Chris' Ramblings

- Sunday – September 13, 2009 -

Up at 7:00am, showered and came back to the tent and made a bunch of racket so Robert and Richard would get up. They got out about 7:30am and we got to packing up.

Once the tents were packed we headed about a mile down the road to hit the all you can eat breakfast buffet. Five bucks. Can you go wrong?

Breakfast takes about 10 minutes to woof down but for some reason we sat around for another half hour. We headed across the street to top off the tanks before we got back on the parkway. Another late start this morning. It was about 10:30 by the time we actually started going anywhere. This was really starting to irk me. Once on the parkway we headed south and I jumped out front. Our only real scheduled stop for today was Mabry Mill. It’s the most photographed place on the parkway and the last two times I’d been down this way I just blew by for one reason or another. Last night when we were talking with Bob he let us know to take the trail around the property and it was a good tip indeed. The whole property has been restored. Not only the mill and it’s inner workings but all the outbuildings as well.

After we were done at the mill it was time to put on some miles. I was out front and eventually got out of radio range so I decided to pull over at an overlook so we could regroup. The stop had a small building you could walk out but most of the view was obstructed. However they did have examples of several types of fences on display. That was kind of interesting.

Back down the road until I lost everyone again. Time to pull off and wait again.

Back on the road…

Time to pull over again. It was a little after 1:30 and we had to weigh our lunch options. We doubled back to a visitor center to ask about the closest places to get something to eat. We had food if need be, but it would be nice to sit in the air conditioning for an hour or so.

This section of the parkway is actually carved right into the mountain..

We ended up eating at a biker bar just off the parkway. It was Sunday afternoon so the place was packed. But, we didn’t really have any options at this point. The food was ok. By this point it was beyond hot. I made sure to take all the liners out of my riding pants before we left. There was no chance of rain and it was getting oppressive riding with the rain liners in.

Back on the road we rode for a while then I pulled over at an overlook called “The Lump”. I took a couple photos, but Robert and Richard wanted to hike to the top of “The Lump” Have fun with that. It was about 85° and the hill was a lot steeper than the pictures make it out to be.

Back on the road. A quick hop on the highway to top of the tanks. Richard thought he was going to run out of gas before we found a station. A detour off a closed section of the parkway didn’t help.

Now Richard had a full tank so we were good for another 100 miles or so. I can easily go 225-250 miles on a tank so I didn’t get gas when we stopped. I might regret that later.

The only other scheduled stop we had before the campground was the Linn Cove Viaduct. Essentially it’s a bridge over a section of land that was not government owned. The landowner did not want to sell so this was the result. The best place to see the viaduct is to do a google image search as there is really not a whole lot to see at the bridge itself, especially with all the vegetation this time of year.

Here’s a nice photo, but not what we saw on our trip.

The visitor center was closed, but these signs are posted along the parkway. I need one for the garage.

OK, so it’s 6:30 now and we’ve got about 45 more miles to go before camp. Richard is nowhere to be found. Robert tries to call him and text him to no avail.

We sat around for about half an hour until Richard finally came back out from the woods. Back on the road to camp. At this point it was getting too dark to take any pictures so I just put my head down and rode to camp. Lot’s of deer on the sides of the road but I was surprised to see so many turkeys also. The turkey’s are also huge! They easily stand 3 feet high if not more. Monsters!

We got into camp as the sun was setting and setup in the dark. We got a fire going and sat around until about 11pm. We talked about why we were getting into camp so late every day. I suggested that if we actually got moving early in the day it would set us up to do more during the day and get to camp at a reasonable hour. They agreed and our plan was to get up at 7am and be on the road by 8am. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Click Here for Day 4.

Tags: Motorcycles

This entry was posted by cablebandit on Saturday, September 26th, 2009 at 2:42 pm and is filed under Motorcycles, Road Trips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.