Day Four: Monday, Aug. 14, 2000
What would a trip be without some type of inconvenient crisis? I guess it is the fact that this is Monday morning. The back tire on Beth's bike is showing steel in the center of the tread about 3 inches long. Obviously we cannot continue on that tire. We contemplate unloading Shane's VMax and loading Beth's bike in the back of the truck. But in the end, we opt for looking for a dealer that might be open on a Monday, something you don't see back home in Texas.
So we head out about 9:15am in search of the Honda dealer we spotted the previous evening. They're closed. Next we try to find a Ducati dealer that is supposed to be open on Mondays. The first set of directions finds us outside of town on some back road that dumps into a small municipal airport, no Ducati dealer. So I shoot for another set of directions. I get them from a guy wearing an NHRA Drag Racing T-shirt, I figure he's a motorhead so he is most likely to know about a bike shop. These actually work and we find the dealer, Dixie Sports Plus, in the middle of nowhere, not even close to a major road. But they have a tire that will fit Beth's bike and they can put it on immediately.
Brian Goodwin runs the shop. While waiting for the tire to be mounted, we chat a bit and he tells me about some of the local roads. I show him our planned route and he make s a few suggestions, so we decide to try them out later. Shane has noticed that his front tire is not looking so good. But then what do you expect from a tire that is nearly four years old? So he decides to see if they have a tire that will fit his VMax, they do and he tells them to put it on. We spend the time sitting on various Ducatis. The 996 is beautiful without a doubt, but I think it also qualifies as a torture device. It has to be the MOST uncomfortable bike I have ever plopped my fanny on. I might have one for the living room, but not for any riding over about fifteen minutes. When it is all said and done, it is nearing 1:00pm by the time we are ready to get out of town, four hours behind schedule. Ouch!
We convince Shane to ride his bike and to let us put all of our luggage in the back of his truck, smart for us, bad for him. We have done some long distance riding, Shane really hasn't, but there is nothing like jumping in head first, or should I say butt first! We head out of Cullman on 69 and swing over to Guntersville. This is not a bad drive, but there is lots of traffic. Guntersville is on the southern end of Lake Guntersville, a huge lake nestled in the mountains. On the east side of Guntersville, we take Al 227 north out of town. This is a seriously fun road, scenic and very tightly twisty. This is one of the roads that Brian (the Duc dealer) suggested we try. It is a little out of the way, but then I figure, that is why we are doing this trip, to have an adventure.
We should have learned our lesson the previous evening when we almost got lost trying to find our way through the country side on unmarked county roads, NOT! So here we are again, blasting down roads that go nowhere real fast, never really sure if we are even in the right area. But it is very scenic, so no one is really complaining. The few times we do stop so that I can ask for directions, the locals astound me with their amazing lack of knowledge of the local roads. Truly mind boggling!
So we come to a tee in the road. On the far side of the tee I see some men at work and cut across the road to ask them if they have any idea where we are? They don't. It seems I have stumbled on a chicken packaging and processing center where they shove chickens in tiny crates, load them on a truck and hose them down prior to shipping them to the chopping block house. I make the mistake of pulling up on the side of a truck load of chickens that just got hosed. It is a mistake because on the other side of the truck is another one with huge fans blowing across the first truck to cool the chickens. Well it also blows water and chicken poop all over me and my bike hehe. Eww.
The first guy knows nothing. The second, third and all the rest know even less. By now I am starting to get quite a crowd around me. It seems these guys have never seen a motorcycle rider in full gear on a hot day tooling around the country side and they all have to have a gander. Eventually, I manage to extract the directions of, "go that way and hang a right," out of them. Nice guys and well intentioned. Oddly enough, I think there are more teeth in my mouth than in all of theirs combined! Scary.
We eventually find our way to Al 68. Of course, I turn the wrong direction and we go about 10 miles before we figure it out. So we turn around, again, something we seem to have been doing a lot of in Alabama, and we head east. Shane and Steph got pretty far behind us so I slow down to let them catch up to us. Beth starts telling me to pull over now. I tell her that I am trying to find a good place to stop and wait and she seems a bit irritated with me. It turns out that I missed the part of the transmission that said, "I GOT STUNG BY A BEE!! PULL OVER NOW!" We stop and as she unzips her jacket, some kind of yellow jacket or bee flies out after having stung her on the chest several times. Being the tough soldier that she is, she decides she can go on. About that time we see Shane and Steph go whizzing by and they did not see us off on a side road. So we get back on the road and try to catch up to them. Then we go whizzing by them. I yell at them through the communicator and they fall in behind us, we're back on track again. Or at least we think we are...
It is getting late in the day. It is now around 3:00 or 4:00pm and we are not even half way to our planned destination. Our next road is Little River Canyon road or Al 176. Brian told us earlier that this was a pretty good road and worth the ride. When we get to the turn off, we stop so Shane can gas up, as we have no idea how far it will be to the next gas station. He can only go about 100 miles per tank on his beastie! While we are stopped I suggest that Beth get some Benadryl to help with the bee sting. She does and we get back on the bikes and head up 176.
Highway 176 is a nice twisty road. Very twisty. And once you reach the canyon area, it is a gravel and tar road made from large sized gravel. Needless to say, anything that has any tendency to vibrate loose on the bikes will do so on this road. The scenery is stunning. Sheer cliffs on either side of the canyon with the road running along one side. If you blow a turn here, there are a few trees to stop you and then the ground about 150 feet or more below! We take it very careful and very slow. We stop and check out one of the scenic overlooks and snap a few pictures then get back on the road. By this time we have been on the bikes for nearly four hours and Shane is getting tender. He is getting very anxious to know just exactly how much farther we have to go to get to the Crossroads of time in North Carolina. I am not sure, but surely it cannot be that much longer, a few hours at best? Yea right!
Our next stop is in Summerville, just across the Alabama/Georgia border. Highway 176 dumps us out on Al 35 and we head east for a few miles before picking up CR 15 north. Unlike 176, 15 is very smooth with lots of gentle sweepers. I get serious and we start knocking down some miles. After a short while 15 drops out onto Ga 48. We take 48 east right into Summerville. We stop for gas and decide that we need to eat. Not wanting burgers and fries, we head to the Subway for some "healthy" food. It turns out that the last hour or so Beth has been feeling a bit spacey due to the benadryl, I should have thought of that before having her take some, doh! But we eat and she feels much better. Shane, on the other hand is ready to load up his bike and ride the rest of the way in the truck. The proper exertion of peer pressure sees to it that he does not get his way. "Just ride to the next gas stop.... then you can load it up..." Sucker!
It is now around 5:30 or 6:00pm. I am starting to think it is going to be pretty late by the time we get to our hotel. We take US 27 and head south. This is a nice four lane sweeping highway the winds up and down, back and forth through the mountains and we make pretty good time for a while. Then just before we reach Armuchee, Ga., we turn north on Ga 156. This is another smooth and fun road that winds through the mountains. Northern Georgia is beautiful. We pass numerous beautiful homes set back off the road with elegantly landscaped yards. I get down to business and start cruising down the road, falling into a nice rhythm, keeping the bike in 2nd through 4th gears and high in the rpms. Unfortunately, when I get in a rhythm, I get way ahead of everyone else and occasionally have to slow down to let them catch up to me. We ride 156 east until it dead ends on US 411.
A few miles up the road on US 411, we turn off on Ga 136. This is a stretch of road like few others I have ever been on, even in a car. Al 159 heading into Fayette, was great, but this was an awesome road with awesome scenery and NO traffic. I was laughing inside my helmet as I smoothly slipped under the trees and around the corners. This is not a road about going fast, it is about smooth throttle control, light braking and early roll ons coming out of the corner. Everything that Keith Code teaches in his "Twist of the Wrist II" book was being put into use here. Then we turn off onto GA 382, more of the same for miles. Finally I forget about letting the others catch up because I am lost in heaven. Eventually I reach the point where 382 dumps out onto Old State highway 5 and I stop at the intersection at a station to wait for the others. After seven or eight minutes, they come around the corner and pull in to stop. Grins from ear to ear for every one! Oddly enough, now Stephanie is talking about having a bike of her own to ride!! The seed is planted, now to tenderly water it, hehe. These roads were fun even driving the truck.
We head up highway 5 and into Ellijay, our planned gas stop. This town is like something out of a storybook. It is loaded with beautiful houses and everything just looks clean and neat. At the station, Shane admits that he is glad he went ahead and rode the bike after dinner. He would have hated to have missed the last few roads. We quickly gas up and get underway again. It is at this point that I realize that at one of the last few stops, I have inadvertently reset my B trip meter!! NO!! I reset it before we left Texas because I wanted the total miles for the trip. I cannot remember what it was prior to those stops as I had not checked it in some time. All I have to go by now is that right before we left Texas, the odometer for the bike showed a hair under 13500 miles, it is now over 14600.
The sun has gone down and it is getting dark now. I think it is around 7:30 or 8:00pm. We go north on US 76 towards Blue Ridge where we pick up Ga 5 again and head for the Tennessee border. It is also starting to get cold. The temperature has dropped into the low 70's. Ga 5 just wanders around through the woods, quite fun except that it is dark. I am in the lead and am setting the pace for everyone else. I try to stay slower and use my brake light to warn them of tight turns by blinking it repeatedly to get their attention. At this point we are all going numb from being on the bikes all day. All of the batteries are dead on the communicators because they were not fully charged. So it is just me and the road, and the cold, and the dampness, and the seat...
Finally, the Tennessee border comes into view and we pull into Copperhill. We pick up Tn 68 here and head north for our run to Tellico Plains. This is a great road. We are definitely coming back this way on the way home, during the daylight! But for now we are just in the mood to get as far along this road as we can under the circumstances. We are all keeping a close eye on the odometer and counting off the miles to Tellico Plains. It finally appears around a corner. It is now after 10:00pm. We all just want to teleport to the hotel and be done with it. But we still have the Cherohala Skyway between us and Deals Gap. According to the station attendant, it is 55 miles to Robbinsville on the other end of the road. We are not happy campers.
Tn 165 is the actual road. It is a spectacular road. It climbs to an elevation of over 5000 feet and follows the sides of the mountains up and down the valleys, in and out. There are many tight turns, smooth sweepers and short straights. I don't think I ever get past third gear! The road has reflectors in the center stripe so it is easy to see where the road goes as long as it is not a blind turn. Overhead we have a luminescent full moon lighting the mountains. The scenic overlooks are mysteriously serene with the fog settled down between the mountains and the moonlight glistening off the mist. I just wish I had the photographic skills to capture the image. It is truly captivating. But there is little time to spend looking away from the road. I pass several ominous skid marks in a few tight turns that remind me of the potential for disaster if I forget where I am and what I am doing.
When we cross the border into North Carolina, the highway becomes NC 145. It is really getting cold now. The lowest temperature I make note of is 55 degrees! What a trip, when we left Texas we were dying in 104 degree heat and now I am freezing because I neglected to bring a sweat shirt, doh! The last portion of the ride is a bit scary. The center line reflectors are gone, the trees are right on the edge of the road and the turns are tight and come one after the other with no straight pavement between them. I am wishing that my bike had some lights that point out to the side so I can look into the turns. It is hard to do when your light points straight ahead. FINALLY, I hit US 129 and Robbinsville. I wait for the others to come up behind me and then point out the sign that shows Tapoco as being another 14 miles! No one is laughing. It is after midnight now because of the time change at the border. These are the longest 14 miles I have ever ridden on a bike.
US 129 is a pretty technically challenging road. The terrain is very severe and rugged, so one screw up and you could be gone very quick. I drop the bike into 2nd and just leave it there, even on the straights. I use the brake as little as possible and just use the throttle for cornering. This is sweet. Too bad it is so late at night and I am so miserable. Nonetheless, the full moon ride is something I will remember for a very long time. I finally hit the intersection of US 129 and NC 28, here sits the Crossroads of Time hotel, a bike only hotel/campground. No one is up. I rouse the owner and he gives us our key and tells us to worry about checking in and doing the paper work in the morning. No arguments here.
We unpack and kick back for a bit to unwind. We are not real sure just how many miles we covered today. I would guesstimate about 350 on the high side. Ten hours in the saddle and we are whooped! We kick back and down a few brewskis and reflect on the crazy day. Hopefully the rest of the trip won't be quite so exhausting. But then isn't that what vacation is all about? Getting back and being more beat than when you left, but at least it is from doing something you want to do? I wonder what tomorrow will bring? We do the Gap tomorrow...