June 18 BRP, finally!

Total trip mileage is 5011 miles. Whoo hoo!

Hey everyone,

It's too late to write a blog tonight but here are the pics from today. I'll caption them later.

http://picasaweb.google.com/daveste99/June18

We had an awesome day on the BRP and there is more to come tomorrow.

I'll fill in the details at the end of the day tomorrow, if I have the time.

Take care,

Dave and Karen

Near disaster avoided

The top photo is Maggie Valley looking East just before dusk.

The other is the BBQ diner in Mocksville, NC.

June 17 – Riding Day 13

Total trip mileage is - 4810.

Photos from our visit with Allan and Barb and photos from the ride today are located here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/daveste99/20080617Day13


Last Friday was the 13th and at the time I was glad I wasn’t riding on the “bad luck” day of the year. However, today was our 13th riding day and we did run into some bad luck. I’ll start by saying it could have been much worse so we are lucky on the account that nothing horrible happened.


As a quick forward to what you are about to read, last week I had a major service performed on the bike plus new front brakes and both tires replaced.


We started out from my brother’s house just minutes after 8:00AM, as planned. I elected to take a secondary highway south of I-40 and I am glad I did. After about an hour of riding I started hearing a noise from the front of the bike, around the front tire. At first it was a light clicking and soon turned into a louder thumping noise. I pulled into a fast food restaurant parking lot and checked the front of the bike. I found the front fender was loose because the mechanic had installed the wrong size bolt into one of the bolt holes that hold the fender on. I fixed this and took off but soon the noise got worse and I pulled off again, this time in a town called Ashboro, NC.


I looked the front of the bike over again and then tilted the front tire to the right so I could get a good look at the left side. I saw right away that the lower bolt that holds the brake caliper on had worked itself loose and was gone. The brake caliper was hanging from the upper bolt only. The mechanic obviously forgot to torque the bolt to proper spec and it fell out! This could have been a very dangerous situation and luckily nothing real bad happened. To now make a long story shorter, I located a Honda dealer about a mile from our location and after about a 2 hour delay we were on the road again.


I would like to publicly thank Cycle Center in Ashboro, NC for going above and beyond in excellent customer service and getting us back on the road in very short order.


We continued on our journey and stopped in Mocksville, NC for a great BBQ sandwich lunch in a small local restaurant. Check out the photos of this and the town.


We then finally had to confront I-40 again and headed west until the exit for Maggie Valley. We arrived at about 4:00PM and all is good. Good that is except for the fact that the 2 hour delay prevented us from visiting the Wheels Through Time motorcycle museum, once again. Oh well, I will have to visit them in Prescott, AZ once they get situated there next year.

The weather today was perfect! It was a warm but not hot. It is sunny and almost no humidity. It is cooling down a bit and as we will be in the mountains tomorrow, it should be very pleasant.


Tomorrow, we ride a bit south then enter the Blue Ridge Parkway heading north. We are stating at the very bottom of the Parkway and will ride it all the way to Front Royal, VA, where it ends. The day's activities include a hike at a place called Linville Falls and then end our day in Boone, NC. This will be a short riding day and we plan on taking our time and fully enjoy all the area has to offer.


Take care,
Dave and Karen

On the road again... music please.

Where's Willie Nelson when you need him.

Hi Everyone,

We have had a very relaxing time over the last 5 days with Allan and Barb, and have very much enjoyed our time here. It was especially helpful to me and gave me the break I needed so I could rest, visit and eat lots of good food. We also were able to visit with our nephew Adam and his bride Kathleen, on father's day.

Tomorrow bright and early I along with my beautiful, sexy motorcycle grandma start part 2 of our trip back home. We plan on heading out about 8:00AM and ride west back to Maggie Valley for tomorrow night. It will be a short riding day (about 260 miles), but will position us just a short distance from the southern entrance to the Blue Ridge Parkway (BRP).

Wheels Through Time, located in Maggie Valley, is an antique motorcycle and automobile museum located about 1/2 mile from the motel we will be staying in.

From their website:
A consummate collection of over 250 rare antique American Motorcycles and Automobiles. Equally as astounding is the memorabilia collection that unites the "art of the motorcycle" with the generation of Americans that enjoyed a lifestyle peculiar to the "American Mainstream."

I hope we will have time to visit this museum once we arrive in Maggie Valley as they are moving the entire operation at the end of this year to Prescott, AZ.

We'll start posting pictures when we get some new ones to show you.

Take care,

Dave and Karen

Yeah! Chapel Hill!!

Hi Everyone,

Total trip milegae is 4553. Thursday's mileage was about 260.

Well, I made it to Allan and Barb's house by about 2:30 in the afternoon, yesterday. After having a cool drink, Allan and I unloaded the bike and I once again climbed on board and followed Allan to Triangle Cycles to drop her off for new shoes, binders and fluids.

Allan and I then went to a local coffee shop where we ran into one of Allan's neighbor's. We sat and chatted for awhile and then headed back to the house so I could clean up and change into shorts.

It is real hot here with high temps, high humidity and massive amounts of smoke in the air from a wildfire some 100 miles to the east.

After awhile, Barb got home from work and we went out for Mexican food, came back to the house, waited awhile then headed off to the airport to pickup Karen. Her flight was on time and it was great to be reunited with her. We grabbed some food for her at a local watering hole then went home to bed as it had been a long day for both of us.

Today, Friday the 13th, is laundry day as well as starting to sort through all of our stuff and deciding what to bring along for the return trip and what stuff to ship home. Also, once I get the bike back, I have a couple of minor repairs to make plus clean her up for the next part of the adventure.

No pics today as it was pretty much a straight shot on I-40 all day. The good news is, it was dry and warm, whoo hoo!

Take care,
Dave

Supplemental - June 12

Hi everyone,

Pictures from the last couple of days are posted here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/daveste99/20080611

It is 7:45AM EST and I am getting ready to leave for Chapel Hill. I have to make time today to get the bike into the shop for service and tires. That means I have to take I-40, again. Ugh!

It's about 260 miles from Maggie Valley so it will take me that better part of the day to get to Allan and Barb's house. There I will unload the bike and ride it to the dealership.

Karen arrives tonight and I miss her a great deal so it will be good to see her and start planning our route back home.

More later.

Take care,
Dave

Heaven and Hell - part of the adventure

June 11.

Total trip mileage is 4296.

Let’s start at 3:15AM back at the “resort”. I mean the Punkin Motorcycle Campground and Resort. It’s 3:15 in the morning and one of the 6 or 8 dogs that are resident here decided to come to my cabin and start a bark fest. I shooed him away and he meandered to the other end of the compound and is barking over there. Then, he comes back. Ok, I break out the earplugs and sleep off and on until after 8 in the morning. I pack up, anxious to hit the “Tail of the Dragon”.

The roads around here are built for motorcycling. Beautiful surfaces, perfect cambers and lots of twists and turns make these very desirable for riding. I pass the Punkin store that I stopped at last night knowing that in just a few miles from here, I’ll be in the Gap (Deal’s Gap) and am excited at this prospect. I do stop a couple of times to snap some photos of the lake and dam on my right side.

Then all of a sudden, I realize I have arrived. I yell to myself, “I’m on the Tail, I’m in the Gap!!” I take my time as the road becomes more technical with sharper and more frequent twists and turns. It starts getting really tight but there is a large mower somewhere ahead of me and has churned all sorts of grass and other debris onto the roadway. I am grinning and anxious to find some clear roadway. Some of the curves are hairpins and others are less severe but all of them are challenging. I finally pass the mower and get a clean road. I add a bit of throttle through the turns but am wary because of not being familiar with the road. The camber is perfect and the 20MPH hairpins dip and angle as I power through each of them. Then, it’s over. I see the Welcome to North Carolina and realize that I just finished “The Dragon”. I pull over and snap some pics. I wait for a few minutes and remount, turn around and start my second run.
This time, I press it harder, but safely :). There is no debris on this side of the road so it is easier to push harder through the turns. I am sweating profusely due to the heat and my nerves. I concentrate and fall back on my track training; brake hard, downshift and throttle through the turn. It works well and I am having a blast. I finally reach the turnaround point and stop for a breather. There are a dozen or more bikes at the overlook and I start a conversation with a local couple who ride Kawasaki’s; she a 750 and he a Z1000, orange of course. After I snap some pics I mount up, turn around and start my 3rd run on the Dragon.

Same debris on the roadway and more cars now as I reach the end of my run and this time keep going until I run into Deal’s Gap Motorcycle Resort. I stop, buy coffee, a hat and a Tshirt. I am now complete.

After awhile, I ride onto Bryson City about 40 miles to the southeast. I stop for lunch and have a nice blackened tuna and rice meal with more coffee. I want to ride through The Great Smoky Mountain National Park. I ride through the town of Cherokee where I see Native Americans with full headdress banging drums and chanting while tourists watch. There are many Indians with headdresses hawking something for sale. I finally enter the park and get in line with all the cars going from one end to the other. I am patient and am enjoying the scenery. Beautiful forest, streams and smoky mountains in the distance. I summit the road at 5,000 feet and start down. This is another tight, twisty and technical road with a steep decline. I am finally down and arrive in Gatlinburg, TN. This town is exactly the type of place I try to avoid at all times. Think of a Country Western Themed Levenworth (WA), on Steroids! It is busy, crowded and filled with all sorts of shops and restaurants. It goes on and on…

I am on Highway 321 and I see storm clouds, lightning and hear thunder off in the distance. It starts to rain. I pull off at a gas station and wait awhile. I put on my rain suit even though this storm cell seems to have passed. I continue on and have picked up 4 other bikers in line behinde me. After a short while I turn onto Foothills Parkway East and it is pouring rain. I reach the end of the Parkway, I turn onto my nemesis, Highway 40, again. I press on leading the other bikers into what becomes a struggle for survival in keeping the bike on the road. The storm unleashes everything it has on me. I cannot see as my visor has fogged up, rain is running inside my helmet wetting my face and head. The lightning and thunder is right on top of me. The roadway is flooded and the rain falls harder and heavier further obscuring my vision. It’s getting worse and I cannot see well enough to continue. I find an off ramp and pull off and to the side of the ramp. The other bikes go past me and turn left to get under the underpass and I follow. There is a tow truck towing a wrecked Hummer waiting underneath. There are cars there also because they know that soon giant hail will fall and damage the paint of their vehicles. We squish the bikes together to keep them out of the rain. The thunder is loud as are the wheels of the trucks passing over us on the highway above. It does not let up. Wind is blowing rain through the underpass and I do what I can to stay out of the wet. More lightning, more rain, more thunder. A state trooper shows up then leaves within a few minutes. There are other cars on either side of the underpass waiting out the storm.

After about 30-40 minutes, it looks like it is diminishing and the 5 bikes decide to make a break and get to Maggie Valley, 13 miles to the south. I take the tail position in the line of bikes this time and let them lead because that is where the group of 4 are staying and they will know when to exit. As soon as we get fully onto the highway, it starts all over again. Lightning right on top of me with accompanying thunder, torrential rain, flooded highway and I can’t see a thing. Same as before but somehow, we make the 13 miles and exit the freeway. It is dry here. Just like that. Like what I just went through never happened. Nobody in this town will appreciate what just happened to me because it hasn’t even rained here all day long.

I fall off my bike and kiss the driest, sweetest ground of the day. Ok, I didn’t really do that but I felt like it. I ride through town and back again before selecting my motel for the night. I check in and start to dry out all of the wet stuff from today’s adventure.
And that’s what it is, an adventure and today’s trials will make for a good story…

Take care,

Dave

I am posting this on June 11 as I did not have internet yesterday. Read on and you'll see why.

June 10 – 10 days on the road.

My GPS reads just over 4,000 miles total mileage. Today’s mileage is over 400. I rode from East Memphis to near the NC state line and am in the middle of nowhere as I sit typing this. But let me digress.

As I left Memphis this morning, after the tremendous thunder and lightning storm of last night, I was thinking that this is one of the best mornings weather wise that I have had in many days. It was about 72 degrees as I rolled out of the parking lot at about 8:20AM. Later of course, it became hot and humid.

I had spent some time this morning plotting a route along the Tennessee / Alabama border so that I could avoid interstate 40. The route would take me through Chattanooga then turn north to a small town by the name of Tallassee.

Ok, I admit it, I am a hypocrite! On the spur of the moment I decided that seeing Nashville was more important than staying off the interstate. I hopped on 40 and headed due east for 200 miles. A mere 3 ½ hours later, I was in the heart of Nashville’s downtown tourist section. I secured the bike and found a place to eat so I had lunch before going on a short walk around town. It was really fun to be there and see BB King’s Blues Club, the Charlie Daniels museum and the general downtown area of Nashville. I popped into a couple of the shops but nothing struck my fancy. After a total of about 1 1/4 hours in Nashville, I loaded up and took off.
I had decided that I wanted to get as close to the Smoky Mountains as possible and stage up for a run on Deal’s Gap, otherwise known as “The Tail of the Dragon”. If you are a motorcycle rider you probably have heard of this. What makes this road so special is that in 11 miles, there are 311 curves, twists and turns. It is a popular destination for motorcyclists from all over the world. This is one road that I did not want to miss. I rode and rode and rode and almost without realizing it I landed at the north end of entrance to The Dragon. However, I also found myself in the middle of nowhere, almost literally. I stopped at the Punkin Motorcycle Center which is a store that carries all sorts of MC related clothing, and accessories all relating to The Dragon. I hope that I can get my T-shirt tomorrow before hitting The Tail.

When I pulled up to the Punkin Store, I asked a lady, standing in the parking lot talking with another worman, if there was any lodging in the area. She happened to be the owner of the Punkin Motorcycle Campground and Resort located a mile back up the road I had just come down. The word resort is a bit of a stretch of imagination and I am now situated in a very rustic, very small cabin that consists of a bed, a tiny kitchenette area, a tiny bathroom and a loft with a ladder that I refuse to climb up even though the air conditioner is located up there. It is hot and humid. There are snakes in the trees and I listened in on a conversation between 2 locals, about the recent motorcycle rally held here, the likes of which almost had me blushing. This is one of the most unique situations I have found myself in, in a long time. I hope that I can get some sleep tonight. I will need to explain more about this area at a later date.

I crossed the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers today. I stopped briefly at Tellico Lake.
Tomorrow, I plan on riding around this area and possibly through the Great Smoky Mountain National park.

Take care,
Dave