A Spring Saturday Ride

What do you do when the weather is a bit chilly in the morning but will be in the upper 70s to low 80s in the afternoon?  Well, ride, silly.  I met up with the Country Roads riding group out of Wears Valley led by biker friend Dan.  Meet up was I-40 Exit 407 McDonald's for 9 a.m. departure.  I pushed Sweet Thang out of the garage at 7:55 as I needed to stop and top off the gas tank and grab a bite to eat before leaving.  Hit the Pilot station corner of Boyds Creek Rd. and TN 66.  Then road about 3 miles or so to the meet up place.  Some bikers were already there.  A good morning greeting, some I knew, some were new to me, but coffee and a breakfast burrito was calling my name.

Here's some of the bikes that made the ride today.  A bit of everything from a bunch of Harley's, a few Indians, a BMW trike, and some Hondas. 

This pretty autumn orange trike is a Honda VTX 1800.  Pretty much hand made by a guy who knew what he was doing.  Rider came out with a great looking bike and one of a kind on top of that.  

A nice bunch of folks with most near my age.  It was about 15 bikes total more or less until near the end of the ride when we split.

Left McDonald's heading north on East Dumplin Road.  Just nice rolling hills with some nice curves through the farm land.

Next we rolled into downtown Historic Dandridge, TN.  This town now sits on the edge of a very large lake.  It dates back to the mid 1700s.

We crossed the bridge which has a new bridge under construction along side it getting a nice view of Lake Douglas or at least a piece of it.

The sky was exceptionally blue today and the reflection on the water made it look almost as blue as the sky.  Where are the clouds?  Not here for sure.

From Dandridge we rode up to Newport, TN.  This highway is nice and scenic.  And this morning it was just a pleasant trip.  Very few cars to contend with.

Our ride today was something like this shown on the map.  If you take this map and attach it to the ride I made Thursday it would resemble a figure "8".  I rode back from Cherokee to Seymour today while Thursday I rode from Seymour to Cherokee.  That's the overlap of the figure 8,

A vineyard waiting on the bottles.  There are several vineyards up in this area.  And probably a "still" or two also.

Aahh, the mountains with some morning mist.  But Ole Sol will take care of the mist in just a short while.

Heading on toward Newport.

But before Newport is Chestnut Hill, home of Bush's Beans.  This is a small shot of the "beanerie".  Also referred to as the "gas plant".

When we stopped in Newport for a short break I took a closer shot of that triked out VTX.  Nice piece of work.

From Newport we headed on towards our next destination which would be Hot Springs, NC.  Plenty of Bradford Pear still blooming.

I really like this new bridge that has been installed within the last year or two.  It has a pretty design.

Then we cross over from TN to NC.

We were enjoying the scenery as well as the fresh air and the lack of other vehicles.

Spring time is coming to NC as seen here along the edge of the highway.

We curved and rolled right along, sometimes along the edge of the mountain and next along the creek.

Sometimes the creek was narrow and sometimes a little wide.  Quite often more like a ditch but the water was flowing regardless.  We stopped in Hot Springs and dined at the Smoky Mountain Diner.  They reserved the entire back porch for us.  I'm sure glad the weather cooperated or it would have been dining with jackets on.

                      NC 209 is a great motorcycle road.  And it gets a lot of use especially during the Summer and Fall.  After lunch we headed out for Maggie Valley, NC on our way to Cherokee.

We would wind through some nice big valleys and over a bunch of hills, travel by large farms with big barns and such.  The grass was nice and green, you could almost here it growing in the warm Spring sun. 

And yes, there seems to always be a nice gift shop/biker stop along many of these roads.  This was one of them.

Mountains to the right of me, mountains to the left, straight ahead I ride my faithful steed so that tonight I may rest in my bed.

Coming up on an old farmstead nestled in the folds of the mountains.

And almost as if out of nowhere up pops one of those government missile silos, one big'un and two small'uns.  I mean right out there beside the highway.  How can they fool people with these things.  Gets me nervous riding by them.  What happens if they decide to launch one when I'm right beside it.  I guess I'll just be blown around like a speck of dust.

Optics from the camera or actually curving.  Well, my cheap-o camera doesn't have optics that do this so it must curve.  And a brand new fence at that.

This is a very large farm operation.  Lots of sheds, feed storage areas, barns and their very own cattle hauling semi-tractor trailer rig.

Wild flowers make a setting for this pretty house out here in the country.  We roll through Maggie Valley to a point where we eventually turn off and hit the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Heading for the Blue Ridge.

The view from one of the turn outs on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Spring hasn't gotten to this elevation yet.

After some miles on the BRP we come to its southern end, right next to the East entrance to the Smoky Mountain National Park.  The old farmstead at Oconaluftee Visitor Center.

Some of the bikers turned left and followed Dan into Cherokee for ice cream, the rest of us turned right and headed back to TN.

Over the mountains to the Sugarland Visitor Center, left along the Little Pigeon River Rd. to Metcalf Bottoms Picnic area, through it to U.S. 321 at Wears Valley, left before Pigeon Forge (to stay out of the Rod Run traffic) and back roads to the house.  Another great day in the saddle.  Comfortable ride, not any difficulties with equipment or people, and weather that just can't be beaten.  You could not have asked for better.

The total mileage today, door to door, was 199.  This put me over the 500 mile mark for the week.  Not bad since most of it was done with two rides.  And my Phat Lady, Ms. Sweet Thang, was her gorgeous reliable self.  Here we were, a group of people that did not know each other very much, got along fine during the ride and meal, laughed and talked about anything and everything and no one, absolutely no one, shot any body.  So I ask you, What the heck is going on with all these crazy people shooting and killing each other?  I think I can answer that question.  They need to get a motorcycle.  Ride and drive safe.