Usually if we are starting a ride like this on a weekday we will knock off work a little early. Since we were only riding to the other side of Columbus on the first night I decided to put in a full day at work. This was a mistake. You can not imagine how long of a day it was! Eventually quitting time came around and I made it home in record time. Can you believe Skidplate was not home yet? OK, no big thing, I still have a little bit of packing to do anyway. Skidplate got home just as I was finishing packing and all appeared to be well.
As she was in the house rounding some stuff up I looked up at the sky. The sky was turning dark. Not just a little dark, I mean it was getting DARK. The first stop was going to be Salsitas for my traditional end of the week mexican dinner, and I sure did not want to have to put on rain gear for the 5 minute ride to Salsitas, so I lit a fire under Skitplates ass and told her we had to get on the road! We ended up making it there before the rain, and lucky for us the rain blew through while we ate. The kids called us to say there was golf ball size hail in the area, but luckily we were dry!
We would not stay dry for too long. We hit rain again in Akron. We rode for a while hoping to ride through it, but I eventually decided that was not going to happen so we pulled over to put on rain gear. As usually happens the rain ended about 5 minutes after we got back on the road!
The next morning we got a semi-early start at 7:30. We made pretty good time and were able to eat breakfast at a Waffle House in Florence, Kentucky. Mark has taught me to appreciate the Waffle House, and I have turned Skidplate into a Waffle House believer also! You know just about every single thing on their menu is fried so how can you go wrong with that?
Why is she smiling? Waffle House
The freeway droning continued throughout the day and our next long stop was in Clinton, Tennessee where we stopped at the local Arbys. I have to say I love the whole 5 for $5.95 thing. My standard order is curly fries, milkshake, cheese sticks, and then two Arbys melts with the cheese on the side. I really don’t like cheese on an Arby sandwich so I get the cheese on the side and dip my fries in it. It’s just another survival mechanism I have developed on the road. Skidplate got a chicken salad and asked if there was anything strange in it and the girl at the counter said the only strange thing in it was eggs. I told her I thought it was interesting that their salad allowed you to eat a chicken in all stages of her life and for some reason she thought this was a weird thought. Hey – I wasn’t the one who decided to put the chicken embryos in their salad!
The weather was really hot and the heat was taking its toll on us. I really think it is harder to ride in extreme heat than it is to ride in extreme cold. With the cold you can start layering up but there is not much you can do to fight the heat. I chose a new route in this time and instead of taking 129 all the way in we turned off on 321 and took it to the Foothills Parkway. This is probably the route I will always take from now on. It is only slightly further and it sure makes for a much nicer ride. I think it was also a little cooler than it would have been to take 129 the whole way also.
There was quite a bit of traffic on 129 when we hit it so we sat there a little while waiting to pull out. Once there was a break I started pulling out and took a quick look in the mirror and guess what was behind us? Tennessee Highway Patrol. He turned left onto the Gap right behind us. What a bummer. All this riding and now I have an escort for my first run though? Ok, I figure it is no big deal, I don’t want to run it too fast the first time anyway and I am tired so it won’t be so bad having him follow. This is when I discover how slow 30MPH really is. I was really trying, but it was so hard to keep it below 30. I just could not handle the stress so when we got to the overlook I pulled over so he could go past. By the end of the weekend I was getting pretty used to seeing them because throughout both days there was usually three of them spread throughout the road. They did not seem to be hassling anybody and I never heard of them giving out any tickets so this really did not impact the weekend at all. The only citation I heard of was given out in North Carolina and the guy that got the ticket was going well over 100MPH, so you really can’t expect them to overlook something like that!
This will be a nice place to hang out on those “rainy days”
We checked into my room and sitting right there on the pillow was my new T-shirt! Thank goodness the air conditioning was already running and the room was cool and comfortable! Skidplate hit the bed and took a nap as soon as we were unpacked, but I had to hit the road. I ended up making two runs out and back. Traffic was so heavy it was unreal. On this first day I actually saw a giant box van that was held up by a couple of guys on Harleys! Now I don’t want to sound like a Harley basher, but Deals Gap is just not the place to ride a Harley. They are just not in their element on Deals Gap. What I don’t understand is why is it that so many of these riders will not let people pass? I just hate following a guy who wobbles at 10MPH through the turns and then as soon as he leaves the turn goes WFO. What is the point of that?
Here is a view of the new store
I did not get back from my second run before the restaurant closed so we decided to go into Robbinsville for some pizza at Papas Pizza. We got what the call a hundred pounder. It is supposed to have a pound of cheese on it and 100 pieces of pepperoni. The girl who made it was very proud of the fact that she managed to fit 127 pieces on it and said it was her personal record. This is a pretty good pizza place and I probably visit it at least once every time I go down there. While we were eating pizza it was raining like crazy at the Gap so we lucked out on the rain again!
Sunday I woke up early and did my usual sunrise run. This time I planned ahead and filled a Gatorade bottle with coffee and sat up at the overlook and drank my coffee. I’ll tell you what, there is nothing that will get you up in the morning like a pass on the gap followed by 24 ounces of strong coffee.
Sunrise at the overlook
Once Skidplate woke up we headed to the store for breakfast. As usual I had pancakes. The only bummer was that they stopped serving butter and replaced it with margarine. Any day of the week pancakes with margarine is better than no pancakes at all, but I sure do prefer real butter on my pancakes.
By the time breakfast was over the place was in full swing. There were so many bikes it was unbelievable. During the day is was next to impossible to get a good run in. This lead to a lot of people taking chances and making dangerous passes. Much of the slower traffic would not make room for faster traffic and a lot of the sportbike guys were riding pretty recklessly. This led to quite a few accidents. A lot of times you will hear people saying that the slow people cause the problems. Probably even more often I hear people say it is the fast people that cause the problems. The truth is speed really does not have anything to do with it. The people who cause problems are the ones who do not ride with courtesy for others. It is the slow people who make it harder than it needs to be to go around them. It is the fast guys who choose bad places to pass and don’t give others enough room. Usually these people are in the minority at Deals Gap but on this trip they were the majority. There were only a handful of people who waved me around the entire weekend. I followed a woman on a Harley who was obviously a new rider but she was doing a pretty good job. She was going pretty slow but she was keeping it in her lane and all in all doing a good job. When I came up behind her she tried so hard to move to the side and let me by it made me feel bad. I wished I could tell her not to worry about it so much, that I would get around eventually when it is reasonably safe and to just concentrate on riding. She is one of the good guys and someday she will be an excellent rider.
At just about every pull off there were people taking pictures
Monday I put in some more sunrise riding before the zoo opened. Monday was just as crazy as Sunday was, maybe even a little worse. The plan was to ride the Cherohola and once we reached the end just start heading home. I said I wanted to get one quick pass in before we left and it was a terrible ride. I never stopped at the overlook but going out and back took an hour and a half. This is a long time to cover 20 miles. I got caught in a parade of about 40 vehicles on the way back and these “squid boys” kept catching up with our parade and they were just so geeked up about getting past the parade it was unbelievable. I waved them all around me because I really did not want them behind me, but they really thought they were going to make it around all 40 vehicles. I am not all that fast of a rider but if I have more than 4 or 5 in front of my I pretty much figure passing is out of the question. I don’t care how fast you are there is no way you are going to get past 40 vehicles on that road in 5 miles. Just not gonna happen without taking extreme risks with your life and everyone else’s.
Once up on the Cherohola the traffic was light and the riding was great. That sure is one pretty road. I can’t understand why some guys like to go up there and tear it up at 100MPH. Thats what Deals Gap is for. The Cherohola is for looking at the mountains and enjoying a nice cruise. At the end of the Cherohola we stopped at the Cascades Riverside Grill. I got a very excellent ham and cheese sandwich and Skidplate got some kind of crazy salad which was also very excellent. The service was great and the scenery was awesome. This will be a regular stop for me from now on.
Cascades Riverside Grill and the Bisto
The view from the restaurant
The Salad
By now it was beginning to get a little late so we needed to start heading home. We took 67 up to the freeway and then hopped back on 75 until we got to Georgetown, Kentucky. We spent the night at Motel 6 right at exit 129! I think that is a fitting place to stop to and from Deals Gap. It really is not too bad of a ride from Georgetown to home so we were able to sleep in a little bit and get a little caught up on our rest. The trip home the next day was pretty uneventful but it was good to be home and off the motorcycles.
This is the final Waffle House of the trip