looking, I think he said it was a 2004 model... when he cranked it I thought to myself
it probably wouldn't go 85 uphill quite as good as a Valkyrie does, but I don't really know...

-Mike

[BamaDrifter64]

This spillway is near the head of the top lake... it was impressive, I had to stop and get some pictures...



I've been here many times...we take our church youth group whitewater rafting every summer and this is where we always put in when we do the Ocoee...thanks for posting it!

Dave