Life is good when you wakeup in the morning and it is already 69 degrees and the sun is shinning. We can only hope that our fortunes continue another 10 days or so.
This morning we were also greeted with another very delicious breakfast. What did we have? Let’s see, Cantaloupe for starters followed by scrabbled eggs and pecan pancakes with a side of bacon. I also had mint green tea and orange juice. Yummy. We also meet a couple this morning from Connecticut that were in the area visiting her brother. It always fun to meet new people and hear their stories of life and adventures. The one little tidbit that I will tell you is this. He is a truck driver and he hates motorcyclist. Oops!! To clear this up a bit, he hates Sportbike riders that zoom him on the right as he is in the process trying to merge back to the right and they are doing 100+ mph. Sorry, but I must agree with that assessment. I’m not a big fan of sportbikes.
So after breakfast and after checkout, we packed our things and headed toward Bristol, TN. The first part of our ride was full of switch backs that made to order thrill ride for me and a stomach churner for Lori. One section of road named Callaway Hwy that runs into Ferrum College reminded me so much of Deals Gap it wasn’t funny. To bad it was so short at 2 to 3 miles.
Then we arrived at the road that caused Lori to reach for the aspirin, Shooting Creek road. I handed Lori the camera and asked her to film it so I could show just how rough this road is to travel. I told her Good Luck, and off we went. She did pretty good holding on with one hand while filming with the other. Apparently way back in the day, moonshiners ran this road regularly.
We finally bounced out of Shooting Creek and picked up US-58, which we followed off and on most of the day. Our next stop was Lover’s leap. There will be pictures of the overlook but the story behind it and Lori’s reaction is sort of priceless. Apparently when the White man moved into the valley below the Indians of which tribe I do not remember, were none to happy with their arrival. In time, the Chiefs daughter and one of the settlers son’s fell in love. Both sides were not pleased and refused to allow the relationship grow. So one day the couple sneaked away and climbed to highest ridge and leap to their deaths so they would be with each other forever. To which Lori replied, “I’m not so sure I loved you enough that I would have leap to my death. I might have pushed you off, but me jumping, no way!”
One last note about a particular road. US-58 running through Mount Rodgers Recreational Area, western edge, is a must do. I will be running this road again in two days and this time I hope to hit less traffic. There were to many old farts out riding Sunday in the beautiful sunshine and they were driving me crazy. Second, there were to many group riders, 8 or more, that were riding like old farts to. Rant over, back to passing on double bars when Lori is sleeping. Hehe.
So here we are in Bristol TN. and no more B&B which I will miss come morning. We are staying in a standard Hampton Inn and will be here for 5 nights. Tomorrow we will run the first leg of the cloverleaf routes laid out by Road Runner magazine that runs East to Southeast and back to Bristol. Toward the end of the run, I plan on doing a drive by of Bristol Motor Speedway just to see it. Not sure they give tours or that I will be there in a timely enough manner to take one, but I will be stopping to see it.
There are 10 pictures and 1 video in my slideshow, so if you do not have a fast internet connection, just close the tab if you do not want to watch a sample video of 1:30 minutes long.
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