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| Parked at the Wheels Through Time Museum |
I was up at 6:00 but there were low clouds and fog, so no chance of sunrise photos. I showered and got dressed anyway, then sat out on the back deck listening to Grant's memoirs and enjoying the cool air.
At 7:30 I pulled out yesterday's left over french toast. I used it to make an egg in a frame. Then I also cooked 2 over easy eggs to put on top. A bit of maple syrup and I had one of my favorite breakfast tastes. I love the runny yolk and syrup.
Yesterday Nan said she wanted a day off of riding so we knew that was coming. Karen had a bad night's sleep and decided not to ride, and Angela decided to join them on. So women were going shopping and men were going riding.
We picked our destination as the Wheels Through Time museum. I guess there was a TV show by the same name and this museum is his legacy. The museum didn't open until 10:00 and it was an hour away, so we waited until after 9:00 to leave.
I wanteded to do a timelapse video of the ride out from our house to the highway. It's 3 miles and many sharp turns, but I've never bothered filming or timing it. It took right at 10 minutes which surprised everyone.
We headed east on the highway, then turned south on another highway. Finally after 20 minutes we turned onto a small road that twisted through the trees. I looked down to check the temperature and saw it was 68, so I asked on the intercom if they had their heated gear on. "Yessir, and it's running nice and warm" was my reply.
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| Nice roads |
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| More nice roads |
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| I love tree lined roads |
As with the last 3 days, the roads were well maintained and the views were beautiful. We had very little traffic. The joking on the intercom continues to be one of the highlight, but most of the joking is so situation that it wouldn't translate well into the blog, so you'll just have to use your imagination.
We arrived in Maggie Valley just after 10:00 and pulled into the museum parking lot. There were already about 40 motorcycles and more kept coming in after us. We asked google, and it said that about 600 people visit every day. John had watched the TV show in the past, so he was very excited to be here and his enthusiasm made Ron and I excited too.
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| Pulling into the Wheels Through Time Museum |
We started in the gift shop, then paid our $12.00 (with our old man discounts). There are bikes everything and in every condition. 99% of the bikes are Harley Davidsons and they had examples of every model ever made. I guess the guy would go all around looking in barns to find hidden gems, then bring them back and film himself restoring them and talk about the process and the history of each bike.
Many of the bikes on display still run because of his skill. Every so often you'd hear one of the bikes be started as an employee would start it while giving a presentation.
We saw racing bikes, hill climbing bikes, flat track bikes, glitzed up bikes, ancient bikes, and new bikes.
I didn't see any "celebrity" bikes, but I did see displays honoring a person that rode a particular bike for years. There was a display of police bikes, but I expected it to be bigger.
There were also several mechanic shops that had been brought entirely into the museum and left much as they used to exist.
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| I pointed out to John that all the bikes had drip pans under them, he wasn't amused |
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| Home built bike with a car's V8 engine |
We spent almost 3 hours wandering the floors until my back started hurting. Ron and I wandered outside and found a bench to sit on. After a few minutes John came out and laughed when he saw us because he was going to sit down and wait for us.
We headed for our bikes and found a group admiring Ron's black Spyder. They asked him allot of questions.
When we got on the bikes, Ron asked a question. John hadn't turned his intercom on and I made a snarky comment. Ron burst out laughing which got me laughing and we both could have fallen off the bikes we were giggling so hard. John finally came online and wondered what was so funny. I'll not share the joke here because it requires way too much context and setup, but to us on the ride, it will be memorable.
We wrote about 2 miles to the twisted Spoke restaurant. They weren't many bikes here yet but it looked okay. We asked to sit outside and started looking through the menu.
Ron and John decided to split a chicken sandwich and fries. I ordered nine buffalo wings with lemon pepper. They weren't very excited about their sandwich. It wasn't very big and John didn't like the parmesan cheese on it. The fries were very good, and my chicken wings were fantastic. The skin was incredibly crispy and the lemon pepper was very flavorful.
When we were done we talked about weather just to head home or to keep riding and we all agreed to keep riding. But I think we made a wrong turn as we exited the parking lot. Google Maps will recalculate very quickly if you make a wrong turn and that's what happened. We were riding for about half an hour when we all started saying hey I saw that earlier or I think we're going backwards. Google Maps took us right back the way we were coming instead of routing us around the rest of our ride.
We had just gotten back on a main road when John spotted an LDS chapel. He quickly turned off the road and we rode up the hill to figure out new plans. I suggested we park in the shade and then get a picture of ourselves with the church in the background. With the pathetic little tripod I have it took a while to get a picture.
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| Route planning at the LDS chapel |
John planned us a new route and we headed off, but the very first thing we did was stop and get gas. No one wanted to get out in the middle of nowhere and run out.
We followed the highway for a little while again , then turned off onto some small roads and we're back out into treelined and tree covered small roads. Especially like them when we have very little traffic.
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| More nice backroads |
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| Some highway riding |
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We rode around for about an hour and a half and then I can tell we were slowly headed back towards the house. We are on a road with a lot of sharp curves. When we're on roads like this John and Ron usually pull away from me. I just don't like doing them as fast as they do so I sit back, relax and do my own thing.
I was coming around a corner to my left when out of nowhere to sport bikes flew past me on the inside of a blind turn. If a car had been coming around the corner, everybody would have been dead. The Riders were dressed identically with helmets that seem to flow right into their jackets. I did get a small wave from the trailing writer as they sped off into the distance.
That had really scared me because there was no warning. But I kept on writing kept on loving the views and the trees. About 5 minutes later another pair of bikes did almost the exact same thing, except this time they actually slowed slightly to get around the corner and then zip past. I don't know if that's a common thing here but it was really unusual to me.
I kept on riding and the miles to arrival kept clicking down. Finally I came around the corner to a large Highway and I recognized where I was. I was just a mile or so from the turnoff to our rental house if I turned left. But I also knew that if I turned right there is a gas station just a mile or two up the road where I could get a nice cold drink of Gatorade and I was very thirsty.
So I turned right, and I knew that John and Ron were probably waiting for me at the entrance to the neighborhood, so I texted them that I was going to get a drink.
The gas station is also a fishing shop. I went in and was hoping to find gatorades Waters or something. When I went around the corner to the other half of the shop it had a massive display of drinks and a bunch of snacks. I went and found a gatorade, then to my surprise I also saw sugar-free purple Gatorade which we've been searching for since we got here . That's Nannette's favorite.
I grabbed her for Gatorades and me one and as I was walking to the counter I saw an ice cream freezer. So I set the drinks down and went back and got myself an ice cream cone. I put the drinks in the bike and sat down on a rocking chair in the shade to enjoy my ice cream. I texted a picture of me back to the group so they wouldn't worry about taking so long.
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| Carmel filled ice cream cone |
Hydrated and refreshed, I got back on the bike and headed for the house. There is a truck just going through the gate and I thought about sneaking in behind him that decided against it. I looked up the gate code and entered it. Then I turned on my 360 camera and started a time lapse. This time it only took me 8 and 1/2 minutes to get back to the house.
We chatted and joked for a few hours at the house and I started thinking about my broken headlights . I would really like to get them fixed. I changed them about 2 years ago so I know I can do it but it takes over an hour. I sat friending about it when I just should have gotten up and got on with it.
Finally I looked up finally I looked up the YouTube video and watch that then headed out to the bike to see if I had all the tools I needed. I thought I might but I wouldn't know until I was deep into the process.
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| Almost got it, but can't get the bolt at the top center above the headlight |
I started pulling mirrors wind deflectors and body panels off so that I could remove the headlights themselves. It took me about 45 minutes to get all the way inside. I started with the left side headlamp and removed three bolts, but I could not get at the fourth Bolt. I needed a long extension and a 10 mm socket and I didn't have it. So I went inside and thread it again about what and how to do it. Put the bike back together and do it later? Take the rental car and go by tools and parts? Leave it till tomorrow by Parts in the car and do tomorrow is Drive in the car?
Finally someone nudged me enough that I went out and got in the car and drove to town. I was going to go to an auto parts store and see if they had the tools as well as the headlamp I needed. When I got there I saw a dollar store next door so I went in there. Sure enough they had a little $5 set with sockets and an adapter that I needed. Then I went to the auto parts and got the headlights. By the time I got home it was about an hour and a half round trip.
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| PERFECT. Hex to 1/4 adapter with SAE and metric sockets |
They had already started eating our street tacos for dinner so I made myself some. It hit the spot, especially a big dollop of guacamole and chips.
I went back out to the bike put all my extensions and things together and got the headlight off. Sure enough the bulb was broken so I put a new one in and started reassembling that headlight. I disassembled the right side headlight but that bulb didn't seem to be broken. I replaced it anyway and put it all back together
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| YUP! 1 broken fillament |
When I fired up the bike the headlights came on. I was so relieved. But I was also sweating like a dog and decided that the rest of the assembly could be done tomorrow morning when it's cool.
For the last 45 minutes I've been dictating this blog, I'll add the photos, then I'm going to shower before going to sleep . I stink.
Daily Miles: 112
Total Miles: 3335
Total drive time: 74h29m
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