Ride With Tank

Before I get into too much discussion about this ride, I have to give a disclaimer that I really wasn’t there for most of the ride, due to unforeseen mechanical difficulties.  My mental state has been pretty bad the last couple of days and I acquired some pictures from the ride, so I have decided to pretend that I was able to complete this ride.  I cannot vouch for the accuracy of any of the statements I make in this report, because I wasn’t actually there so I am really just speculating what may have been occurring in the following photographs.  While the events depicted and described on these pages may not be real, the names have not been changed because I really have no interest in protecting the innocent.

 

Here we are on our first gas stop for the trip.  It was a pretty cold morning and the sun was finally starting to warm up.  Someone in the group was supposed to be fasting and he came out of the gas station with a bag of pepperoni rolls.  He had to pass them out to everyone to shut us all up. 

We took a little break along the freeway and I noticed that I might have put a little too much chain lube on my chain.  The lube was really dripping on the ground.  Next time I’ll have to use a little bit less.

The spot I chose to stop at along the freeway was just so pretty we decided to stay there for a while.  It is so fun watching the cars go by.  For a while I thought I might just spend the whole weekend right at this spot.  I told everyone else to go on ahead without me, but they enjoyed this spot as much as I did and they decided to just stand around on the edge of the freeway with me.  I had a great time!

Gold Wing riders are real practical jokers.  While I was enjoying the freeway I must have fallen asleep.  They cooked up the idea that they would hide my motorcycle so I could not find it when I woke up.  Since they did not have a key they called a tow truck to come pick it up and take it somewhere that I could not find it.

When I woke up I knew something was up.  Everyone had this silly little grin on their faces.  I went to get some sunglasses out of the bike and I could not find it!  It was nowhere to be seen!  Everybody laughed and laughed!  I told them this is the best joke anybody ever played on me!  You guys really got me this time!

After we all had a good laugh they called the tow truck driver back to take me to my motorcycle.  The truck driver thought it was a pretty funny prank as well.  He was pulled over by the police as he was towing the bike.  He asked the cop what the problem was and the cop told him that he must be stealing the motorcycle because he has never seen a Suzuki that needed a tow truck before.  The tow truck driver explained how the Gold Wing guys were pranking me and they had a good laugh also!

All this tomfoolery was putting us a little behind schedule so we had to get back on the road and press pretty hard if we were going to make it to the motel by dark.  Here is a nice view near Gauley Bridge WV.  Hawks Nest State Park is just up the road, but we really did not have time to make it up there so we just checked out the sights here for a while and then continued south on 16.

We enjoyed our stop along the freeway so much we decided to hang out on the freeway again for a while.  You better believe I never took a nap this time, and I kept my eye on the motorcycle the whole time!

Rt. 16 is such a twisty, beautiful road.  We stopped to get some action shots of each of us going around the turns.  Here is a shot of me flying through the turn.  Boy was it fun.  I was the fastest person on the road that day.  Usually I cannot keep up with Mark, but today was just my day.  I had so much fun I wished it would never end.

Ray was really railing the Gold Wing through the turns also.  That Ring of Fire seemed to act like some kind of turbo.  I had a real hard time doing it, but I did manage to smoke even Ray with the Ring of Fire.  I could see the disapointment in Rays eyes and knew it wasn’t over.  Ray is not used to being smoked and I could tell he was not real happy about it, but he remained a gentleman.

Life is not all about mind bending speed, so as the sun set we took another break and just enjoyed the beauty around us.  Sometimes we may get a little competitive, but it is all in good fun and we all have the deepest respect for each other.  As we stood looking into the sunset we held hands with tears in our eyes and then had a great big group hug. 

All the hugging and crying made us really hungry so we found this really nice Italian place to eat.  The food was really good but it was pretty expensive.  We tried to sneak out without paying the bill but the caught us at the door.  This left us all with pretty much no money at all but we figured we would be home tomorrow so we could probably go that long without food. 

The next morning we went to Burkes Garden.  It really was a pretty place.  All surrounded by mountains it did not matter which way you looked there was a mountain in the background.  This was a place where time stood still.  A place where the town folk all know each other.  A place you do not have to lock your doors.  A place where people trusted others and strangers were treated like friends.  A place we could rob blind so we would have money to buy food on the way home.

Since nobody locks doors we were able to walk right into the church.  Ray found some cases of jelly the church was selling to raise money to help a child in town that had some kind of disease, so he stole the jelly.  We figured the sugar would give us the energy we needed to steal some gas so we could make it home.

As Ray was stealing the jelly, a kind old lady arrived.  It turns out she volunteers to clean the church every Sunday afternoon and she was a really nice lady, but we could not have her go inside and catch Ray.  Nick reacted quickly and grabbed her and stuffed her into the trunk of his Gold Wing.  We looked through the truck and unfortunately could find nothing of value.  We did siphon the gas out of her truck and filled the gas tanks of our bikes.  I would never have thought a little old lady could make so much noise, but she was a feisty one!  We told her to calm down, we were not going to hurt her we just wanted to steal all her stuff.

We told Ray to hurry up.  He found the collection plate and stuffed all the money in his pocket.

Ray high tailed it to the bikes and we got out of town.

Once we got to the Appalachian Trail we let the nice lady out of Nicks trunk.  We thanked her for the gasoline and showed her the direction back to town. 

With our bellies and gas tanks full it was time to raise hell again!  Ray was determined to recapture his title as the fastest rider and decided to show us all what a Gold Wing can do on a dirt road.  I figured the Vstrom would give me a hell of an advantage on the dirt road, but as you can see by the picture Ray was riding like a man possessed.  We watched in awe as Ray flew around the gravel turns dragging his knee.  It was the most impressive riding I have ever seen, and a true testimony to the versatility of a Gold Wing.  Name another motorcycle that you can ride all day in comfort, fit an old lady in the trunk, and then slide through the turns like this.

We found this beautiful lake and thought we might go swimming.

We saw these folks fishing, and when we saw the size of the fish they had hooked decided we better not swim here!  We just hung out and watched this giant fish jump over and over again and drag the pontoon boat up and down the lake.  We don’t know if they ever landed the fish.

We were almost home by now and when we found this little gas station we figured it would be a good place to rob.  Not many people around and we could steal gasoline, food, and cash all at one place.  We really did not have time to waste so this really helped keep us on schedule.

As the sun set we thought about what a great weekend we had.  We met some new friends and saw some great scenery.  I can’t wait to do it again!