Well, there I was, Thursday, Nov 9th, getting some less-than-pleasant news about my life and things surrounding it. Something between that and the weather report that night gave me the idea that a multi-day trip was in order. The weatherman said "We're going to have great weather (in the 70's) Friday and Saturday, and then a cold front will come in and temps will drop to the 50's." He even said it would be sunny the whole time. You don't have to send me a personal invitation, I'm thinking...
So, Friday I get out to a late start for no good reason. Eventually I see how absolutely wonderful the weather is (it was closer to 80) I get going and load the bike. At this point it was pretty clean, btw. Being in a hurry (I knew I had several hours of interstate to ride, since I'd wasted the morning) I wound up forgetting my toothrbrush, toothpaste, and deodorant. Oh well, I wasn't going to be around anyone anyway. I left town about 1pm and shot for Tellico Plains, which is 300 miles away. Only stopping for gas, I made it to Robbinsville NC before the sun started to disappear. I didn't want to do Cherohala in the dark, so I found a cheap hotel there and went for dinner. I was able to hit a few twisties, but in the future, I will leave earlier and hit better ones.
I DO NOT suggest "Brushy Mountain BBQ" as it is some kind of chain and the food is only quasi-homemade. Oh, and their ice-cream has some sort of gooey consistency. I sat outside my hotel room and smoked a cigar, then turned in for bed.
Yup, looks like a motorcyclist's room to me:
The next morning I woke and found lots of clouds in the sky. I watched the weather as I prepared for the day...apparently a storm line developed while I was travelling Friday and it stretched from Alabama to Lake Superior and was moving fast. So much for spending three days out. I decided I would Do the Cherohala to Tellico Plains and then turn around and do it west-east and then just go home, finding good roads as I went. It was a good idea, at least.
An early breakfast was had here: Note the relative cleanliness of the bike.
After breakfast I got going, helping a few other guys find their way (some HD guys who'd never been there before). I quickly got to the "start" of the Skyway. The clouds were still high at this point.
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Here you can just barely make out the first section of the Skyway on the East side.
One more shot of the mountains in the area. This marks the LAST of the non-foggy pictures:
Right after leaving this pull-out I came across the HD guys I had helped earlier. I took a pic of them with their camera for them, and they asked if I could "lead" them up the hill. I said fine, and made sure to also hear them say "don't feel like you have to go slow for us, though." Say no more, I went back on the road with them in tow, and promptly left them. Unfortunately, it was only about a mile or three and I was in the thickest fog I've ever ridden in. So thick I couldn't go more than about 20 mph and at times slower. The pavement was still dry, thankfully, but I couldn't see a thing.
I continued this way for several miles, never seeing the HD guys again. I assume they turned around. As I dropped below 4000' on the other side, I began to ride
right under the fog, it couldn't have been more than 10' off the pavement. The road was dry, and I took advantage of it. Great riding at this point.
I arrived in Tellico Plains and ate a quick snack (baked apple pie at Hardees) and turned around for my return. It was raining in Tellico Plains and if I'd thought about it I wouldn't have stopped for that pie. There were several sportbikers huddling under a gas station cover and I told them how socked in the Skyway was at the top, but also said it was dry up to 4000'. I'm not quite sure why, but they ALL waited for me to eat my pie and crank my bike before getting started...like they wanted to follow me. I left with about 7 bikes in tow, but then thought I saw the HD guys at another gas station so I turned around and went back, letting all the other bikes keep going. Nope, not the right HD guys, so I got back on the skyway. The rain didn't end...it had moved east during my pie break. I passed two of the bikes that were following me earlier, and kept going up the mountain. It started getting COLD and WET. Constant rain, thick fog, and water was running from the edge of my glove gauntlet down into my glove. I pulled over and started putting my cold weather gear on and I saw the other guys go by. Once properly suited, I continued up the mountain, passing the guys again at a turn-out and struggled with vision the whole way down, going very slow. I met the other guy's leaders at the bottom where they'd stopped and told them the rest of the party was coming, and then got on my way to Robbinsville. Once I was there, the weather was again pretty nice, though the clouds were definitely coming. Note, the bike isn't so clean anymore:
Here I found that 1 I had a headlight out on the Sprint, and 2 my left boot appeared to be leaking (waterproof?). My gloves were soaked too, so I plugged in my Gerbings liners and let them sit there in the gloves with the bike running as I ate my lunch. It didn't really work. Climbing back on I was being rained on again. At this point I realized that I wouldn't get any nice roads in on the way back home, either, as I'd be running from the storm the whole way. I seem to be able to ride for a whole gas tank over and over again when I'm in twisties, but on the highway I can't always do it. Yesterday I couldn't...and ever time I'd stop, the rain would almost catch me. I made it to Winston-Salem by 5:30 and called a friend to see if he wanted to catch a movie...the weather looked like it would hold for a while.
When I stepped out of the theater, my heart sank. Driving rain abotu about 50 degrees. At night. With one headlight. 30 miles to go. Well, rather than stand there and get more wet putting on the cold/wet weather gear (that takes a lot more time to put on) I put my lighter jacket on and got on the road. 30 miles and lots of praying later, I got home, put the cover on my bike, spread all my soaked clothes on my covered deck, and towelled off, climbing into bed.
Round trip, about 650 miles, very little of it on good roads, and a lot of it in the rain. oh well, for some reason I still had fun and I gained some wet-weather confidence, too.
What a trip. Now, about those boots....
[ This message was edited by: SR1 on 2006-11-12 10:29 ]
