May 2012 Day 5 Peg Scraper !

I only laid out just over 200 miles today tweaking the Road Runner route with some of my own. We began by swinging through the heart of Bristol, Va. and I was not over impressed. Looked kind of run down to me, but maybe I was just in the wrong part of town. Most older towns have started rebuilding and refurbishing there older buildings but like I said, I saw none of that here.

Leaving Bristol behind us we meander through the countryside on 2 lane and 4 lane highways. We slide by a very pretty and un-built on lake, (Homes),  named Watauga Lake that also looked like glass. You could tell most humans had to work because no one was out playing. Approaching the US-321 detour that I knew was there because of Gary Mace, I followed the signs instead of my backup route. Damn, that means I do not know if I could have snuck around that detour my way. The detour took me up to Mountain City, down US 421 to rejoin my route and though it wasn’t to exciting, it sure was pretty.

The first thrill of the day came right off 421 onto Hwy 194. I was a little disappointed in that right before I turned onto the route a pickup truck hauling mowers turned just in front of me. After the second turn, the wave around with a thumbs up and off I went. Weeee! Some of the switch backs had me down to first gear, rear brake dragging, clutching feeding power while we were climbing uphill. There was at least three back to back switch backs with speeds no faster than 10-15 mph. This road led us to Banner Elk which had it’s own airport lining the side of the road. There was a G5 seating 15 feet from the edge of the road as we swung by. Someone has got money. It did make me wonder what the big attraction was that was drawing the money into town.

Leaving Banner Elk we once again were just floating around on two lane roads soaking up the scenery. Eventually we came into a small town named Bakersville. We picked up route 226 that went into 197 and ended in Erwin. This is where I lost metal on the road several times. This was an all out hoot for me and even Lori noticed that I enjoyed this road immensely. Not very often do I blow a corner, but on one of these tight decreasing radius curves, I found myself scooting me rubber onto the yellow line while scraping 20 to 30 feet through the right-hander. After this, I made sure that my setup to the corner was always furthest outside, swinging inside to give myself a little extra time to read that corner.

Leaving Erwin, it was a long grinding boring run in the heat back to Bristol. The only other highlight was that scooted past the Bristol Motor Speedway. I checked their website last night before bed and I already knew tours had been cancelled because of new construction. Closing our evening off tonight was a visit to O’Charlies for a steak dinner. The rolls and steaks our always awesome here. I’m a rib-eye fan, so give it a try someday.

Tomorrow we head due north out of Bristol in sure of my fine roads. We will also visit Breaks Park which looks very cool. Today we broke through the 1000 mile mark so far on this trip. I think that I’m also averaging about 32 mpg while playing and still pulling the trailer. In case you didn’t know, while I’m out playing on all these roads, I’m still pulling a trailer. Still having fun, but I know it would much more of a thrill on a Brand New 1600GTL BMW. Oh Lori!!!

One more thing I want to mention. In the pictures there are 3 pictures from a Baptist church in a town that I cannot for the life of me, remember the name. But what stood out, and I do not want to give it away, is how they did something in the front of their church and built it into the permanent structure of the building. I thought it was very well done.

Pictures of the Day