Another clear morning, but a bit hazy as we prepared to leave Asheville and continue along the BRP. Rick and I have covered 80 miles so far and we will pick up where we exited yesterday to continue to our mid point, which is Laurel Springs, NC, as we need to exit off again to get the “Back of the Dragon” ride in, which is #20 on our list. We plan on staying at Laurel Springs for a couple of nights – stay and relax when we arrive, next morning ride the Back of the Dragon, and come back to stay in Laurel Springs again, then continue on the BRP the following morning.
The BRP continues to snake along the Appalachians as we leave Asheville and continue on. A bit more traffic as we are closer to population, but still very enjoyable. Along the way I search for coffee and stop at a spot that was an estate donated by the Moses family. A old beautiful mansion along this road. No success on coffee but never the less, a great place to take a break and think about how it must have been to live here in the day.
We continued on through the morning and by early afternoon we were at Freeborne’s Eatery and Lodge to check in and have lunch while we wait for our rooms to finish being cleaned. Next day the Back of the Dragon……
Today was a short day – only 80 or so mile to Asheville, but it was the start of our trip on the Blue Ridge Parkway (BRP). The reason for only 80 miles at this point was Rick was having Sheryl fly out for riding along the BRP and her flight was into Asheville for late Wednesday night.
It was a beautiful morning in Cherokee as we said good bye to the Casino and left with money in our pockets (from not gambling!). We gassed up, received our gas receipts in Cherokee as this was the start of the BRP from the southern end. Just a mile or so from town was the start and it is immediately obvious on the beauty of the road. Smooth payment, lush greenery on either side, grand vista, and not much traffic, if any, on this southern end. Knowing we had a snall day, we enjoyed every inch of this road today as we arrived in Asheville around 1pm to check into our hotel at by the airport.
Gave us an opportunity to wash the bikes at a car wash and relax and have lunch. I reached out to my cousin Pete from my mom’s side who lives out here and hooked up for about 4 hours to catch up over dinner.
We left Pulaski early about 6:30 am. Our goal was to get to Cherokee NC, which is a small town at the south end of the Blue Ridge Parkway. The ride was fairly quick with easy divided highway roads getting hillier as the day progressed. We wanted to skirt the town of Chattanooga, but we ended up right in the middle of town, but for me it was time for a coffee break and Rick spotted a perfect stop.
We left Chattanooga and continued the remaining three hours to get to Cherokee NC where we decided to check into the Harrah’s Resort casino for the evening and to relax a bit
Surprise this morning-fog! And pretty thick! We were up and ready to roll so we took off 6:30 am starting on the interstate. Just get behind a truck and just follow him!
An hour later I exit to gas up and the morning fog had mostly burned off, so we said goodbye to the freeway and we were back to the back roads. While gassing up, people usually chat with you. I was asked if we got caught up with the storm yesterday and the gentlemen was telling me it was a big storm at his house, telling his family to relocate to a shelter. The roads we took were farm roads taking us on a journey through Arkansas. Some great roads, and freshy paved with new asphalt. Plenty of trees, curves in the road, and straights too. And also plenty of evidence of the strength of the storm as I saw plenty of uprooted trees today. The roads kept us busy.
Then we came to the Mississippi River, which meant a large bridge crossing and also a time for me to put a helmet back on. I have been enjoying my freedom ever since the later part of the first day of this trip but day 6 marked helmet country for the next several days… boo.
Mississippi was a pleasant surprise. Again we were on the back roads and the ones we were on were like a roller coaster tide. Great road along wooded area, with sweepers and rolling ups and downs and cruising at 65 mph for the most part. Some of the homes along our route were beautiful and looked fairly new too. Again, talking with a local while gassing up and here too a bad storm last night.
The next thing we know we are in Tennessee cruising again on some beautiful roads, We gas up one last time and even here in Tennessee the evidence was storm damage from a storm, The locals confirmed it as they told us tales of the storm last night – that sure was a big cloud mass. Today’s weather was sunny all day with no clouds, highs for the most part were 85-88 most of the time till we pulled in at the end, and it was 90.
After an early cool 70 degree’s 6:30 am start from Wichita, we arrived in Eureka Spring AK at 11:30 am for our start of the Pigs Tail trail, Hwy 23 south to Ozark AK.
Beautiful riding road, with grand and medium size “sweepers”, low traffic volume and canopy cover roads snaking through this country side. We document each ride with a picture and a gas receipt at each end of the requested ride. We decided the courthouse and roadside sign as our documentation.
Again, a clear day but hot and humid by the time we stopped at the end, 100 degrees and sweltering humidity with storms brewing all around us. By 3:30 we stopped in Clarksville AK to cool off and relax for the evening at the Crossroads sports bar for dinner and the Hilton for accommodations. Dinner was accompanied by booming thunder and the sound of heavy rain on the roof as we ate our meal. Good thing we decided to cover our bikes!
As far as southern hospitality goes, top notch! Its been a pleasure traveling through here.
Tomorrow we head towards Cherokee NC for the start of the BRP – Blue Ridge Parkway in the Smoky Mountains. We figure two days to get there.
The march across the Plains. It was a day of transitions in the landscape. From the foothills of the Rockies to the Midwest (or center of the country).
We left at 7:30 am and it was sunny and cool, in the low 60’s. We started on the edge of the Rockies foothills and descended slowly across to the plains. We wandered through some dips for rivers and climbed back out. The land started out as scrub brush and grazing fields, then as the day progress it slowly turned to wide grass lands, then again later turning to production crops – all along just a wide vast flat land for flat earthers to believe in. For me, my mid wanders in this landscape wondering how the pioneers and Indians managed to live in this vast landscape. Much of it probably visually the same. Can’t imaging crossing this on a horse for months. Or how people live in such vastness and isolation – to each his own. We would come across driveways and you can’t see the house miles away.
As we approach Wichita, the landscape changes no tress to now noticeable trees and much higher humidity. The temperature climbed through out the day to the mid 90’s by the time we quit, sweltering in the humid weather of the Midwest. Best part of it, clear day with no clouds and no rain 🙂
You can look at the previous days post as I updated it with text/pics and vid.
After a great meal at a local restaurant, we eventually crashed sometime after 11 pm as I was busy trying to figure out some GPS issues and mapping. I gave up and finaaly went to bed though as we did get up early and were rolling by 7:30 am.
Today was suppose to be a test for a new app we wanted on this trip, REVER. Mostly for motorcyclist and off-road enthusiast. It is google like and incorporates Butter rated route rides. I have heard good things about Butler maps, so I was interested in this program to work. On this phase I have a different bike, therefore a different navigation system. Rick like to have the same info for his guidance, so I have been trying to make that happen. Anybody that works with different GPS units knows what a challenge that can be, as they all have different parameters, switches, map data and algorithms to calculate a route, so they usually don’t match, especially on long rides like this. Phones are issues as screens dim due to heat and the sunlight, and streaming map data is challenging when there are no cell towers, which is typical on the route we pick (although it’s getting hard now to get away from cell towers these days).
The REVER app on the computer is web based and is pretty cool as you can do A/B routing (point A to point B), then see the overlays of rated routes and snap your A/B route line on Butler roads that are close to your quick route and tweak your route for cool roads…. So I did that – now to test it….
So we start off great for the first 100 miles I guess until I see my route wanting to take a dirt road. We stopped, tried deleting way points to see if that would clear it up, but we still has issues so we had to abandon my planned route and just wing it. It was still a great ride, just will need to return someday to explore some of the roads in northern New Mexico.
It was a beautiful, sunny clear riding day as it took us into the lower southern Colorado and over one pass in the Rockies (Wolf Pass) before we descended towards the plains of Colorado. We didn’t have any major issues today, although Ricks bike did want to take a nap at a gas station, but we fixed that.
We called it quits earl today as heading east from I-25 with the wind blowing and maybe another 100 miles till you find a nice town with a hotel, we thought we should stop.
I’ll update this later so check back to this post, but we had a long day, dealing with some mechanical issues.. will try and update tonight
Well, I’m finally getting the chance to update. Day 2 started early from St. George at 7:30 am and it was cool. We decided to bypass Zion National Park and take another way to Knab UT which skirts the northern side of the Grand Canyon and it was quite nice. From there we headed towards Page AZ just pass the dam for the Lake Powel area.
Since we are taking back roads, we always are slowing down, hitting stop signs or traffic lights in the towns and eventually speed back up as we head towards the next town, which out here can be 60-90 miles.
As we reach cruising speeds and pass several other cars, at about the 10 mile mark I don’t see rick in my rear view mirrors. I slow down, still nada – time to pull over. I wait as sometimes he stops to fiddle with a gps or take a jacket off etc., but I know I waited too long this time, so I do a U-turn and head back. about a mile later I see him on the side of the road looking at his bike. His bike just stop running just running the poof – just groaned and slowed way down and stopped.
Lights worked, he could turn the engine, just would not run. Well two armature mechanics are saying either no spark or no gas. Plenty of gas left in the tank, we could hear the fuel pump run, but it didn’t quite sound the usually sound you would hear, but it was running.
Since he had replaced the fuel pump just before the trip, that was the suspect. Rick carries a gallon of gas and one idea was that a hose off the fuel pump fell off and couldn’t get gas, so we decided to add more gas and see if it would work. Nada.
No way to work on it on the side of the road as there was barely a shoulder. So out comes the AAA card and we are thinking to tow it to the nearest Harley dealer, which is Grand Canyon Harley (Flagstaff) about 125 miles away, or 2 1/2 hrs. We wait for AAA to get back to us on the phone….
We wait and the call comes and the AAA operator informs us that the local Page driver is the only one available in the area and doesn’t want to leave from there and go that far to Flagstaff. He does offer to haul it to a local motorcycle mechanic, Limey’s. Rick decides let try him and if that doesn’t work, then we will tow it to Flagstaff. The tow truck driver arrives, we load it up on the flat bed, and back to Page we go to Limey’s.
Limey I would guess is an old time biker himself. His wife and he run the shop, along with the cat that chases the rodents away. After talking with Rick, the first test was to debug the fuel pump. He could hear it run too, but he heard splashing sounds. He tested the pressure on the gas line and there was none. Ok, the pumps coming out.
Sure enough, one of the hoses was loose from the fitting, so it could not pressurize the line. They fitted it back on, made sure it was secure, and put it back in the tank and the bike came back to life! “How much?” an elated Rick asked. Limey said, we, 3/4 hr, let make it x. Rick said too cheap and game him 3x and we were back on the road.
We would have been delayed at least a day in Flagstaff, but this was only about 3 hours delay, which we made it to were we wanted to get without much effort.
June 21st, First day of summer! First day of Phase 2! We are rolling!
After leaving the house I met up Rick at Big Steve’s work to have a final goodbye at Grand Prix with Steve, as it will be the last time as Steve and his wife will be on a new adventure and will be moved to TN by the time we return. It is with a heavy heart to think of not seeing him and BS with BS on a weekly basis, it will now just be on different terms. Looking forward to their new adventure in life!
Rick over the last couple of weeks has repaired his clutch issue, along with the whining noise coming from his bike and a loose front value stem issue. The whining noise turned out to be his fuel pump, which he replaced. So he is good to go! I switched bikes for this phase to my BMW to give it a workout with fresh tires. We both will have some shaking out to do as we start off. New GPS for me, different planning method for this leg, along with a different bike.
We got rolling at 10:00 am with the goal of St. George UT. Nothing exciting about this leg, it is typical for us, at least the first 250 miles to Las Vegas. Freeway droning with racing cars and trucks and yahoo drivers that never leave the left lane. We did the standard stops: Barstow CA, Stateline NV, Mesquite NV and then St. George UT – about 400 miles. Las Vegas, typical I-15 STILL under some kind of construction for the last 30 years I’ve been riding through here… We arrived in St. George at 5:00 pm (loosing and hour – it was 4pm for us) at a familiar hotel and ate at a familiar place. Some habits die hard, but why ruin a good thing?
Tomorrow we get off the highway, taking the back roads again, and will start making our way to our #2 ride on our list of 20 – in the Ozarks!
