Dixie Biker Illustrated Road Trips

beaten path, not very big - 6 rooms and a cabin for families, quiet, and they even had a stocked fishing pond. But, best of all, these folks are accommodating enough to let us leave our extra gear there until Sunday afternoon when we got back from the Parkway run. By the way - if there are any Batman fans among the readers, I can tell you where Bat Cave is.

The original plan was to ride to Asheville, NC and pick up the Parkway there and ride to Fancy Gap, VA, spend the night, return to Gerton, spend one more night there, and then return to Jax. Now here's where you need to get your road atlas and follow along. Once Val, being of American Indian descent, found out how close we were (sorta) to Cherokee, thought it would be nice to ride down and through the reservation, so we rerouted. No problem, yet. Just keep the thought that this detour added about 150 to the front end of a trip that had been planned out at 220 miles to our Saturday night destination. Here's another bennie to being freelance, we can be flexible like that.

We rode NC 74A to Hwy 19 through Maggie Valley (home of the Wheels Through Time Museum - see Monks article - Tears to my Eyes - on their August 2002 trip there), into Cherokee where picked up Hwy 441 to the Blue Ridge Parkway (BRP). The temp in

Cherokee, NC at 11:30 am was around 80. Onto the BRP we rode and it was some slow cruising up through the mountain roads. I had just installed a set of Samson Big Gun Rip Saws on the Train. Knew how it performed on the flat straight roads of Florida and I was really anxious to see how it would breathe and react to the different altitudes. This was also the first chance I'd get to see how well the Train would turn left and right to wear some of the side of the tire off, instead of wearing just the center strip. Boy, did I get a chance to test that out!

The tunnels on the BRP really do offer a chance to

hear what your pipes sound like! We cruised on up to

about 6,053 feet above sea level and the temp at 1:00 pm

in the clouds was about 45 degrees. Yes, indeed ladies and

gentlemen, we rode between the cloud layers on Saturday.

There was a layer that hung between 4,800 and 5,200 feet

that was just bone chilling. The BRP was closed for a

stretch due to a rock slide so we had to get off the BRP

and use side roads. Drummer Dave (Demon Rider Dave)

had wanted to ride the Tail of the Dragon in Deal's Gap

this trip but due to time constraints we were unable to

make the trip. But the freelance and adventurous sorts

that we are, we found our own Dragon to slay!

If you are ever in NC and want an AWESOME road of twisties, check out Hwy 151 just off the BRP. It is only 3.3 miles long, but we counted 116 left-right transitions. Yes - one hundred and sixteen! Follow me here - the world renowned Tail of the Dragon is 313 left-right transitions in 11.8 miles. Hwy 151, if you do the math and extend it out, comes out to 401 left-to-rights in 11.8 miles. We

found and conquered our own Dragon. Now, if I could just just get

a license plate frame for Dave. Plus some new black ceramic coat-

ing for my pipes seein' how's I got my "BRP stripe."

OK, now back on the parkway, rode on for a bit and have drop-

ped down from 6,000 feet to around 5,100 feet and we've found the

cold clouds again. We're on;y ridin' along at 15 - 20 mph, barely

able to follow the yellow stripe so we don't get BRP dents. We're

in the cloud layer for about an hour and break out of it around

4,300 ft. We're seriously looking for an overlook that isn't

clouded in so we can show Val some of this side of the country. It

wasn't to be today, anyway.

Here comes the flexible part again, I love this. We've been

riding since 8:45 am? It's getting close to 5 pm and we are still 150

miles from Fancy Gap, VA. Remember the 150 miles we added at the beginning? That and an unknown and unexpected detour have put us behind on the schedule that we wrote in the beer mug's frosted condensation back in Jax when we were plannin' the trip. And the sun is going down, we're back in the damn clouds and it's getting cold! Flex-Time! Off the BRP into Boone, NC.

We stop at the first cabin rental place that has a vacancy sign. Dave and Karla go in, Val stays outside to smoke and I'm checking the map to see what we can salvage of the BRP in the morning. Dave asks, "How much for a cabin?"

The clown behind counter says, "$175 for 2 people, $200 for 4 and no smoking."

Dave says, "Okay."

Clown says, "Did ya hear me?!? NO SMOKING!"

Dave says, "Okay." again.

Clown says, "I SAID NO SMOKING!"

Dave and Karla say, in unison, "SEE YA!"

(Man! Y'all're sure polite. I know what I woulda said. Starts with an F. And then I woulda stuffed a cigarette up his ass. I wonder if he owns a hotel in Daytona, too? Monk)

We cruise around Boone, look at a coupla other places and find out it's prom night so all the room rates are up a little bit. Friendly, former B.A.M. at the Best Western cut us a real good deal on a couple rooms, though, and even gave us one with a Jacuzzi so's Val could warm up.

Sunday broke warm and looking a whole lot better than Saturday, but... we were in the mountains. We collectively decided to end the BRP north-bound run and do some jamming on the back roads. We put our heads together and figured out a route that would take us back to Mountain Meadow, via Virginia and Tennesee so's Val could get her travel ticket punched. We also wanted to run the BRP south so we could possibly see some scenery that we missed in the cloud cover the day before. For those readers who may be familiar with the area, we left Boone on Hwy 194, picked up Hwy 221, and rode that to West Jefferson NC, (had breakfast with Slingblade while were there) then back on Hwy 194 into VA. We picked up Hwy 58 and rode it to Damascus, TN then back onto the BRP to

Hwy 74a and into Lake Lure.

We probably saw 200 - 250 other motorcycles

running the BRP that weekend but there are two

that stick out for reasons that will soon be obvious.

We were behind a group of dressers for about ten

miles, the whole time there was this one fellow who

kept leap-frogging up through the pack of bikes,

then would drop to the back, then repeat the whole

thing all over again. We stopped at an overlook for

a stretch and pictures for maybe 15-20 minutes and

the got back back to it. Just about every car we met

was flashing their lights at us and - Yep you guessed

it! Mr. Leap-Frog turned into a slip and slide toad.

Turns out he had his kid with him, too, and he look-

ed maybe 10 or 11 years old. There were dresser

parts all over the place and luckily no serious injuries to either.

Now Dave's favorite: the couple on the Honda. He went 400 pounds easily and she was over 200 herself. Picture yourself riding up behind a motorcycle, no sissy bar, girl wearing lime green shorts, her butt completely covering seat to the point you can see a little black patch that says OND. Get the picture? They're goin' 10 miles an hour UNDER the posted speed limit, I'm trying to get around 'em, the driver points to the side, I blast around him on the left, then HE cuts back over and blocks the lane so there's no way Dave can get around him. And then he keeps blocking Dave every chance he gets. I slowed down, sped up. slowed down, trying to get something to happen but for a good 10 miles all Dave and Val had was a view of Mr. and Mrs. Fat Ass. We pulled off into a bar and grill parking lot, Fat Ass goes around me, hollers something and then we get treated to