I left out of Seneca, SC, on Friday... most of South Carolina was covered by
the hurricane rain, but my corner is still shriveling from drought. I have a way
I like to get up to Knoxville from here... I pass through Georgia and North Carolina
before I get to Tennessee. Right before I get to Tennesse, I pass The Fields Of The
Wood. I stopped this time and got this picture:
The trip is all great roads. Until you get to Knoxville. The way to Wimps house gets
gnarly where 129 (part of 129 is The Dragon) hits I40.
I called Wimp when I was about an hour out. He said I40 would be a parking lot,
and sure enough it was. He told me an alternate route, and I made it right to
his house
We left from Wimps house and got on I75 (which was busy, but not a parking lot)
and headed out to Clinton where the motel was.
We all went to eat near by, Joe and his wife carried some folks to the Restaurant
so they didn't have to ride their bikes. We've stayed at this motel before
here's us getting ready to leave from the Hardee's next door:
With last year's several bad accidents on our minds, Joe has started several rides
recently with a prayer. He called on me to say the prayer this time, everyone gathered
around there in the Hardee's parking lot...
Joe took us up into the Great Smoky Mountains on our way through to Cherokee...
The problem with places like The Great Smoky Mountains is that there's good
trails here and water falls there and all the trail heads turn into nasty quagmires
of congestion...
I didn't see any...
We finally got to the gas stop at Cherokee around 1:30 or 2:00... with 230 miles of
BRP still to go
Here's Lance, looking like a secret service agent, Wimp trying to figure out where to
feed dollar bills into the gas pump, and Dennis, smiling as usual...
Punisher and Gordon hiding in the bushes, Joe's bike, JimmyT's bike, Barry's Bee and
Wimp's nephew...
We headed off down the parkway, planning to eat in Asheville. Some of us missed the
exit. I was following along behind the bike in front of me when all of a sudden
we all pulled off to a side area... we realized we weren't with The Group anymore.
Out came the cell phones... Some folks decided the heck with it and headed to
Ground Zero on main roads, some folks headed back to The Group who were
already sitting down to eat at a Ryan's in Asheville, and me, Roger and Roy
took off down the parkway towards Sparta. We got to roll hard from there,
it was kind of a relief, we didn't hit any real clogs until past Craggy Gardens...
We stopped and actually put on our long sleeve shirts... I'll miss summer, but
this great cool air was real fine
We decided we couldn't make
it all the way to ground zero on the gas we had, so we dropped down to
Linville for gas... hmmm... it's only 6:30, let's eat at this good restaurant!
It was good too, but it was almost 8:00 by the time we got back on the parkway.
Deer were crouched in every field waiting to pounce into the road at dark.
We passed a couple of Valkyries. Then made a quick stop, right at dark. One of the
Valkyries pulled up behind us, it was Bill and Trish... the other Valkyrie was Mitch,
he'd gone the other way looking for a group of four or five others - apparently
The Group had split further after we had left out at Asheville. They were glad
to be with us because they thought we knew how to proceed
...
Off through the darkness we went, 40 or 50 miles of BRP left to go. Then we
came upon another big group of Valkyries... it was what was left of The Group,
and they were at an intersection, Joe had led some down the hill to get gas.
So we were mostly all back together. We all ditched the BRP at that point,
so off through the darkness down some secondary road on a route unknown
to me
... some of the folks behind me were falling behind, so I fell back and
barely kept The Group in sight in front of me and the others in sight behind me.
Finally we passed a sign that said we were on 221, I knew how to get all
the way to the Motel from 221. We came to an intersection, so I let the ones
in front go on and waited for the ones behind. Before we came to any
turns, we came up to The Group waiting on us again, and finally one more
jog to the motel, a little after 10:00... whew!
Mitch didn't show up until a half hour or so later, then pretty much every one
chilled. I chilled until about 1:00 am, some folks chilled a couple of hours
longer than that
...
A bunch of us headed to a sit-down breakfast place near by Sunday morning
and we talked about our plans. I had brought the North Carolina red book
with me, and my plan was to "go south"... Punisher and 3Fan and "Ginger"
liked my plan and off we went on pretty good roads, some gravel, but no
traffic. Until we hit Boone... good grief... Labor Day... we didn't get sucked
irretrievably into the traffic with the help of the red book, and pretty
soon were zooming down 105 (instead of stewing miserably in the
combined 221/321 Boone traffic snarl).
Mark and Debbie peeled off when we hit 40 and headed to Maggie Valley.
Me and Punisher continued on on back roads until we got to hiway
11 in South Carolina. We had to pass near Lake Lure to get to hiway
9... gahhh... holidays and tourist traffic... turning onto 9 across the flow
of tourists from Chimney Rock/Lake Lure was exciting.
Carolyn fixed a great supper and Punisher stayed in our plush, well lit
guest cabin... we took him out to the good breakfast place near I85 so
he could head on home and got bitten by the holiday again... the good
breakfast place was
PACKED and it took long enough for him to get
halfway to Atlanta...
We've changed the plans for next year... we'll gather from all our disparate
places directly at the Sparta hotel on Friday next year, ride in a group or
groups all day on Saturday, and get back to Sparta Saturday night with
plenty of time to hang out in the parking lot each night... no riding on the parkway
in the dark...
-Mike "unless you want to..."
