10-10-12 Wednesday
In the interests of self preservation, I decided to cook breakfast this morning. I don't like my food quite as well done as David seemed to like his.
The bikes were still fairly clean after yesterday's ride but I went out and did a quick wipedown of the windshields and the snouts. I discovered the GoldWing had a seriously leaking left front fork seal. It had been leaking for some time, but the GW covers up most of its mechanicals so it had gone unnoticed.
David had also mentioned the day before that Dad was riding his brakes. Dad never rides his brakes, that is one of his pet peeves. I remembered that SkooterG had a sticking rear brake pedal in that Darkside thread, so I checked that. Score another hit for the FJR forum. Dad produced a small bottle of gun oil (what else would it be?) and we lubricated the shaft as best we could. Voila! Yes, I know, go ahead and say it. There is nothing like a well lubricated shaft...
I started to discuss the day's plan with Dad and David, but David cut me off. "You do one thing different from yesterday, I'll kill you." By God, I really think he was serious.
We headed east on 143, turned onto hwy 28 and headed toward Great Smoky Mtns National Park. In my happiness I had forgotten how popular this place is with the "Leaf Lookers". I had never seen the park so full of cars. We never, ever did the speed limit, no one was moving. Traffic was heavy in both directions. There was cloud cover but we were hoping it would burn off. My plan was to ride up from the South, turn around at the Cade's Cove Visitor Center and head back south. I wanted to turn off and make the ride up to Clingman's Dome.
As we climbed the clouds got closer. Then we were inside the clouds and could not see past the front of the car in front of us. Then that car pulled over and I found myself following, and I swear I am not making this up, a 2007 Harley CVO Ultra, pulling a trailer. The bike was blue on blue instead of red on black and the trailer was slightly different. You poor bastard, I thought. He rode very smoothly in spite of the fact that his wife was pointing out stuff that we could barely see in the fog.
The road to Clingman's Dome was completely invisible when we passed it. I did not find that ascent to be very inviting with that limited visibility.
Have you ever ridden 441 through that park? There is a curve sign that has the arrow making a complete 360 loop and continuing. The first time I saw this, my brain could not wrap itself around this concept. When we finally hit the tunnel I remember feeling like a fool. I would have enjoyed this curve tremendously except that we were going so slowly the Harley I was following did not even drag anything. Not his fault, the traffic was that bad.
We pulled into the parking lot and it was full. I mean so full that cars were sitting waiting on parking spots. We found an RV spot and parked the 3 bikes together. That Harley eventually made his way around there and I motioned to him to come in behind us. When I asked him if that CVO was a 2007, he looked astonished and confused at the same time. He looked at my ST and asked, "How on earth did you know the year of that bike?" I explained about my cousin and the red Harley. He and his wife graciously allowed me to take a cell phone pic and send it to my cousin. I was amused that his first question was, how many times has he rebuilt his motor? He was not pleased with the reliability of his 110 inch motor. I helped him out with some mapping and routing questions and he headed toward the Dragon. I hope they had a good ride, they were super nice folks.
I did not want to ride up to Clingman's Dome in those clouds, plus you would not be able to see anything once you got there. My companions were in complete agreement. David was giving me a look I did not like. "You let it rain on me." was all he said. I replied that I had not. Rain, by definition is condensed water that falls from a cloud. We were in the cloud, the water was condensing on us, not falling out of the cloud. In order for it to be rain, he and his bike had to fall off the side of the mountain and
fall out of the cloud. He was unwilling to do this for some reason.
We rode back over the pass and I have to say that the very fresh and smooth asphalt with the headlights reflecting off the wet surface was the slipperiest looking thing I ever rode on. The PR2s never once felt squirrely to me. Dad told me without hesitation that his PR3s were better. He has been through 2 sets of PR2s, he should know.
The lower elevation areas of the park were quite beautiful. I was, and still am very bitter that I was not able to show David the best parts of that wonderful road.
I tried to get a little artistic with the camera, I failed:
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I know it is wrong to beat a dead horse, but looking at my pics and looking at some of the others on this forum really revealed a weakness to me. I really respect and admire the things some of you guys do here. I stepped up my game for this report, I tried some different things. I am making progress and I sure thank you guys for setting such a high standard. I know I took better pics than ever before and it is because of you and some others over on ADVRider.
David was still pretty happy with me. He was seeing things he had not known existed. I had originally planned to walk up to Mingo Falls and GeorgiaRoller was kind enough to point me in the right direction. Unfortunately, we were pressed for time and were unable to do lots of things I had really been looking forward to doing. I was getting pretty bitter over missed opportunities when Dad pointed out that Byron was not seeing any of it. I don't argue with Dad much.
I have to go on a little rant here. If you are the lead vehicle and don't want to do the speed limit, fine, that is your right. But at least have the decency to pull off and let the long line of cars behind you pass by. I sure said some mean things in my helmet until Dad started fussing at me. Then I had to just think mean thoughts. I don't like to argue with Dad. Not much anyway.
To be continued
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