ibafran’s 09 trip

As noted mostly in the Forum Meet&Greet Ride thread, I got a kitchen pass for a road trip this year. I was hoping to spend it with forum members, but it didn’t pan out.

A budd and I got out of chicagoland on the slab on a sunday. We quickly bailed off the slab for some sightseeing on our way to Birmingham AL. Sights of note: The Nothing Fancy Holiness Church was truely drab and unremarkable. An Amish carriage was drawn by a sort of high-stepping horse. I didn’t expect such horseflesh of that calibre. Did the north 90 miles of the Natchez Trace.

Tuesday, we ‘wasted’ the whole day in the Barber Museum. We were the first in and the last to be kicked out. Bud, the docent, must be listened to. He has the very best stories. As noted elsewhere, the museum has a great overlook of the most beautiful race track that I have ever seen. If you can get a free lap on it, PM me and tell me how its done. Don’t look at the track if there is a possiblity that you might be susseptible to ‘track lust’.

Wednesday, we wandered over to Two Wheels Only (TWO) and rode around there. Best sight was a free range black bear trying to cross the road as I rode past.

Thursday, GT, owner of TWO, routed us a nice loop over to the west end of the Cherohala. The Dragon was ridden as it was handy to do so. Sight of the day was a supermotard rider slowly riding the opposite way on the Dragon and waving wildly at oncoming traffic. My best guess is that we were about to come upon a crash site. It turned out to be a semi tanker truck coming the other way and taking both lanes/whole road for the tight turns. I have never seen, nor heard of, a biker doing this. Usually, there is a pilot cage waving a red flag preceeding such a truck.

Friday, we rode the southern 200 miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway. I am told that the southern part is the best. The whole two hunnert miles was the best sight. Also the biggest downer of the trip was having to follow a cage on the BRP at 35mph in a 45mph zone. It got worse when that cage caught another cage doing 26mph. Neither cage bothered with turning out at any of the overlooks to let us bye.

Saturday, we turned for home. I had a misty-eyed moment as we left the BRP. Traveling the slab, we missed an interstate ramp and got side tracked. In order to recover without backtracking on the slab, we lucked out into a great back road. If you ca get to Marion, Virginia check out route 16 going towards Hungry Mother State park. Is it wild. You can take it north (mostly) past Tazewell all the way up to Interstate 77 near Beckley. It had a great sign near the start, “Truckers. Last Chance To Turn Around” Best sight along there was a flat bed truck unloading hunting dogs (Blue Tick Hounds?). Biggest regret of my trip was failing to turn around and talk to the dog people to learn something about hunting with such animals.

Sunday, rolled up I-65 in IN with all the show hot rods from the Nationals in Louisville. Just a great morning looking at all the nice cars. Traffic on the slab got obnoxious by late morning and we bailed out for some back roads into chicagoland. The chi-town x-way construction barrels were out in force. And the traffic just got worser and worser as we headed into the heart of the city. A big 3-day Lollapalooza fest was going on and the concert traffic was a midday nightmare.

Moments of idiocy: We camped except for 2 nites in a motel. The tree frog noise was unbelievable. The one camp without tree frog noise was so quiet that it felt eerie. One nite was so hot&humid that I considered sleeping naked in the camp shower under a slow cold water drizzle. I would have slept in the lake iff’n I wasn’t scared that the turtles would eat me before dawn. Rolling my fully loaded bike off the center stand one morning, I managed to foul that up and have a tipover trapping one boot under the bike and taking a nice gouge out of the opposit shin. My budd and a passerby had to get the bike off my leg before I could get up. Managed to gaze at the BRP scenery long enough to roll off the pavement doing about 50mph on a straight section, right hand side. Fortunately, there were no sign posts or other hard objects to hit. Unfortunately, there was only about 2 feet of gentle downslope/shoulder before the 100 foot downcliff started in earnest. A very gentle and judicious application of throttle had it drifting back toward the pavement and my come-to-geebus moment turned into a 20 mile litany of “thankyou-geebuz & thankyou Dog for saving my butt yet again” prayer session.

There was lots and lots of other great stuff along the way. We met some fine people, some of ‘em were bikers. After so much practice on mountain curves, my fav hometown curves are as nothing. I have returned home with enough adventure that it is as if I can see home for the first time as it really is. Home ain’t as pretty as when I left it.

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