2019 Easter Adventure - April 20-21-22

After the horrible ride on Friday we decided to just stay put on Saturday.  The weather was still awful and even colder, brrrrrrrrr.  We had already cancelled our get together with Tina and had determined that touring the Biltmore Estate was out of our pocket book.  So we hung out in our lovely room, watched TV and dried out our wet gear.

Our excitement for the day was getting UBER to take us to the Creekside Taproom for dinner :-)  It was lovely.  We shared a BIG burger with tater tots and Eric had a beer and I had a Mimosa.  Dinner was quite nice and we got another UBER back to our room.  It was nice to get out for our meal rather than in-room delivery of Pizza!

Sunday we woke up to dark grey skies but no rain!  Oh but my oh my, it was COLD.  Fortunately we both travel with our heated jackets so that was the order of the day.  Bundle up and plug in.  After our hotel brekkie we loaded the bikes, plugged in the electrics and headed out.  I refused to take I-40 again (I'm such a bitch that way) so we ended up on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Yippee!  My original plan was to ride a section of this wonderful road.

Uh oh, we had only been riding a few miles on the BRP when we saw a sign saying the road was closed ahead.  Poop!  Oh well, we decided to ride as far as we could and if we had to turn around, so be it.  Much to our delight the road was open further than expected.  Hooray!  We were gaining elevation and I was so glad my heated jacket was operating just like it is supposed to!  Also, lucky us, we had to road to ourselves.  A few other brave souls were on the BRP but not many and for the most part we rode alone.  Bliss!

Up, up, up we went.  In and out of clouds and bursts of clear blue sky.  Mist was rising off the road as the day heated up.  Imagine our surprise when we spotted snow on the side of the road and in the trees!!!  SNOW???  Yes, snow!  Fortunately the road seemed to be clear of ice and snow but we proceeded cautiously at the posted speed limit of 45 mph (or thereabout ;-) ).

We didn't stop at any of the scenic view pullouts until we reached the highest point on the BRP.  Finally, I said to Eric, we must stop and get some pics of this snow!  So we did ;-)

Almost like a Winter Wonderland!  Just up the parking lot was the sign for the Highest Elevation on the BRP at 6,040 feet!  We were tickled that although we only got to ride about 52 miles of the BRP we were lucky enough to hit the highest elevation of the entire BRP!

As we then wandered down to lower elevation we finally encountered the section that was really closed and had to exit.  No problem as this is the point we had determined was our best hopping off spot.  I don't remember all the roads we went on but I'll post a Spot Track below so you can figure it out if you want to, hahahaha.  If you go to my Spot Tracker link you'll see a blank space. My bad, the batteries had died.  Fortunately, I had replacements and quickly sorted that out!

Our day was clearing up and the sun was shining.  It was still rather chilly so we kept the electric gear on.   Not long after exiting the BRP we found ourselves entering the Nantahala National Forest.  Oh my goodness, what a treat!  The road follows the Nantahala River and is simply stunning (especially on a sunny day!).  (File photo)

Our day of riding was simply fantastic!  The bitter cold morning turned into a beautiful, sunny day.  About 3 pm we stopped and took off the electrics.  Another hour or so later we stopped again to remove even more layers and open vents.  My pissyness from Friday was almost forgotten.  LOL, on Friday after the I-40 nightmare I was ready to just quit riding.  It was that unpleasant.  However, today was glorious!  No Interstate, little traffic and only a few dipshits that we had to avoid.  All in all, a perfect day of back roads, scenic byways and small towns.

We ended up in Gadsden, AL for the night.  Chinese pick-up for dinner and a few cocktails completed the day.  So lovely!  Tomorrow is only a short scoot home.

The day dawned with beautiful sunshine and warm enough to forget any electric gear!  Yippee!!  We stuck to the secondary roads and had a glorious ride.  Eventually we hopped on the Natchez Trace and home wasn't far.  Since we had lots of time, we took a very easy, lovely ride on the Trace, stopping to smell the flowers and enjoy the views.

A quick stop at the Tennessee - Tombigbee Waterway pullout and picnic area along the Trace.  So peaceful and beautiful!

Then another stop at Jordan Picnic area also on the Trace.

I so enjoy riding the Natchez Trace.  I don't mind the 50 MPH speed limit as it gives me lots of time to gawk and look around.  It's fun to stop at different pullouts and read the historic and descriptive signs.

We got home early afternoon, unloaded the bikes, threw a load of clothes into the washer and poured a cocktail.  It's fun to travel on the bikes but it is always a good feeling to get home after the ride.  Our Easter Weekend didn't turn out how we expected but it was still an adventure to remember!

Thank you for following along.  Another adventure coming up!  Stay tuned.

Cheers,
Cletha

2019 Easter Adventure - April 18 - 19 2019

Oh, we were so excited for our Easter weekend trip to North Carolina to meet up with our friend Tina Baker for a ride!  Yippee.  However, the weather Gods had a different agenda.  Massive storms were in the forecast including tornadoes and tons of rain.  We watched the weather forecasts and decided to go ahead and leave.  We left on Thursday morning and were so thankful that the sky was clear and the temperatures moderate.  Yippee!  We spent the morning taking small back roads heading east and north.  Great riding.  No pics, sorry.... Anyway, our ride was fantastic!

We stopped for a quick lunch in Centre, Alabama.

At lunch we decided to hit bigger roads and make some time which was a good decision.  We rode into Pigeon Forge, TN just about dinner time and no bad weather.  Hooray!  We checked into our Howard Johnson hotel with no problem and were surprised at how big and nice our room was.  Score!  All seemed to be on a positive path.

After we settled into the room and changed into street clothes we took off on foot to the Hard Rock Cafe which was only a block or so away.  Oh boy, we had fun looking at all the tourist traps and weird buildings.  Must go back some day and really explore this town some more.  Lots of fun things to do.  Of course, I imagine in peak tourist season it is packed!  Anyway, we had a lovely walk to the cafe and a wonderful dinner.  I'm a big collector of Hard Rock pins so was able to score two more pins for my collection!   We splurged and had a couple of over priced cocktails but mitigated that with sharing a burger :-).

The Civil War Theater was across the street from our hotel.

 And the National Enquirer Live funky building was under construction, opening soon.  Wonder what kind of stuff they are going to have?

The Titanic!  I believe it is a museum complete with ice berg, lol.

The Hatfield and McCoy's Dinner show.  This place was packed.  All you can eat along with some kind of feud show, comedy routines and 'feats of strength'.   Great family entertainment, no doubt!

 Wonderworks, an upside down building.  No idea what is in there.

 Finally, our goal, the Hard Rock Cafe :-)

 And decadent cocktails!  No worries, we were walking ;-)

Life was good.  We had a nice stroll back to the hotel and bed not too long after.  During the night, actually wee early hours, I heard thunder and then pounding rain, booo!

We woke up to pouring, pounding rain :-(.   Piss.  We went to brekkie and then asked for a late checkout as the weather report said it would slow down around 11:00 am.  Not really...  We left in the rain as we headed  toward Asheville, NC.  Our goal was to ride through the Great Smoky Mountain National Park and then pick up the Blue Ridge Parkway into Asheville and our reserved Best Western Motel.

That didn't happen.  We rode through Pigeon Forge (which is a sight to see!!) and then took the Gatlinburg bypass to the Great Smoky NP entrance.  That all went well although it was raining and the rain continued to increase and pelt us.  We got the the visitor center only to find the only road through the Park, (Hwy 441), was CLOSED!

Apparently, 80 mph winds had knocked down trees in the park and that, combined high wind threats were the cause of the road closure, but they had no real idea when they might re-open the road.  They had been telling folks that the road could re-open by noon, but it WAS noon and no sign of any progress.  The rangers gave you that blank look and repeated, (no doubt for the 1000th time), how to go back to Gatlinburg and work out to I-40 to go around the entire Smoky Mountain National Park.  Gee, not what we had hoped to be doing.  If you have to go out to I-40, well heck, you might as well just stay on the big roads to Asheville.

And then the nightmare began.  I-40 is narrow two lanes with tons and tons of traffic, both tourists and truckers.  Not pleasant in the pouring rain but even worse when we slowed to stop and go traffic for 10 miles.  Off camber road and stop and go in the pouring rain, fun?  No.  No exits either.  We were stuck.  Another piss!!  Geez, so much slow riding practice.  Stop, go, go slow, stop.  Try to decide which foot to put down because of the cant of the road.  Fuck, I hated this.  HATED THIS!!!

We had such a beautiful ride yesterday and then this crap.  PISS!  Oh well, it was what it was.  The traffic was horrible and the weather was worse.  We were getting wet and cold and honestly, my left arm was cramping from all the clutching.  Fortunately, we had awesome truckers in front and behind and left us lots of room to ride.  Thank you!

Our 120 mile ride that should have been a pleasant ride through the Great Smoky Mountains and the Blue Ridge Parkway turned into a brutal, wet, unpleasant 3 1/2 hour, 120 mile ride on mostly clogged interstate in the pouring rain with lots and lots of stop and go and brake and just plain old ICK!

Hahahaha, no pics.  Would you stop and take a pic of that?  No, I didn't think so.  I was so frickin happy to get to our motel.  It was only about 3:30 pm but the parking lot was full and there was a line of cars at the entrance waiting to get a room.  Yeah, even the car peeps didn't like the weather :-)  5 deep for the line to the front desk and the smart peeps had been making reservations on their phones while waiting in line.  It took most of 30 minutes to get to the one desk clerk and get checked in.  He did the best he could, and not bad, but one person can only help one person at a time!

It was awesome to get our bikes parked, unloaded, covered up and in our room.  A very pleasant room with a king bed and a sofa.  Plenty of space and we needed it.  We were both pretty wet.  So we stripped off the wet gear and went about trying to get it dry.  No guest laundry at this hotel, boo!  We did the best we could utilizing the heater for our gloves, helmets and eventually Eric's boots that had filled up with water because his pants failed.  Actually, Eric was much wetter than I.  Water was literally pouring out of his sleeves as he held his arm down and he poured water out of his boots.  Our room looked like this.

After getting comfortable, I called Tina and told her to NOT RIDE to NC that night.  Too dangerous!  Unfortunately, we had to cancel our get-together and will plan a visit for another time.

So we decided, with the weather prediction as it was, that we would spend another night here in Asheville.  Looking for things to do here... well heck yeah, the Biltmore Estate.  However....it was $80 per person!!!!  What the F?  $80 bucks per person?  That's a lot of cash.  We would have been okay with maybe $40 or even $50 but $80?  Nope. Not going to happen.  Geez, really?  Isn't that a bit crazy?  Am I crazy for not paying that amount?  Nope, don't think so.

Okay, bitching session is over.

We had pizza delivery for dinner, watched some boob tube and called it a night.  The morning dawned dry but shiver, shiver, very cold with scattered showers predicted.  I'm glad we decided to just hang another day.  Sunday is supposed to be basically dry and much warmer.  We'll spend some time today deciding what route to take home.

Stay tuned for the rest of our Easter Adventure!

Cheers,
Cletha

PS - New gear for both of us soon.  Guess after 6 years it's time.  We had washed our gear since the last ride when we also got wet but apparently it just isn't waterproof any longer.  Time to shop ;-)

April 6, 2019 - Ride to Eat - Boyette's Diner, Tiptonville, TN

Eric forced me to get up out of bed at 5:00 am this morning!  Gack!  That's early, really early.  Oh well, I had to pee anyway so I got up.  The reason he got me up was so we could ride to Tiptonville, TN to a place called Boyette's Dining Room at Reelfoot Lake for a meet-up of riders for lunch.

Okay, the weather was decent (as in not raining) so since I was up I was game to do the ride for lunch.  I didn't put on my heated jacket but the temps were a wonderfully warm 55 degrees and a bit up the road they dropped to a slightly chilly 52 degrees.  I almost said something to Eric about the cold but I knew it would warm up.  The skies were clear and the forecast was predicting 75 degrees or so.

I had all my vents zipped up and my buff around my neck.  I was reasonably comfortable :-)  We headed north on Highway 45 and we pretty much stayed on that highway for the majority of the ride.  A big four lane highway, we encountered traffic in Tupelo and Corinth and then things mellowed out.

We made stop or two along the way but mostly just rode up to Tiptonville, TN with no issues (yay!).  We pulled into Boyette's around 10:30 and the parking lot was just beginning to fill up.

Here is our host, Robert Rehkopf!

 A few parking lot pics.

 The obligatory signage.

 The dining room was getting full.

 Our new friend Bob along with Karen and Mark Campbell (old friends).  Hey, all friends are good :-)

 Robert give a welcome to all attendees.  Awards were passed out to the oldest rider (72), the most miles traveled (900 +) and the youngest rider (52).  So what does that tell you?  The youngest rider was 52?????  Peeps, we need to get some young blood into this activity.  It's tons of fun, you meet peeps from everywhere, make great friends, have good food and go to interesting places.  What's not to like about that?  Challenge - encourage younger riders to do this stuff!

 The dining room got even more full with more and more peeps showing up.  I counted 40.

The line of bikes in the parking lot got a LOT bigger!  So much fun :-)

 The entrance to the restaurant.  Besides the 40+ of us motorcyclists, the restaurant was packed with regular customers, (and the All You Can Eat Crowd..., which is a whole demographic in and of itself).  Great place to stop and have a bite.  People watching isn't bad either!

 After lunch, a number of folks went on a 1 hour lake cruise.  Instead of the cruise, we went to the State Park visitor center and had a delightful time. 

 This is a Red Tail Falcon that was injured and now spends his time amusing tourists.  Very cool.

There were a plethora of snakes and some turtle shells showing the variety of life in the area as well.  Sorry, no pics of the snakes, though some were impressive and others were shy.

 Outside, they had two Bald Eagles that had been injured and are now residents of the park until healed up.  Again, very cool!

Another Red Tail Hawk.

They also had Hooters!   Well, several varieties of owls.  Totally cool!

Look at those awesome ear feathers!!!

 We then took the nature walk out in to the Cypress Swamp and to Reelfoot Lake proper. 

 It was warm but not hot or humid.  Perfect temp to take this .25 mile stroll.  We were startled by something in the water at one point.  Hope it was a fish and not a big ole hurkin' snake!!

 It was a beautiful day, a great lunch, fun peeps and an awesome walk-a-bout!

After our little hike in full riding gear (minus jackets) we returned to our bikes, put on the rest of our gear and headed home.  All was fine (except for the stupid ass who tried to pass an on-coming car until he realized we were headed in the opposite direction and he was going to take us out and the car he was passing!!!!  Fucktard!!!!).  After that pucker moment, we settled into a nice rhythm and simply rode along home!

 We were lucky and our lovely weather stayed with us until we got home.  About an hour later the heaven's unleashed and poured water!  So glad we stayed dry :-)

It was a wonderful day ride of about 360 miles or so.  Both bikes ran perfect.  We had good weather, met great peeps, had decent food and a lovely walk-a-bout.  Thank you Robert Rehkopf for the lovely RTE, great call :-)

Again, thank you for following along.  Stay tuned for the next adventure!  I'm sure one is coming up quickly :-)

Cheers,
Cletha