I won’t belabor the ride up from Ft. Liquordale; suffice it to say that it took 16 friggin hours instead of the normal 13 thanks to traffic/wrecks/idiots around Atlanta. We left at 3AM on Friday, October 13th and had hoped to get there before dark which of course did not happen.
We were staying in Gatlinburg over the weekend and I had arranged for a storage facility for the bike to use while we were up on Mt. LeConte. We went by the hotel first to ensure our room and then went to the storage place. I figured why not put the bike up for the night there? Freezing friggin cold (about 37), I’m out there getting her untied from the trailer and back on her feet. Turn on the key, let her sit a bit, hit the starter. Wrrrr, click, click. You have got to be SH!TTING me!!!!?!?!? Nope, tried again, battery is deader than roadkill. Grrrrr. Stick everything in the storage bay and head back to the hotel. Deal with it tomorrow.
Back at the hotel, we get unpacked and settled…… Oh, I forgot to mention something. Turns out, someone we all know is here in Gatlinburg. Funny thing is, he’s staying at the same hotel and dangit, staying in the room next door! Yes, my friends. The Yota is in Gatlinburg! He and his 6 year old son Ethan drove down to play and coincidentally, we were there too! Crap, now I gotta hang with Yota
I crack open the Evans as it’s been a long day and Yota comes over with a jar of his homemade moonshine. Pretty friggin tasty but I can tell that a little too much of that and I am NOT getting up in the morning! I stick to the Evans and Yota’s over there sucking down the shine like honeydew vine water!
Woke up on Saturday to crisp temps and the knowledge I had a dead bike. Found Yota and with one eye open, he says “I know where there’s a bike shop in town†so we all go and collect the battery (tried it one more time, still click-click) and head to the shop. Guy has ONE non-Harley battery and tells me he doesn’t even know why he has this battery. I knew why. Call it fate but that battery was meant for me. He fills it with the acid and starts charging it. So much for riding over the mountains. We all go get breakfast and by the time that’s done, it’s mid-morning and the roads are packed with tourists. We decide to spend the day walking around Gatlinburg. So here’s me and Janet and Yota and his son wandering here and there doing the tourist thing. We decide to ride the gondola (Ober Gatlinburg) up to the top of one of the mountains. This car holds 120 people and they are very busy this time of year so you know there are 120 people in the car. We get near the top and Yota is giving us that goofy smile and I know something is up. That’s about the time I start having trouble breathing due to a noxious odor wafting about! I am trying to breathe, laugh, and not barf on the little girl in front of me. We hit the top and everyone is VERY happy to get off!
This guy behind me says "what was THAT smell?"
I say (pointing to Yota) "him"
Guy says "no way"
I say “I’m afraid soâ€Â
Yota standing there grinning!
Sigh………
We spent some time up top, all the while in that noxious cloud. Poor Ethan, six years old and about the right height if you get my meaning. At one point he exclaimed “Daddy! What have you been eating!?†I thought I was going to fall off the mountain laughing! We had to go back down soon and I threatened to cut off vital parts if Yota didn’t control himself. I knew that wouldn’t work but I felt better with the threat. Fortunately, nothing happened on the way down, much to Yota’s chagrin! It’s after 3PM now, so we go get the battery and Raven fires right up. No more storage crap for her!! Yota had to head out at this time so we said our goodbyes (and good riddance!
) and parted. Had a nice little ride back to the hotel as traffic was uncharacteristically light on the Gatlinburg bypass! Janet and I thought about riding a bit but with the traffic, forget it. Another thing happened during the day. I managed to aggravate and old ACL injury so by the time the day was over, my knee was killing me. Remember this part….
Sunday turned out to be a beautiful day! A little cool with light winds and no clouds. We decide to take a ride and just to see if Janet has enough warm gear on so we go up to the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail. I remembered it as a really pretty five mile loop very close to the hotel. Got near it and of course, it was jammed with cars. Rode well behind one of those diesel F350s (spewing fumes) with the fifth wheel in the bed. Got all the way up to 5MPH. We were able to shortcut the trip and got the heck out of there. We needed gas and as I now was armed with a city map, we were able to get to the gas station at the entrance to the national park. Had to wait 10 minutes due to so many people trying to get gas and all that time waiting and while I was fueling, I watched the traffic going into the park. The car that was on the road right in front of me when I got to the station had moved about 50 feet by the time I was ready to roll. Sigh….. I looked at Janet and she gave me one of those ‘don’t even think about it’ looks and I said “we are done riding in Gatlinburg†We took the back way to the hotel and I locked Raven up. We decided to go to Pigeon Forge to look for boots and a new leather riding jacket for Janet. Even with the back way, it took over an hour to go the 6-7 miles. We did manage to find a nice heavy, lined jacket though. Finished there and spent another hour and a half getting back. OK, now we were done DRIVING around Gatlinburg!!! We walked back into town, got some dinner (yep, it took ALL day to accomplish nothing) at a great little Italian place and then walked around seeing the sights. Just like yesterday, my knee was killing me by the time we got back to the hotel. As you may remember, we were heading up the mountain in the morning on a fairly strenuous hike to the top of Mt. LeConte. I’ve been called many things but never stupid. I had to make the decision to blow off the trip up the mountain so we decided to head up to Banner Elk, NC the next morning instead. Remember this now…….
Monday morning, it’s cooler and overcast. Looks like it’s going to rain later so instead of waiting until mid-morning, we rush the packing and head out early. Headed up 321 (nice road) to 19E (anther nice road), to 194 (outstanding road!) into Banner Elk. Took about 4 hours and just as I am getting off the bike at the condo, here comes the rain. We rush the unpacking, got a little wet but who cares. I am high and dry now! So I start doing some work around the place (don’t want this to get in the way later in the week!) and I get a call from Yota. He says did you hear about the winds around Gatlinburg? Huh? Watched the weather channel and there was nothing on. Chalked it up to Yota being Yota!
Tuesday. Cold, raining, dreary. Worked on the condo all day…..
Wednesday. Nice again but cold. Woke up to temps in the mid-30s. We waited until 11am and headed out. Janet nice and toasty in her new jacket! Rode 105 to 221 to the Blue Ridge Parkway. We were there in peak leaf season and was it ever beautiful. Trees aflame with every color you can imagine. Rode the Parkway up to Boone and then came back down the other end of 194 (what a great snake of a road!!). Get back to the condo and got to talk to some relatives who were in Cherokee on the previous couple of nights. It turns out that yes, very high winds (they saw a report of OVER 100MPH on the top of wherever they reported from), trees were down all over the place in the park, and they closed the friggin road over the mountain (441)!!! The reports were that it might take a couple of days to clear it!!! Holy crap!! Janet and I looked at each other, she looked at my knee, and I looked my knee. I then said some bad words and then told Janet “you owe me! If I hadn’t blown my knee out, we’d be up on that mountain somewhere probably not able to get down, and freezing my you know whats off!!!†Well, that didn’t’ work. In the back of my mind, I was shooting for a big bore….. Gotta try a different tack!
Thursday. See Tuesday, sigh…..
Friday. See Tuesday, sigh…..
Saturday. Finally some good riding weather! Clear and cold and I did wait a bit but out I went. Janet was doing festivals with the relatives so I got to RIDE! Did about 300 miles through some of the finest riding country ever. Sweepers, hairpins, straight-aways through fire tunnels of trees, switchbacks, reduced radius turns that would make even Chy grin! I was loving it! Freezing my butt off but loving every minute! Sadly, time was ticking away and as we were heading home very early in the morning and I had a lot of preparations to make, I turned towards ‘home’.
Sunday. Heading home…… Left at 4:15AM and luckily, no fog. It would have dictated another route. We took 221 down to I40 to I85 to the Charlotte bypass (I485?) to I26 to I95. Made really good time even though it rained all the way to southern GA. Rain cleared up and we were finally in Florida. It was even warming up! Coming through SC, GA, and into FL, I noticed a crapload of bikes coming north. Started seeing truck, cars, and RVs pulling bike trailers. What the heck is going on?? It then dawned on me that Biketoberfest was getting over and all I could think of was the traffic south of Daytona. Sigh….. Well, we were committed to I95 so damn the torpedoes…. 4 traffic snarls (4 wrecks, two real bad, one with bikes involved) and 3.5 hours later, we were almost to Ft. Pierce and about 100 miles from home. WooHoo!! Got on the Turnpike as I figured less people would pay to drive. Boy was I mistaken. It was bumper to bumper at 75MPH and lots of idiots trying to go faster. A recipe for disaster and it didn’t take long before we were again stopping because of another crash. Only took an hour to clear this one and finally arrived home 17 hours after starting. A long, long day but I was happy to be home. The worst part? I left my friggin gas on and it got sucked out and sprayed all over the K&Ns, the swingarm, tire, chain, darn near everywhere south of the carbs. Cleaned, cleaned, cleaned. I am also not going to ride until I get a chance to change the oil…
Sounds like a bad trip, right? I'd do it again in a heartbeat!!
