OK, here's one to beat all.
With visions of the mountains of North Carolina dancing in our heads, we bedded down early Thursday night (Jun 28) with a 3:30AM departure planned. Everything was packed; lists checked thrice, we were ready to go!!! I woke up around midnight and checked the weather… uh oh, there’s a nasty tropical wave getting closer, faster than expected! Watching the radar, I figured I could get a couple of hours more sleep. Woke up again at 2 and figured we had better get out of Dodge if we were going to beat the really nasty stuff and so we hit the road right at 2:30AM on my birthday! After a mumbled ‘Happy Birthday’ from the wife, she promptly fell back asleep!
Hit squally rain all the way past Ft. Pierce (about 120 miles) and then things cleared up nicely. Alright!!! I was really looking forward to a great week in the mountains, seeing old friends, and meeting new ones!
Around noon, as we are deciding on when to stop for lunch, Janet says “my throat feels scratchyâ€Â. Uh oh….. We get up to Banner Elk without event and Janet suggests we stop at the grocery store now so we don’t have to go back out. I was thinking we would get everything unpacked and then head back out. You see who has the brains in this family, right!
Saturday morning, we wake up late being fragged from the drive but who cares, we have a whole week!!! Within minutes, I see Janet is sniffling and she is starting to sneeze. Aw crap, I hope this is not……. Yep, within an hour, even ole thick head here realizes Janet has a full blown cold/flu. Ever the trooper though, she is ready to go! I’ve received a couple of voice mails (I knew Steve (reave1) was down from Ontario and probably trying to contact me) so I try calling back with no success. Having no Internet connection, we decide to take the laptop down into Banner Elk and see if we can get a connection so I can get to a PM from Steve. On the way into town, I spot a red BA!! A heart wrenching right turn later, I am parked right next to what I suspected was Steve’s bike. A check on the plate (Ontario!) confirms it! As he is nowhere to be found, I write a hasty note and stuff it in his glove and prepare to drive away. Janet says “look at those guys up there†and sure enough, there’s a couple of scruffy looking bikers
heading our way. I wait until they are almost to their bikes and nonchalantly ask “They still make those Triumphs?†and you could see Steve has heard this a million times as he answered ‘yes’
. He then looked over and recognized me and handshakes and hugs began! He’s riding with his buddy John (rides a really nice Ducati) and we decide to go back to the condo and get my bike and the three of us are going for a nice ride. Yes….
We get rolling (Janet decided to stay home understandably) and get down the road about 6 miles and Raven just dies…. no spark but has juice. Hmmmm… I am still rolling so I turn the key off and on again and away we go! I chalk it up to an anomaly but within a quarter mile, she does it again! CRAP!!! Trying to find a safe place to pull over, I have to do the key thing about a half dozen times to keep her running and dang it if she ain’t doing her best (I love this friggin bike!). Get pulled over and start checking things. Battery connecti… Well, look at that, the friggin + connection is loose! Cool. I tighten it up thinking that’s GOT to be the problem. Nope, several more key sequences later, I have to pull over and tell the guys, I need to take her back. Guess what folks? It wasn’t pretty (slow running, backfiring on restarts (Steve got to see flames out my pipes!
)) but she got me home as always. The most fun (tongue in cheek) was running back up the mountain to the condo hoping she would not cut out in one of the hairpins (a guaranteed drop) but I lucked out and made it safely. Proceeded to tear her apart and check everything and all was in perfect order. Exhausting all other avenues of failure (sidestand switch, coils, fuses, high/low side connections) and conscious of the symptoms, I am suspecting the ignitor. That is for another thread though….
I’m standing there sorta scratching my head and Janet comes out sneezing and coughing. I feel so bad for her, it hurts. Then she says “Hey, take my bikeâ€Â. Do you all understand now why I love this woman so much? The guys tell me they have to get a place to stay and I need to do some work around the place so this ride is officially done. We arrange to pick up Steve and John later for dinner. We had found out earlier that Janet’s cousin and boyfriend are up here so we all go to a great dinner and head back to the condo for drinks. Very cool.
Around 11-ish, Greg (EnglishYankee) calls and is at the bottom of the mountain!!
I am 2 sheets to the wind so Janet volunteers to go get him. Heart swelling, I hand her the keys and 20 minutes later, here’s Greg! We partied until close to 1 and we all (aka Janet) drove Steve and John back to their hotel and said our goodbyes as they were heading out in the morning. On the way back, I noted to Janet “my throat feels scratchy…†Uh-Oh.
Sunday morning, I wake up to a pounding headache, fever/chills, sore throat, stuffed nose and head. Oh yeah, it’s official now. We are both full blown sick!! Back to bed and finally crawl out around 1PM and wake Greg up. Dang, that boy can sleep!
Moping around the place, I try to contain the various bug and germ emanations. Greg goes out to warm his chain up to lube it and doesn’t come back for about 3 hours! Good for you brother! Sunday night, Jim (moe) and Lynn arrive and I think we did burgers. Everything about now is getting fuzzy………..
Monday, a similar day to Sunday. Janet and I are feeling really, really bad. Functionally, getting down to the grocery store and pharmacy are the most we can manage. Drugged up, we are basically confined to the condo in some of the nicest weather in some of the best riding country anywhere. Sigh…..
Tuesday. Much more of the same only more intensity to it. I think Greg headed home either yesterday or today. There’s an ethereal quality to the days and life right now. I asked Jim to please shoot me…..
Wednesday. I woke up feeling a tiny bit better. Janet did not and was actually feeling much worse. We had to make a decision and did so. Tomorrow, no matter what, we need to just go home. I wanted to shoot myself at that point. Now Jim and Lynn had been staying with us since Sunday, offering what help they could. I told them about us leaving and they said they were leaving tomorrow anyway so that would work out. They went out for a ride and came back later Wednesday afternoon and guess what? Yep, now Jim is feeling like crap. Was this a friggin nightmare? So the three of us spent the rest of Wednesday battling various stages of this crap. We packed the truck and the bikes up (dang near passed out a couple of times but got it done) and everyone went to bed early.
Thursday, we actually woke up early and I was feeling better, enough to drive anyway. We were only going about halfway and were going to stay with friends in southern Georgia. Got up and Jim is in bad shape so I offered the condo and ‘take your time’. We left pretty much all the food that was there (wasn’t much) and couldn’t do more that commiserate, we drove out. Jim’s a tough guy so I know they are OK. Jim?
We were supposed to have arrived at our friend’s place on Sunday but we knew they were there all week so figured, no problem. Yeah, right. We called them around 10AM (we were getting close to Atlanta at that point) and true to the week, they had returned home the day before due to a family emergency. Well that cinched it. We were FUBAR...... We continued to Valdosta, GA (18 miles from the FL/GA border) and spent the night. Woke up early this morning and made it home.
There are probably a lot of holes in the above story as there were a few moments less than lucid but this was the absolutely the best vacation ever!
Sigh…… Cough…
