RIDE WITH THE KNOBBIES - 2017

Catawaba Meadows Park - Morganton, NC
September 15 - 17 (689 miles)

Tony and I met Omar at the gas station on route 74 and 87.  Our drive to Morganton was route 74 to route 218 at Polkton around Charlotte on I-485 Outer to route 16 then I-40 to Morganton.  With a stop for lunch we arrived at 3:30.

The Knobbies provide a cooler, free ice, guided rides and plenty of picnic tables and benches under the pavilion. Showers and bathroom facilities are top notch. Included in the camping fee is one lunch or dinner from the food wagon. "World Famous" is what the sign says! 

Registration at 8th Annual Knobbies Rally

Greg and Bill setting up camp

This year the rally organizers convinced the city to provide free shuttle service to downtown Morganton on Friday and Saturday from 6 to 10 pm.  The 5 of us decided to take the shuttle to dinner.  The pick up and drop off was in front of the old courthouse.  After walking around town we went to Wisteria, a very good restaurant which sources their food from the local farmers.

Burke County Courthouse

Greg "working out" before dinner

Beautiful weather Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  Warm sunny days and cool evenings.

Early morning fog on Saturday and Sunday

We have always "ridden with the Knobbies" on their guided rides but this year we decided to do our own ride on Saturday.   We took route 181 to the Blue Ridge Parkway and went to Linn Cove Viaduct Visitor Center.   Lots of information about the viaduct which took 5 years to complete and is only 1/4 mile long.  It is a free standing structure built to protect the fragile environment of Grandfather Mountain. The sections are epoxied together and reinforced with giant steel cables.  After our visit we got to ride the motorcycles on the viaduct and continue on the Blue Ridge Parkway exiting at the Blowing Rock turnoff.  Lunch in Blowing Rock and back to the rally on route 321.

Visitor Center

 Trail to view the underside of the viaduct

Observation Point and concrete sections of Viaduct

trail to view of roadway

view of viaduct from mountain side

Blue Ridge Parkway Linn Cove pulloff

Back at the rally Deb showed me her plan to complete a 50CC ironbutt (50 hours coast to coast).   It takes a lot of planning.  Gas stops (getting time and date receipts), rest stops and one motel to get some sleep.   She is leaving September 30 from Tybee Island to San Diego.

Smiley our shuttle driver

Not only does Smiley work for the city of Morganton and drive the shuttle for us, he sings and plays guitar.  He is singing "My Daddy's Daddy's Daddy was a sawmill man".

Tony, Deb, Bill and Smiley

Napping under shade tree (note empty beer bottle)

Saturday night's entertainment was a folk singer and story teller.  He was excellent.   Right after that they drew the door prizes.  Bill left to get a shower after the entertainment and left his ticket with us.  His name was the first one called and Tony had to go up and pick his prize (a mini tire inflator kit).

Sunday morning we packed up quickly as we wanted to get home in time for Jean who was staying the night with us (I met him the previous weekend at the Pineville MOA Getaway) .  When I got on the bike to leave the battery was dead (it was acting funny on our ride Saturday) so Omar got on it and Bill and Greg pushed it down the hill and got it started.   This was the weekend for batteries going dead.  On Saturday morning Greg had to be pushed down the same hill but still needed to jump start the battery with Tony's jumper cables.

We left the rally and rode for 2 hours to Polkton which charged up the battery.  We got gas and the battery started right up.  No more trouble all the way home.  First thing after unpacking we ordered a new battery!  Jean arrived around 5pm (after getting lost ... his GPS wouldn't recognize Tarpon Drive).  Our route home is noted here so next time we will be sure of the route.  Once you get off route 77 or 16 take Inner I-485 to the second Mint Hill exit and turn right onto route 218 East.

MOA GETAWAY PINEVILLE - SEPTEMBER 2017

Pine Mountain Resort State Park - Pineville, Kentucky
September 8 - 10
(first motorcycle rally via Honda Pilot)

I left Thursday evening to drive to Becky's so we could get an early start on Friday for our 8 hour drive. Hurricane Irma was bypassing the Wilmington area on its way to the Keys.  The weather for the weekend turned out to be beautiful sun filled days.

We arrived at the lodge late afternoon in time to register, hang out and go to our lodge room before the welcome reception and dinner (hamburgers and fixings).  After checking out all the ride options for Saturday, we decided on the Courthouse Chase and a stop at the original KFC (Harlan Sanders Cafe and Museum) in North Corbin, KY.

Getting away from Irma at the MOA Getaway

Pine Mountain Resort State Park

Our room bottom floor last on left

Hi Viz K1600GT from Canada

Saturday morning at breakfast we met Jean - Guy Beaudet (Jean) who wanted to join us on our excursion.  Our destination was three Kentucky County Courthouses (Harlan, Leslie and Bell).  The roads were great, passing through the mountains and valleys of Appalachia.  We drove the Kingdom Come Parkway to Harlan.  We had to take pictures of the WWI Memorial statue and the Coal Miners Memorial.

Harlan County Courthouse and WWI Memorial

Becky and Jean at Coal Miners Memorial

On to the next courthouse in Hyden.  Pictures here were a plaque of WWI Medal of Honor Recipient Willie Sandlin and a plaque dedicated to Mothers and Babies.

Willie Sandlin

Mothers and Babies Plaque

Our next stop was at Harlan Sanders Cafe and museum.  Sanders moved to Corbin in 1930 and started a service station across the street from the present cafe.  He served meals for travelers in the back of the station at his own dining table.  In 1937 he built the Sanders Cafe which operated until  he sold it in 1956 when Interstate 75 was built and bypassed the restaurant.  It was opened as a museum in 1990.  (Listed on RoadsideAmerica.com)

The three of us opted out of having KFC for lunch and decided to have lunch at the Oven Mitt in Barbourville.

Check out the upside down lamp shades

The third courthouse on our list was back in Pineville.  We needed to take a picture of the Bell County K-9 Memorial and the Bell County Courthouse.  The plaque at the K-9 Memorial was for Sean Pursifull and his partner King who gave their life in the line of duty on January 10, 2008 when a suspect fleeing police crashed his car into the police cruiser.

Bell County Courthouse

K-9 Memorial

Pine Mountain State Park was only a couple miles down the road but Becky and I were not finished for the day.  We left Jean at the entrance to the lodge and continued on the road to Lookout Point and the trail to Chained Rock.

View of Pineville from Pine Mountain

 It is a half mile downward climb to see Chained Rock.  The story of the chain rock:  above the town of Pineville there are 2 boulders chained together to keep them from crashing down on the town and destroying it.  The chain weighing 3,000 pounds and 100 feet long was brought up by pack mules and boy scouts!!  This is also on RoadsideAmerica.com.

Now the climb to the top of the rock (a narrow, steep and winding trail) to where the chain is anchored and then brought across to the "falling" rock.

CONGRATULATIONS! we made it

Beautiful View!

What goes down must come up.  Now the climb back up the mountain to the parking lot.  We got back just in time to have Nancy see our pictures for the courthouse contest and get ready for the buffet dinner.  Nancy and Bill hosted this MOA Getaway and after dinner presented many door prizes and two grand prizes (a one way bike transport given by BikeHaul and a free admission to next years Getaway).  Nancy asked me to draw the winning names for the door prizes and amazingly one of the names I drew was mine ... a MOA wine glass.  We all got goody bags when we registered which included a t-shirt and a MOA  bag.

RA RALLY PETOSKEY - July 2017

Emmet County Fairgrounds - Petoskey, Michigan
July 2 - 11 (2,469 Miles)

Day 1 - Left the house at 7am destination Wytheville, Virginia

Day 2 -  Wytheville,Virginia to Hawks Nest State Park Lodge, West Virginia.  Today was a short day, 2 1/2 hours riding time. We went to the New River Gorge Bridge Visitor Center and drove the motorcycles on the Fayetteville Station Road tour which took us under the New River Gorge Bridge and around narrow one-way roads with a few hairpin turns and two short wooden bridges.

Fayetteville West Virginia

Lunch at the Cathedral Cafe in historic Fayetteville

Our stop for the night was Hawks Nest State Park Lodge.  Tony and I took the aerial Tram from the lodge to the New River.

View from our room of the aerial tram and New River

New River and railroad bridge

Later in the afternoon Jerry joined us.  The lodge and rooms were great including a swimming pool and beautiful views from our room.  The negative part was the dining room was not operating due to no chef or restaurant management.  This carried over to the breakfast included with the room ... no breakfast as no food arrived from the supplier.  Earlier that day a bracket broke on Tony's windshield.  Once the windshield was removed Jerry broke out the JB weld and the bracket was temporarily attached together.

Day 3 -  Hawks Nest State Park Lodge, West Virginia to Defiance, Ohio.  It was raining when we got up but the forecast was for clearing around 9am.  When the rain stopped, Jerry and Tony put the windshield on and temporarily (turns out that was the fix for the whole trip) supported it with a stick and a bungee cord.

Hawks Nest Lodge

Temporary road fix that lasted the entire trip.

The rain started again when we set out and continued until we reached Charleston.  Jerry went to Dayton and we went to Defiance Ohio.  A long day, 8 hours, but the weather was low 80s and the roads were marvelous.  Our route for the day was 60 to Charleston, 77 to Ohio 33, 117, 115 and 15 to Defiance.  Beautiful country roads in Ohio!

Day 4 - Defiance, Ohio to Petoskey, Michigan.  Long day because of GPS malfunctions and clutch problems.  Good ride on 127 (when we figured it out) and Michigan 131 with a speed limit of 75.  We are staying at a very nice Days Inn next to the fairgrounds.  From the hotel we took a walk to Little Traverse Bay.

Little Traverse Bay

Dinner at Villa Restorante Italiano - the restaurant herb garden

We had 9pm reservations!

Day 5 - First project of the day was to drive to Conway Michigan (about 6 miles) and buy mineral oil to change the clutch fluid.  Luckily the motorcycle shop services KTMs which also use mineral oil as clutch fluid. Next stop was to register for the rally and set up the tent before driving to Ellsworth to visit our friends Pat and Karol (about 40 minutes from the rally).

Rally Registration - fully loaded with our camping gear!

Emmet County Fairgrounds

A trip to Walmart of buy chairs we couldn't carry on bike

Finding our friends house was a bit of a challenge since you couldn't see the house from the road.  It took several passes to narrow down where it was. After a tour of their beautiful house with wall to ceiling living room windows overlooking Lake Ellsworth we all got in the car and drove to East Jordon where they treated us to lunch.  After lunch we had a tour of the 15 acre property in the mule.

The Mule

Back at the rally I found Bill and Nancy in their hi-viz club shirts

Day 6 - Spent time at the vendors (bought t-shirt) and Bill and Nancy drove over to the fairgrounds. Jerry and Tony changed the fluid in the clutch and at 2pm we all (Jerry, Bill, Nancy, Craig, Tony and Jill) drove through the Tunnel of Trees to Cross Village and lunch at Leggs Inn.

Leggs Inn created by Stanley Smolak a polish immigrant in 1921.  The Inn sits on the shore of Lake Michigan and features driftwood, and stones from Lake Michigan.  The menu is authentic polish food.

Sunset Park on way back from Leggs Inn

Friday Night Band

Day 7 - Day to relax at the rally, saw Deb and Bill Gasque who are continuing on to Utah Rally.  Went to the vintage bike display and met Jim Reiner, the coordinator.  One of his sidecars rigs was a 1941  2 x 3 German military BMW. Both the rear wheel and the sidecar wheel are connected to the drive shaft. This vehicle was designed to operate on pavement as well as dirt roads and fields. This was the first GS BMW. GS means Gelande/Strasse, off road/road.  I went for a ride in another of his vintage side car rigs.  My first time in a sidecar ... great fun!  We met so many great people at this rally.  Went for a short ride to get Michigan black cherries and have lunch, then back to take down the tent and get ready for the closing ceremonies.  We spent the night back at the Days Inn.  To our surprise we had a room with a jacuzzi.  Cherries, wine, cheese and a jacuzzi ... its starting to rain, glad not to be camping.

Deb, Bill, Jill, Tony, Nancy, Bill

Jacuzzi Days Inn Petoskey

Day 8 - Petoskey, Michigan to Bellefontaine, Ohio.  Left at 7am with a little drizzle then a beautiful day for the rest of the ride.  The route was Petoskey back to the town of Fort Defiance, this time stopping at the site of Fort Defiance a 1794 fort at the confluence of the Auglaize and Maumee Rivers.  It was the westernmost fort during the Indian Wars.

A stop at the site of Fort Defiance

Auglaize and Maumee Rivers

Another hour and half to our stop for the night, Bellefontaine, Ohio.  I went to the courthouse in the town of Bellefontaine (where I had been on GOBA in 2011)  and to the oldest concrete street in America.

Bellefontaine courthouse

Statue of George Bartholomew who patented the process for making concrete

Day 9 - Bellefontaine, Ohio to Mount Airy, North Carolina.  We took a different route in Ohio than on the way up ... US-33 around Columbus on I-270, US-23, US-35 into West Virginia, I-64 and I-77.  Left at 7am again, got through Columbus with rain threatening then rain (sometimes heavy) until the border.  As we crossed the bridge on the Ohio River to West Virginia the sun came out ... Welcome to West Virginia wild and wonderful!  Got to Mt. Airy around 3:30 and found a newly renovated Quality Inn with a big swimming pool.  For dinner we could walk across the road to Ruby Tuesday and had a steak for our last night on the road.

Day 10 - Straight drive home ... 5 hours, home at 12:30.