S76
Well-known member
Left Ct. on Sunday with two buds’s to get our last long ride in before winter. We were going to do the Blue Ridge Parkway to Deals Gap, play there for a day and head back. Sunday was showers all day and we just slabbed it out to Waynesboro, the north end of the Parkway. We took the next two days riding south and eating our way to Deals Gap. (We found “Fried Cheesecake”, it is to die for.) The Blue Ridge is so scenic it’s like a drive through a national forest that lasts 2 days. (I guess that’s probably because it is a national forest.) Beautiful vistas were you can see a hundred miles. Cool crisp weather. Grass all mowed on both sides of the road, miles and miles of split rail fences and one sweeper right after another with some very tight turns intermixed. Way over a dozen tunnels boring holes through the mountain rock with most of them being curved. Breathe taking really. We spent the next day playing at the Gap, pulling a Harley Sportster out of the ditch, almost getting hit head on by a sports bike passing on a curve, and of course, eating one of the best hamburgers you ever had, at the Gap restaurant. The next day it’s time to head home and my bud’s want to go back on the highway due to some weather threats. I can’t handle the thought of 2 days of slab, so I elect to go it alone and head back up the parkway. I know the weather is closing in in the PM but I figure I’ll just ride till it looks bad and find a place to crash till it blows through. So I get out of Robbinsville before 07:00 and press on Northward. I stop only when absolutely necessary and keep the wheels turning. Fuel, aspirin for my sore butt, coffee and keep going. I’m not traveling fast, just 10 over the posted 45 MPH, as I received my performance certificate on the way down and a second one in 3 days would really be frowned upon by the park rangers I’m told. By noon the sky is sunny and I refused to believe this day’s weather could turn bad as predicted. By 3:00 PM I am starting to see the “Severe Thunderstorms” they predicted. Rain gear in place I press on. The wind is now substantial blowing the bike around on the road. Rain is moderate. I press on because at the rate I’m going I should make Waynesboro in one day instead of two. Cool! Should be there by 7:00 PM. Then, all of a sudden, the road is covered with chopped up wet green leaves. Not just covered, but about 2 inches thick! What the heck did that? I slow and press on. A mile into this I notice there is white mixed in. Then piles of white! HAIL! WOW! About the size of cranberries, and the road and the sides of the road are all white 2 inches deep. Then the leaves run out because there happens to be no tree cover in this spot of road and I’m on 2 inches of frozen hail. I thought it would be slushy but it was frozen hard. The bike rides on top of it, in the rain. I can picture my side bags as I continue driving. They are cracked and broken, the top case is sprung and one corner is cracked through. I picture them this way because I know it is only a mater of time before I go down. But there’s no place to stop in the middle of nowhere on top of some mountain. So I press on, about 15 MPH riding on frozen hail in the rain. The parts that had leaves mixed in were not as slippery. The fog rolls in and now it’s starting to get dark. Then it clears a little and is just wet for few miles, then back to the same situation. Well, you just can’t get a hotel anywhere you want on the Parkway. You have to wait for the next exit and drive to a nearby town to find a hotel. After about and hour of 20 MPH slipping and sliding I was able to get off and find a hotel, from which I write this. I’m cold, soaked, and have the room heater and hair dryer on full blast trying to dry out all my stuff. This was quite an adventure, and in some strange way, I enjoyed it. And to think I laughed at that brand new rear Avon tire with its “tractor” like tread, and the ABS system that is obviously for people that can’t drive. Well let me tell you, I sure am glad I had them both.
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. I decided to take my Goldwing rather than the FJR on the trip because of all the amenities/set-up on the wing. I left the Microtel Inn an hour after he did and headed back to route 81 E to CT. I made it to Willks-Barre PA about 6:30 PM ..the sky opened up, it was raining harder than I have ever seen it rain...there was lightening striking around me and I could not see the lines in the road because it got so dark with the heavy rain. I was listening to the truck drivers on my CB and they thought the guy on the motorcycle should stop because they were stopping because they could not see...that is how bad it was. I put on my 4 way flashers, was crawling down the road and spotted a green sign that I could not read and pulled off the highway. It happened to be Wilkes-barre PA and there was a Hilton at the bottom of the ramp. I pulled under their portico and it felt good to get out of the rain. I walked into the entrance and got their floor wet from the rain dripping off of me...they followed me around with towels mopping up the floors after me. I took a hot shower to warm up and got a good nights rest and left about 10:30 the next morning after the rain had passed through there. It only took me 2 1/2 hours to get home to Farmington CT. If I had not hit that rain storm that night I would have made it home in the same day I left Microtel which would have been about 14 hours.
