Covered Bridges in Steamer's neck of the woods...

[hubcapsc]

There's some nice country roads between my house and Stanley Steamer's house in Georgia.
And, there's a taco place run by hipsters near Steamer's house that lots of people like, including
me and Carolyn. So... I headed out on a fool's errand after Church today to get some Taco Stand
food and bring it back to South Carolina for supper. The forecast was 60% chance of rain, and when
it rains in Athens, it pours...

I gave Stanley a call, and he was expecting me. While I was picking some likely backroads that
I had never been on before, I noticed some covered bridges on the map. I got no rain on the way
to Stanley's house, and our first stop was the Taco Stand. When we left there, the sun came out
and it was beautiful the  rest of the day...

You have to go down a dirt road to get to this first bridge, so it bears the marks of some
vandals (I'm feigning outrage at the graffiti)...





It's made like a giant truss, seems like all one span, all pegged together...



This one's in a park, we rode through it, it's real long...



Georgia countryside is 1st rate...



I went the wrong way for a while at Dewy Rose... there's really no wrong way 





Got in a little over 200 miles, ate Taco Stand food for lunch and supper, rode backroads with
Stanley Steamer, stayed dry and got home safe... YAHOO!

-Mike

[Stanley Steamer]

I'm glad you twisted my arm into going....if it hadn't been for your last minute invitation, I wouldn't have gotten a ride in this weekend....Thanks my Friend!!!.... ....

[..]

Mike, you are doing the kinda rides I like.

[Big IV]

That peg system looks like the ones up here in PA. 

[Jess from VA]

Mike, thanks for sharing the ride report; covered bridges are neat.  Why people have to vandalize and burn them is beyond me.  Great place to pull a bike out of the rain.  Also, a nice scenic place for a romantic interlude (with the SO, not Stanley <grin>).

[junior]

Mike, thanks for sharing the ride report; covered bridges are neat.  Why people have to vandalize and burn them is beyond me.  Great place to pull a bike out of the rain.  Also, a nice scenic place for a romantic interlude (with the SO, not Stanley <grin>).

i dont know about down there but up here in the northeast the covered bridges are also known as kissing bridges, it beleaved that if you kiss the one you love on a covered bridge that it will bring strenght and love to the couple

[JimL]

Mike thanks for posting....looks like you guys had a great ride.  I love that photo of the little brick building 3rd from the bottom.

Jim

[hubcapsc]

I left out one of the best parts... on an agricultural section of 172 near Gholston
Crossroads there were... flocks?... coveys?... clouds?... of pecan-sized hard bugs of some sort
(didn't seem like grasshoppers). And they weren't flying around randomly, they seemed to be
all headed in the opposite direction from me. So, from my perspective, it was like being in
one of those WWII air-battle movies where the pilot is trying to fly through a hail of anti-aircraft
fire, and he can see all the tracers... for several miles there were always a bunch of these things
in sight zoom past my helmet zoom past me on the left crash into my knee zoom over my head
blam-yow into the fairing... I made sure my jacket was zipped all the way up and was thankful
I had a windshield and a full face helmet, it was a real blast  It was difficult to
resist trying to dodge them ("How'd you die?" "I ran off the road trying to dodge a bug")...

I was telling Stanley about them at the Taco Stand and he said he and Scooter ran through
some clouds of them the previous day in the car... not much beats an afternoon on the Valkyrie,
if I hadn't seen Frank Smoak on his Valkyrie that day three years ago, I'd still have a dusty Harley
in the shed (instead of a dirty bug-splattered Valkyrie on the road) 

-Mike

[flamingobabe #44]

.

i dont know about down there but up here in the northeast the covered bridges are also known as kissing bridges, it beleaved that if you kiss the one you love on a covered bridge that it will bring strenght and love to the couple

This is true about kissin' inside the covered bridges, hg and I have kissed at many a covered brigde. fb

[Probie (Scooter57)]

Do me a favor Mike...next time you head over this way have Steamer give me a call. Don't know if I could have made yesterday's ride but it would have been nice to have finally gotten to eat at the Taco Stand. Steamer won't take us there...he only take us to crappy Mexican dives and hogs all the salsa...

[hubcapsc]

Do me a favor Mike...next time you head over this way have Steamer give me a call. Don't know if I could have made yesterday's ride but it would have been nice to have finally gotten to eat at the Taco Stand. Steamer won't take us there...he only take us to crappy Mexican dives and hogs all the salsa...

I had you on the emails I sent to Stanley... as I look back, it was your "ValkyrieRiders.com" email
address I fished out of my mbox... is there a better address to use?

-Mike

[stormrider]

Is that Watson Mill Bridge near Comer, GA? Got family out that way.

Here's one on my way home from Fayetteville, GA. If I remember right, it is off Ga 85 between Harrelson and Gay.



Red Oak Creek Bridge

It was built by Horace King, a freed slave, in the 1840's.It is held together with 2500 trunnels. King Built many bridges throughout West GA and this is his only surviving bridge of this design. AT 391 feet, including the approaches, it is the oldest and longest covered bridge in GA.

[..]

http://www.n-georgia.com/coveredbridges.htm

http://www.dalejtravis.com/cblist/cbnc.htm

[hubcapsc]

Here's a google map to the two bridges me and Stanley visited...

  http://tinyurl.com/lqttem

Britman's links show that Georgia has a ton of covered bridges. South Carolina
has only one remaining original covered bridge, it's in the upstate, sounds like
a ride... 

-Mike

[hubcapsc]

Mike thanks for posting....looks like you guys had a great ride.  I love that photo of the little brick building 3rd from the bottom.

Jim

That building is at "Smithonia"... there's lot's of stuff to google about Smithonia, Kenny Rogers even spent a bunch of
time and money there recently... I don't know what's up with this brick silo thing at the house at Smithonia... ??

[Stanley Steamer]

I googled the "Tucker Plantation" and here's what came up...interesting..

http://www.tuckerplantation.com/

[stormrider]

Don't know if Kenny Rogers still owns it but he had property that backs up to the west of my kins property. It is across from Watson Mill Bridge Road. It has been in the Whitehead family for generations. Their biggest crop nowadays is chickens. I think they have about 24 houses. That's a lot of chicken nuggets.