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During the American monsoon my speedo gave up it's last breath, the bike as well as it's owner is getting a bit long in the teeth.
I can use the sat nav but having no odo and no fuel gauge I have to think and who can be arsed to do that, after having been to lazy to don my heated gear I finally succumbed to mother nature's wrath and put on my heated jacket, I should have put it on when I started but as always the laziness gets you in the end, the sat nav took me to a couple hotels that did not exist, or maybe they went broke , so I ended up at a Holiday inn, I put up a question for some ideas about my dead speedo on the adventure riders forum and got an answer from a guy in the very same town that I was staying in. I called him and we agreed to met the next day.
Then an Uber downtown and a Mexican dinner, tacos, frijoles and rice and a couple of beers and all was right in the world again.
A good nights sleep and i took
the bike to have it fixed or at least diagnosed, of course the speedo worked, maybe it did not rain that much last night, don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
My rear brake had been a bit iffy and my local mechanical angel bled it for me, and finally the fabled Blue Ridge Parkway was to enjoy my presence .
Nice road with beautiful views and no cars, it was bit on the chilly side but a bit sunny so it was a nice ride, after 250 km it was time to find somewhere to stay and fill up the petrol tank and my belly and some bland boring motel, most evenings are boring, nothing much to do as most of the these non entity motels are on the out skirts of the cities there's nothing really to do, but getting pissed out of your mind or read a book.
When I checked in to the Holiday Inn in Boone i asked if breakfast was included and AFAIK they said yes but the next morning no included breakfast, WTF!
The breakfast lady spoke with the reception and the reception had a chat with the
big boss and then I got my breakfast, quite a nice one actually and strangely enough, no sugar.
They really like their sugar here in Trumpland, I'd kill for a nice Vietnamese noodle soup.
Today I finished the Parkway, the day started out quite cold, about 5C or so, out came my heated jacket, good that I brought it with me.
It's a very nice ride with a very nice mountainous landscape, green everywhere and a nice curvy road, the only drawback is the speed limit of about 75 km/h.I sort of behaved quite well as I did not want to have some southern sheriff chasnin' my bony ass.I ended up in Franklin, close to the fabled " Tail of the Dragon" some mythical road, as there are loads of mountains there are many curvy roads so I might, no I will stay here for at least 2 days and just ride around and enjoy a new road every day.My present motel is not very nice So I'll find another one tomorrow, I should have known better, all the places run by Indians, the ones with the dot and not the ones with arrows, are a bit dingy.You
gets what you pays for, never more often less, one of these days I might learn.
Yesterday i made it to the fabled "Tail of the dragon" some stretch of road between here and there with a million curves in no distance at all, it vas quite nice for even when I was riding faster than what my comfort zone allowed me, and compared to may of the boy racers on crotch rockets I was almost going backwards but compared to the Harley people I was the mean one.
So finished with the Dragon I went in search of other roads to ride, and there are many, this is truly as close to motor bike heaven as you can get, being mountainous the roads go up and down and around and up and down, great fun.
I needed a new back protector as; A mine was falling apart, B I'd forgotten it at some hotel or other or God knows where, and that was not an easy thing to find, obviously Trumps minions are not that security conscientious, a lot ride around in jeans and a jacket and a helmet because it's the law.
Getting this
and a new gel pad for my arse was a long merry go round, well I got it in the end, not the best but better than not.
I pack all my stuff every day so that I'm free as a bird and can go anywhere at any time and stop as well, It had gotten late so I stopped in Maryville for the night, 10 hours on the bike was enough.
The only drag was that there were only fast food joints close to the hotel, well one night will not kill you but if I ate this shite every day....
The hotel was quite ok and quite a few bikers with their bikes on trailers, mostly Hardleys, spotless, immaculate, chrome so bright that you had to wear sunglasses.
Well you wankers, Chrome won't get you home! But then again they're happy so that's fine.
They see my California license plate and marvel on how I've come only to get pale at the gills when they get the full Monty, I'm most probably insane in their eyes.
Well today was another good day of riding, but I took a short day only seven
hours.
And again great roads, the scenery remains the same, mountains and green.
I found a new place, Run by Indians, again the guys with the dot, but before i checked in I checked the room out and it was a lot better than the other place, I the trotted of to have a couple of beers and felt like the king of the world!
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