The first long ride of ArreSTme, eagerly awaited, got started Tuesday nite with packing, repacking, re-arranging and all that other stuff you do to make sure you're ready to leave early the following a.m.. Finally, about 11 p.m, ArreSTme was poised and ready in the garage. Her saddlebags, Ventura pack and tank bag were loaded, Delorme printouts in the map case, everything ready. I was so excited it was hard to sleep.
I woke at 4:30, jumped in the shower, dressed in the clothes I had laid out the night before, said goodbye to the boss (acknowledged groggily) and left. After a quick stop for gas, I was on the road at 5 a.m. in darkness and Minnesota cold. And cold it was; 35F when I left and it didn't get above 55F until I was well into southern Illinois, so I spent most of the first day in jeans, heavy wool socks, GoreTex-lined boots, Aerostitch Darien pants, polypropylene long-sleeve undershirt, flannel-wool shirt, heavy leather jacket, Hein Gerricke full winter gloves (and still my hands were cold).
My route took me down the Mississippi river road on the WI side to Lacrosse, then over to MN side, down the river to Dubuque Iowa, across Iowa to the Quad Cities, then onto the slab through Illinois and Kentucky and in to Nashville TN to join up with Claude Hill. After a numbing though enjoyable first day, I bedded down at a motel 25 mi. north of Mt. Vernon, IL at about 7pm. First day = 14 hours (lots of stops) 650 miles.
Second day (Thursday): Much warmer weather this day, light socks and no wool shirt, and the liner comes out of the jacket. Got on the road at 6 a.m. Crossed the remainder of IL and Kentucky and into Nashville on the slab (how I hate it!) Averaged about 85mph when running. One near miss with John Law in Kentucky. As I came down a long hill at 90+, he pulled out of his median hidey hole about 1/4 mile in front of me with his lights flashing and proceeded to pull over another errant lawbreaker, sparing me in the process. Needless to say, I was down to the limit before I passed him. (whew!)
After fighting the Nashville "I can beat you to lunch" crowd on the freeways, I got to Claude's house about 11 a.m.
Claude was packed and ready to go, so we left shortly and went east on the crazy slab (I-40) for just a little while then took a fine jaunt through the south Tennesee countryside and over the Smokey mountains, stopping enroute to indulge in a Tennesee specialty for lunch (barbequed pulled pork(no wisecracks, please)) Mmmm, good..
(For a description of our route, see Claude's excellent post from yesterday)
Claude and I overnighted at a Motel in Cherokee, indulged in local buffet, and walked through the tribal casino just long enough to observe that it's totally electronic, and thus, not to our liking...
Friday, and on to EaSTOC... Rain and fog describe Friday. We had intended to ride to Cruso on the BRP, and started out to do so, but after ducking in and out of fog, and partway up the mountain, we dived into the underside of the cloud cover. After a brief conference, we agreed that we didn't want the last thing we saw in our lives to be the flying W on the front end of a Winnebago coming out of the cloud... So, we proceeded back down the mountain and had a nice ride through Maggie Valley and Waynesville, arriving at the BRPCG at roughly 9:30 in the a.m.
After getting settled, we headed over to the pavilion to meet the other early arrivals, Brad(95 ST-A pulling a camping trailer) and Karen(93 ST) from Pennsylvania and their friends from Kentucky, who where riding twin Suzuki 800 sport bikes all tricked out with wild German fairings and full hard luggage. Karen's bike has real nifty geometrically stylized flames with purple outlines on her Candy red ST (sounds weird but is awesome looking). Later, during a break in the rain, the six of us went in to Waynesville for lunch and a beer run, figuring (correctly) that we were going to be in for "a little rain" and needing sustenance to carry us through.
(Please excuse me if I get some of these names wrong or misrecognized people, I'm going from memory here)
Back at the campground, a few more arrivals were rolling in. Pete Wells and Bill McKenna from the great nordeast, Tim Moore from Chicago came back from a day ride, Dick Chambers (SC) and Fred Applegate (Alabama) rolled in in the afternoon, as did Ed Carter and Jim James from (SC). Robert Coats came in from Atlanta, bringing with him, on a rented ST, our long distance champ (although he cheated by flying most of the way), Bill Cruise from Hawaii. Then it started to pour again. During the rain, Ralph Paxton, with his lovely travelling companion Susan, arrived. Because he didn't gallantly give up his Aerostitch to Susan, Ralph was relatively dry while she was soaked in her fashionable HG leathers... They departed to look for a motel, to return later complaining about the high prices while setting up their tent in the rain... Susan used up all the hot water in the campground (or so she claimed) thawing out under the shower. Another arrival was Steve Stevens from Asheville (94 ST?)
After much bench racing, conversation, lies, jokes and review of recent liST threads, in addition to consumption of adult beverages, we retired for the evening. Derek Finch, not wanting to be castigated for his lack of weather control, snuck in late under cover of darkness...
Rain, estimated to be coming down at about 1 in/hour, and high winds dominated the night. It continued to pour throughout Saturday. Half dozen or so of the crazy and the Aerostitch-equipped rode out for lunch while the rest of us ate a big breakfast and waited for dinner. Several intensive seminars were given, described elsewhere, and many lies were told, while the creek continued to rise. A guy named Willie from Florida rode in, soaked, on a '93 ST, and Dick Chambers (I think) appeared out of somewhere in the oldest Aerostitch ever seen.
The high point of the day, for some of us, came when the bus bound for the South Carolina college cheerleading school crashed into the creek next to the campground and the girls, clad mostly in camp t-shirts and soaking wet, needed to be rescued. They were, as a result of our heroic efforts, all safe and highly appreciative... Unfortunately for those who went into town for lunch, they missed this part of the day's entertainment, including the part where we removed the bus from the creek with six ST's pulling together in harness. These bikes sure do have torque! Of course, we each needed a cheerleader on the back to hold the rear wheel down... :)
Saturday evening concluded with more beer drinking, discussions on the philosophy of solo silent motorcycling led by Pete Wells, and a spirited game of rock poker, during which Ralph Paxton went to the driveway a record six times to get more rocks while the lovely Susan chided him unmercifully about it. Bill Cruise and Claude Hill were the big winners. I didn't find out if Ralph ended up with rocks in his boots later or not...
Sunday dawned sunny and warm, as most packed and left for various points. Seven of us drove part of the Saturday intended route, stopping at Mount Mitchell for lunch. The BRP was wonderful, dry and with most leaves blown off, and light traffic. We parted company at Hwy 80 with several riders heading toward points north (Tim to Chicago) and south (the SC gang headed south). Unfortunately, Derek had a mini-crash while stopping at the side of the exit on very uneven road surface and a great mound of wet grass and leaves. He was stopping in order to give me a set of driving instructions for the Saturday route no one had taken. After picking up the plastic, righting his bike, and giving him some Advil, I left to complete the Saturday ride, alone on Sunday. Thus I have bragging rights being the only one to complete the EaSTOC planned ride :)
And a great ride it was at that. Derek and Gene had laid out a fantastic 200+ mile trip through the Carolina and Tennessee countryside, past rivers and creeks up and down mountains, through twisties, great high speed sweepers and long open straights. Absolutely no traffic and great roads! Thanks Gene and Derek! Save the sheets on this one for next time, eh?
I concluded the evening in Waynesville at Maxines American grill, consuming a New York steak and Ceasar salad accompianied by a nice house Merlot, with a great carrot cake for dessert, then retired to the now mostly deserted campground.
Monday, going home day, began once again with rain. I headed back through Maggie Valley and down the Smokey Mountain parkway through rain and fog. Thankfully my Darien pants and a good pre-trip dose of Scotchgard for Leather on my jacket kept me real dry inside. I headed for the fabled Deal's Gap, determined to take on the Dragon in the rain if necessary. Thankfully it cleared around the time I was going by the Fontana Dam (scene of the leap in The Fugitive movie) although it was still cold. I reached Deal's Gap store, bought the requisite T-shirt, refilled my Ron Majors water bottle, and headed for the Dragon...
Deal's Gap is, quite simply, a gas!!! If you haven't ridden it, do it soon before someone makes it illegal. Nirvana for twistie lovers, it is 318 mountain curves in 11 miles, and I think they didn't count the small ones. Doing it like I did, on a Monday morning, has to be the best, no traffic to speak of, except a few other bikers... Every other turn has skid marks on it, testifying to the need for speed control. Take your time, have fun, and it's safe...
>From there, I rode north to I 40 then got on the hated slab for 6 miles or so and off again, to ride north on a series of country roads until I reached a heavenly road called TN Hwy 52, recommended to me by Claude Hill (Thanks Claude!). This neat road twists and turns and sweeps across the northern part of TN and is one of the scenic gems of the USA.
Somewhere north of Nashville, I headed into KY and got on the KY Tollway. The tollways in KY (called Parkways) are to be highly recommended as they have low tolls, almost no traffic, great road conditions and very few cops. After KY I headed to Illinois and the slab for a few miles to Mount Vernon. 650 miles on the day including Deals gap, and only about 100 miles on the hated Interstate :)) Motel 6 in Mt Vernon for the night.
Tuesday, last day: Got off to a late start, 7:30, drove 20 miles on the slab then off for the whole day until getting to the Twin Cities. I crossed all of Illinois on two lane state highways and country roads until I got to Dubuque Iowa, then north through southern WI on US61 to LaCrosse. This was a stunning part of the trip. Late afternoon, warm, the sun shining, fabulous fall colors. The only sore point was a vicious south wind which was particularly strong crossing over some plateaus while eastbound. Going north it was a nice tailwind. Crossed the Mississippi into MN and headed up the river road through Winona, Wabasha, Lake City (dark now) and finally into St. Paul and the normal evening zaniness on the cityslabs. Arrived to the welcome of my cats about 9:30 p.m. (Total mileage 701, about 50 on the ugly big roads)...
Summary (finally, eh?): ArreSTme performed with no problems, for almost 3000 miles. I met a fantastic bunch of people, put faces to names, and made (I hope) some new friends. One thing about the rain, we had a lot of time to get to know each other. I found, once again, the joys of long range solo riding. I slew the Dragon. I found out I could never be an Iron Butt rider because I hate freeways so much. And, I proved to myself that I had chosen the greatest all-round Sport Touring platform on earth, the ST1100. Thanks, ArreSTme! Special thanks also to Claude Hill for being such a gracious host and tour guide, and thanks to Gene F. (get well soon Gene!) and Derek Finch (get well soon Derek!) for putting together this great gathering. See you next at NESTOC?
-- Best Regards, Don ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Don Feyma ddfeyma@sprynet.comon ArreSTme ('96 ST1100) Let's Go Ride, eh? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~