Ride With Tank

Today was the best day of my trip so far.

I started it with a true sunrise ride.  When I got to the overlook I found fog that filled the entire valley.

I have never seen it like this before, but it did not last long.  A very small breeze kicked up and started blowing the fog over the overlook.

Once my coffee was gone I went to Calderwood and saw the usual turkeys and deer.  As expected it was very foggy down there.

On the way back to the store I found another flock of turkeys along the road.  I slowly rolled up to them, and once I was close I hit my horn which caused them all to go crazy.  It was pure turkey chaos, and it was funny.

Robert spent most of the day playing with some motards and had a really great time.

By far my personal highlight of the day, and probably the week, was this guy:

I was lucky enough to get to see him wage an epic battle racing a Harley down the Gap.  The Harley passed him, then he turned on the speed!  He came close many times to passing him, but just never had quite enough room.  The Harley would pull away in the straights, then the bike would catch up in the turns.  Eventually, the bicycle guy just got too tired and gave it up.

I spent the next several miles stuck behind the same Harley.  I checked my mirrors as I entered Shadetree and the bicycle was right behind me, so I pulled over so the battle could continue!  This was more exciting than any MotoGP race I have ever seen.  Eventually, I remembered that I had a video camera mounted up, and I got the last minutes of the battle on video.

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Another great day of weather!

Lots of people out and about!  There was a guy today who had race plastics.  His “friend” took electric tape and wrote “gay” on the front number plate.  He rode around all day without noticing and everyone got a good laugh out of it.  When he did notice he was a really good sport about it, but I suspect there will be some retaliation.

Rumors of rain on the way were swirling around, but we decided on a night run to the overlook.  The weather up was nice and it was a great ride.  It started spitting an occasional drop of rain at the overlook so we decided to head back.  We didn’t get too far until we hit a downpour.  We got absolutely soaked.  My shoes were nearly dry and now they are soaking wet again!

I only took one good picture today, so here it is!

It rained all night and when my alarm went off this morning it was still raining, so I sut off the alarm and went back to sleep.

Things dried out about half way through the day, so i went out and did a little bit of exploring around Fontana lake.

Once the road mostly dried out I made a few passes on the Gap.  I asked Pip how long the store would be open and she said till 7PM.  I figured I could make it to the overlook and back before then, so I headed north.  I returned to the store at 6:45 and they were closed!  I was low on gas, so I headed to Robbinsville.  On the way there I got smoked by a girl in an economy car.

I stopped at the church on 129 and got this awesome picture:

I also stopped at the pizza shop and got an awesome pizza, so all in all the early store closure worked out well for me.

Today started out cloudy and foggy, but finally dry!

I got my first sunrise ride in, but I was not first on the Hill, the bear hunters were out and about long before I was.  I talked to one of the hunters at the overlook for a long time,  He was a nice guy and I learned a few things about the area that I never knew.

Once my coffee was gone I took my first ride of the year into Calderwood and saw all the usual turkeys and deer.

I did a little back and forth and then settled down for a while to watch the show with Craig, one of the Zee Photo photographers.  I did a little more back and forth then took a little rest.  A few guys I knew rolled in so I did some more back and forth with them. After they left I rode into Robbinsville to get pizza, but the pizza shop was closed.

All in all it was a pretty ordinary day for me on the hill, but an ordinary day here is about the best day I can imagine.

As expected, today was another day of rain.

Mark and the guys showed up some time after I went to sleep.  Somehow they managed to avoid the rain!

Absolutely nothing happened today except for rain.  Things were so slow they closed the store at 5PM.  I managed one ride to Fontana and one ride to the overlook.  I also took a few pictures.

Casey bought this to help pass the time.

Dan got a do.