Ride With Tank

It seems like the weather has been better in November than it was in October!  I have been lucky enough to get out the last two weekends in a row!

Saturday the 14th I had to make a choice.  Some of my Ride Ohio friends were riding out in Amish country and visiting one of my favorite places, Heinis Cheese Factory.  I also got a email from Ray inviting me to ride with the Gold Wing guys.  I decided to go with the Wingers because I have not ridden with them yet this year.  I was still a little nervous anout my decision because the last time I rode with them at the end of the season the ride resulted in tragedy for me.

Photo by Nick

In the photo above you see the bikes ready to leave.  You don’t see a Vstrom because I was not there yet.  I am very rarely late for a ride, but I was 8 minutes late for this one.  Eight minutes was long enough because as I approached the gas station I saw them going through the traffic light heading north.  To be fair, I never confirmed that I was riding so nobody was expecting me.  A little twist of the throttle and I caught up to them.  Of course, I was nearly out of gas so I made them immediately stop at the next gas station.  I hate being the guy who shows up late with no gas!

Ray planned a really nice route, but he kept checking this strange poster that he called a “map” every time we stopped.

Photo by Nick

I guess it helps you find places, but it doesn’t tell you where you are and it does not have voice comands, but it is really easy to see even in direct sunlight and it uses no batteries.  What will they think of next!  I might get me one of those “direction posters” myself.

Picture by Nick

We stopped for lunch in some little town in the southern Ohio hills.  Pretty good food and reasonably priced.  Most of us had cheeseburgers and they were big, meaty, and delicious.

Ray - Photo by Nick

Ray is probably the cheapest person in the world.  I have heard rumor that he plans his routes based on where the lowest priced gasoline is.  We stopped for gas at a place where Christians were passing out free bread.

Free Bread

I have no idea how Ray found out about this, but we got a tank of gas and a loaf of free bread!  The crazy thing is that we had just finished eating lunch, and Nick comes out of the gas station with two pepperoni rolls!  I figured he was going to eat them later, but next thing I know:

Nick Eating Again! (?)

Free bread makes everyone happy!

I had a great day riding with some great folks on some great roads!  Hopefully next year I can hook up with you guys more often!

It has been over a month since I returned from my last Gap adventure of the year so I figure it is about time for me to write it up.

The whole adventure started the same as pretty much every adventure this year – massive rain.  I was meeting up with Johnny in Ashland, but when I arrived there I found out he was having trouble getting his bike started.  The goal had been to do some exploring on the way, but the weather was so miserable I really had no interest in any exploration.  I headed back into the rain without him.

The goal the first day was only Lexington and since I rode the freeway the entire way I arrived there quite early around 3PM.  I would have gone all the way to Knoxville, but by now Johnny had his bike running and was playing catch up, so I checked in and got dried out.  I ordered pizza for delivery, and Johnny finally arrived around 9PM.

The next morning the sun came out and began a week of some of the finest weather you could ever hope for!  The ride the reat of the way in was pretty uneventful and by the end of the day we had a fine group of flatlanders assembled at the Gap.

I made a run into Robbinsville for groceries and found something I had never seen before – canned pig brains.

Pork Brains

Peanuts are my normal campfire snack, but I could not resist and bought the can.  I was very let down by the lack of interest in eating pork brains.  I thought I had friends that live to seek adventure, but soon found out that most are not willing to try new things.  In total I was only able to get three other people to eat the brains, and to those who did, I salute you.  The identities of the brain eaters shall remain a secret.

There had been crazy amounts of rain before we arrived, and I got word that the floodgates at Fontana were flowing so I went to check it out.

Fontana Dam

I was hoping for the whole “water shooting hundreds of feet in the air” thing, but it was just this little trickle.

I had heard rumor of a giant hog roaming around, so I searched for it each morning trying to get a picture.  I never did see it. but I did see lots of other critters.

Turkey

Turkeys

Calderwood was also high and you could see the mist from the overlook.

Calderwood Dam

I made a lot of early morning runs, but never had a really good sunrise.  This Is the best I got, and as usual the power lines always get in the way!

Sunrise

The old church at Calderwood looks like it willn not be standing much longer.  From the front it does not look too  bad, but if you walk around back you see the end is near.

Calderwood Church

Calderwood Church

Back of Calderwood Church

Inside Calderwood Church

The area where Calderwood Lake runs along the Gap is also kniown as The Narrows and this picture gives you an idea how it got that name.

The Narrows

Most people just ride through, buy a shirt and move on.  It pays to stop along the road and explore because there is some fantastic scenery out there.

Parsons Branch

I escorted several trucks across during the week, but one in particular was worth talking about.  It was after dark and the guy was having a really hard time getting through.  It took about 2 hours to get him through.  In fact, he was so slow another truck caught up to him and then passed him at the Overlook!  That was something to see!

It is interesting to note the difference when escorting at night.  It seems that only locals and regulars are out at night, and when you give themn the signal they know what to do.  During the day many are clueless and don’t pay attention to the warning.

For the first half of the week I had a room mate.  I am a cheapskate, so I like it when I can cut expenses by sharing the cost of a room with somebody else.  Of course you have to make sure you choose a good room mate and i have to say that my choice did me wrong.

Basically what happened is that I needed to poop, and as soon as I made it known that I had to poop this unnamed person said, “Oh yeah.  I forgot to tell you that the toilet is plugged up”.  This is the wrong time to tell me this.  Now I have to find a plunger before I can poop.  I did find one and everything came out OK. but it could have been a real tragedy.

I ended up having the best weather of the year for the trip and it was a great way to end the year.  I stayed as late as I possibly dared on Sunday and then finally left for home around 10AM after saying all my goodbyes.  There is no doubt that I am going to miss the mountains, the roads, and most of all my friends over the winter, but I will return as soon as the weather cooperates again!