Day 58 - A Morning of Repeats And A Hot Afternoon of Racing

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Today is our last day in the mountains. As we travel further east and south, the land will get flatter and the weather will get hotter. We will miss the mountains - a lot! Today we are headed for Charlotte, NC, home of the NASCAR Hall of Fame. But before we go, we have one last pass over the mountain as we bid farewell. The weather report for today is HOT! It's supposed to be bright and sunny and over 95 degrees. So we had a quick breakfast and tried to get out of Gatlinburg early to beat the heat.

For some reason the Garmin Lady was not cooperating this morning and wanted us to head west out of Gatlinburg and onto some highway. We were having none of it, as we wanted to pass through the Great Smoky Mountain National Park one last time. So we ignored the Garmin Lady and headed southeast back through the park on Newfound Gap Road just like yesterday. When we reached the end, she finally caught on to what we were doing, and plotted out a reasonable path to get us into Charlotte by 2:00. Our next turn took us back onto the Blue Ridge Parkway where we retraced about 20 miles that we had done a few days before. We were even able to pass through a couple of tunnels!

When we turned off the Blue Ridge, on US-19, we ended up passing by the Wheels Through Time Museum that we had visited a few days ago in Maggie Valley. Eventually, we connected with Hwy-276 in the Pisgah Forest. As we were riding along Hwy-276, which is also an awesome motorcycle road, there was a turnoff for something called Looking Glass Falls which appeared to be right off the road. Never ones to pass up a waterfall, we pulled off to the side of the road, got out the camera and headed over. It turned out to be a large, beautiful waterfall into a pool and stream, all just down a few steps from the side of the road. There were a number of people swimming in the water around the falls, but we settled for a few good pictures and a couple of videos.

After Looking Glass Falls, we ended up passing under the Blue Ridge Parkway for one last time as we continued our journey east. Eventually we went past Lake Lure and ended up on US-64. The area began to look a little familiar as we rode past Chimney Rock which we had also visited a few days before. As we passed Chimney Rock we were finally in uncharted territory that we had not visited before. The temperature was beginning to get a little hotter, and eventually we noticed a bank sign that the outside air temperature was 101 degrees. No wonder we were hot! It was getting about 1:00 and we were getting a little hungry, so when we spotted the familiar golden arches ahead,we stopped for a quick lunch. Gas was getting a little low, so we also stopped for gas. I was filling the tank, and Jody was inside the station when some other guy with a bike started yelling at me. It was then I noticed that the shut-off for the gas pump was not working, and that gas was overflowing from the tank on the bike!

Fortunately, the clever designers at Honda had taken gas overflow into account with the design of the Goldwing, so the gas just flowed out of the bottom of the bike, bypassing anything hot, and only a minor spot low on the outside of the bike had any evidence of gas at all. I had probably spilled about a half-gallon of gas before I figured out what was going on. Luckily, the gas station had a window cleaner and some towels, so I was able to wipe down the outside of the bike where there was any gas visible. Most of the spill on the ground was evaporating, but I decided it was probably smart to move the bike out of the spill before starting it back up. So we waited a few more minutes for things to dry out, restarted the bike and headed out without incident.

Our lunch and gas incident has cost us a little time, so we decided to let the Garmin Lady know we would like to take the interstate the rest of the way. That cut about an hour off of our time and had us at the NASCAR Hall of Fame by 2:15. As we pulled into downtown Charlotte, we found that the MapQuest and the Garmin information on the location of the NASCAR Hall of Fame were wrong. Fortunately, I had also put the address for the parking garage for the NASCAR Hall of Fame into the Garmin, and that turned out to be correct, so we found ourselves at the right location after all. I'm not sure who decided to put the NASCAR Hall of Fame in the middle of downtown Charlotte so that we needed to use a parking garage. I would have thought it would make more sense to put it a few miles away near Charlotte Motor Speedway where they could offer free parking. Anyway, as we pulled into the parking garage, there was a very small sign that said "No Motorcycles", which I proceeded to ignore as it was hot, we had just ridden 225 miles and we were in need of air conditioning. Fortunately, I was able to find a nice flat spot to park on, so we quickly locked up the helmets and got out the camera before some security guy came by and told us to move.

We headed over to the NASCAR Hall of Fame, and I must admit it was a nice looking building. Through the windows, we could see there was a mock-up of a race track with a bunch of cars from various years in the track. It looked cool! We went inside, and the air conditioning felt great as we paid for tickets and began to take a few pictures. Now I don't want to be unfair, but we had seen both the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and compared to both of these, the NASCAR Hall of Fame was a bit of a disappointment. Most of the exhibits were too modern. Even the 20 minute movie was mostly about current NASCAR. I was really hoping to see more about the early days and some of the history, but I suspect that most of the cars of the early days are long gone. Even the few older cars were marked as "replicas" of the original. There was some memorabilia, but most of it was driving suits and trophies. I guess I was hoping for more of the cars.

There were a couple of interesting interactive exhibits. The first was a driving simulator where you sat in an actual race car with a TV screen in front of you. There were about 8 or so actual cars on a simulate track. In the simulation, you raced against the other simulator drivers on the track which sounds like a great idea, except it only takes one idiot driver to wreck all the other cars. So you can be racing along, side by side with another good driver and some idiot will just crash you both. We watched for a little while but didn't try ourselves as it also cost extra. The other interactive exhibit that looked like fun was the pit crew. They had a part of a car set up where you had to jack it up, use the air gun to replace a tire, and fill the gas tank with a gas can. While you were doing this, a staff member would encourage you with instructions and time your execution time. That one looked like fun if you were here with a bunch of guys and wanted to compete for times. But we were both tired from a long ride and thought it was more fun to watch others participate.

In the end, it was just ok. I guess we just get a little spoiled at what we have seen on this trip. We both really like the National Parks and most of the Nature activities better than the indoor museums anyway. Tomorrow we are off to Congaree National Park in South Carolina, our last National Park of the trip.

237.0 Miles Today

9221.7 Miles Total

7.998 Gallons Today

233.228 Gallons Total

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