9000 miles on an 84 fj

[azure]

Ready to get on the road on Wednesday morning, fairly bright and early! We are going to complete the  parkway, with highest elevations in front of us, before riding through the Smokes to stay with my ex sister in law Shirley, in Big Canoe GA this eve. Then onto the Barber motor sports museum, in Leeds GA, for an afternoon of envious pleasures, checking out the most impressive collection of motorcycles that I have ever seen.

I am psyched! Shirley is, aside from convoluted family connections, someone who simply completes my circuit. We have an incredibly good time together, and seem to feed off each other'so good humor and love of being together. The thought of showing Barber to Jim makes me grin. I had ridden down for the Vintage Festival  in 2013 with Anders, and was overwhelmed. If Sturgis is the exclusive destination for HD riders, Barber Vintage weekend is the comparative UN summit. Bikes of every country and manufacturer.

I go to start my bike, no rear brake. The pedal descends farther than my decrepit ankle will allow, without any effect. Hmm, seal? I took as many tools as I could fit, but did not take a vacuum bleeder, such as a Mighty Vac, because it was too large.
The MR service department becomes my hero. While I might be able to get along without a rear brake, not having one will definitely detract from riding the Blue Ridge. With decreasing radius turns that are sometimes more than 270 degrees, and impossible to anticipate unless one has memorized the parkway, it is always nice to know that trail braking is an option on turns entered a wee too hot.
MR says they will give me preference due to my on the road status. I remove all luggage and plastic that covers the rear brake system, and after a cup of coffee, off she goes with an affable wrench of almost similar vintage as myself.

I trust the feeling that with age comes experience, perhaps because there seem to be dwindling other positive attributes that are in tandem with increasing age. 15 minutes after bringing the bike in, it is back. "The banjo bolt to the master cylinder was loose", says my semi aged new friend. Tightened and cleaned it up, and it's all bled. After a small ceremony to contribute a small amount of funding for MR, Jim and I are on our way.

[azure]

We pass the info center at Mt. Mitchell, and make a photo stop at the highest elevation of the parkway, at Richland Balsam elevation 6053 ft. along with a couple of two up trike riders. (Hey Jim, you got those photos? The photo shown here is one I took of Anders in mid Oct 2013 when icy roads and very limited visibility caused us to leave the parkway soon afterwards. Note the same tail bag being used on the r1200rs)

[azure]

While at a gas station in Ashville following my servicing at MR, Jim and I are approached by a fellow who relates that among his many accomplishments, he is a trustee of the Wheel Through Time museum in Maggie Valley. This interests me as two years + ago, I heard that the owner had sold off a fair number of bikes. This news in combination with the fact that I have tried to visit the museum on 3 seperate occasions and found it closed each time made me surprised to learn that the museum was still extant. The fellow assured us that the museum was still going, and was in fact open that very Wednesday. It was shortly after this meeting that Jim suggested that we go to this museum rather than Barber, as he preferred to get back to Virginia before weeks end, and having enjoyed going south on the Blue Ridge, wanted to go North on it home, rather than slab from Alabama. With some uneasyness concerning whether snoring had anything to do with this sudden decision, I said fine, and away we went. Maggie Valley was about an hour's ride on the parkway. I had stayed there on a couple of occasions at the Rolling Brook Inn, almost directly next door, mostly due to Anders. The Rolling Brook was run, at the time I last stayed there, by and older and younger woman, whose names are unfortunatly lost to me. At the time we stayed there, and as I noted most recently, the Motel sign indicates a constant NO VACANCY. The requisite protocol for staying was to go across the little bridge and its underlying river seperating the motel from route 19, cutting the engine just after clearing the bridge. Rolling up to the motel office quietly, one waits as non offensively as possible until either lady appears. Anders, usually an impressive statesman for economy of speech, surprises me with his ease of patter, as he chats up the elder woman on one occasion, and the younger on the next. At just the right moment, when either woman is starting to warm up, he pops the question, " Any chance of a room for this evening?" "You can take the one on the end, if you want," was the response on both occasions. "40 bucks." While the room is vintage 60's, it is clean, and the hot water is hot. And best of all, it is right next to Wheels Through Time, which is never open.

[azure]

"The banjo bolt to the master cylinder was loose", says my semi aged new friend. "Tightened and cleaned it up, and it's all bled." After a small ceremony to contribute a small amount of funding for MR, Jim and I are on our way.

I do carry away a certain lingering guilt as I leave, having been the person, usually referred to when blame is placed as the PO (previous owner), who actually replaced the old rubber brake line. At that time I thought I had simply not tightened the banjo bolt completely. Now I am not so sure...

[JMR]

 You are a crazy old bastard......and I wouldn't want you being any other way.

[azure]

We ride to almost the end of the parkway, in Cherokee, where I part company to continue towards Shirley and Big Canoe on rt 441. It is a really pretty ride, with nice curves and hills, hmm sounds sort of comfortingly feminine, and I reach the entrance gate at Big Canoe just before dark.

Big Canoe appears as an exclusive town of 8000 acres for 3000 residents. When I announced my visiting purpose at the entrance gate, and wait next to my bike in a small parking place by the side of the entrance way for Shirley to escort me in, I was approached by an elder lady in a Mercedes, who somewhat angrily got out of her car to announce that she had almost hit me because she could not see me. I felt I was being a bit gracious in apologizing for her shortcomings, but did not see any point in arguing. I did some quick thinking about the shortcomings of living in an environment where many, if not most folks think they are entitled, but kept it to myself when Shirley arrived. Motorcycles are not allowed in Big Canoe, and as we had, 2 years before when I first visited, we put my bike in an electric gate enclosed storage area before proceeding to have dinner. It was a luxury to wash and dry my small collection of clothes, and sleep in a bed with really soft sheets and pillows.

[azure]

You are a crazy old bastard......and I wouldn't want you being any other way.

Ha, sez I, puffing out my chest in pride

[Mark Olson]

I am enjoying reading your adventure 

Good times .

[azure]

Thanks Mark, glad you get my perspecrive.

[azure]

Shirley had to go to Indianapolis on Thursday morning, and I had to be in Oklahoma City on Saturday evening to meet Peter and Vlad. After retrieving my bike, I set out following my gps exclusively for the first time. I knew from previous, recent trips that I could no longer see clearly enough to rely on maps to guide me as I rode. Besides which, the map pocket on the Moto Centric 19 is too narrow to show enough of a map to navigate by anyway. After 30 minutes, the map would usually need to be refolded to show the next portion of one's route.

I initially fought with the Garmin Zumo 660lm, I had purchased online for the almost reasonable price of $370. What I did not expect is that all mounting hardware was included, and offered several options for doing so conveniently. I did expect to find a manual, which aside from a quick start guide, was not present. You tube has several good posts on features, but the online manual was disappointing, and although I now love and depend on the little devil, I do wonder if I understand how to access all available info.
Initially, I would try to make the Zumo work like Google maps, by simply trying to select a city destination. There is no simple destination possible when speaking Zumo,  one must select a street and street number, after making sure one has the correctly specified state. For a while I chose 100 Main Street. Every town used to have a Main Street, just as every kid was named Billy or Susie. The great thing about most gps units currently, is that one can find gas stations, motels, food, and other points of interest on the fly, quickly and easily. Spelling the name of a town one wanted to head for after selecting points of interest generally helped, and could be done while I rode, however using specific routes required strategically choosing addresses along those routes. Initially, I did this for the next day, while I ate dinner. After a while, it somehow became easier. I'd like to believe this was due to knowing what I was doing, but ...

[azure]

I had 2 days and a morning to make the 900 miles from Big Canoe to OK City. I wanted Saturday afternoon for an oil and filter change, and general maintenance, hopefully at the hotel where I was to meet Vlad and Peter, before they arrived. Making time to revisit the Barber museum, which really takes the better part of a very enjoyable day, would have meant pushing. I wanted to take secondary roads to see a mysterious and unfamiliar part of the country, whose history both attracted and disturbed me, the South.

[azure]

Georgia feels like soft slippers and Hoag Carmichael to me. Unlike Louisiana, where I have not ridden a motorcycle, but spent time sipping culturally, I don't feel the mysticism and ghosts of time past. Probably naivete, or due to a large population and apparently cash influx in the 90s, but as I ride west towards Rome, and then cross the state line at Gadsden Alabama, I feel I could fit here. I think about whether I am shopping for a new place to live, but am not seriously, just enjoying the possibility.

I am from, and of New England. The drenchingly humid summer heat, and the effin numbness of my shoveling gloved fingers is in my bones, come to port in Boston by my dad's folks from some disappeared farming village near Kiev following one of the pograms, a word just as terrible as ethnic cleansing, and my mom's which drifted into New England looking for work from eastern europe, by way of Montreal. I love and abide the adage that if one does not care for more than one of New England's seasons, then one should move. In some child like way that resists the patrician attitude, or entitled Boston Brahmanism, with its political affiliations that were dominant here when I was a kid, I also love the answer to which towns were named after former governor Endicott Peabody:
Endicott, one of the towns flooded by the damming of the Swift river, to create the Quabbin reservoir, Boston's drinking water, Peabody, Marblehead, and the unfortunately named Athol.

[azure]

The sense of poverty and loss of pride that appears epidemic on entering Alabama appears like a weight on the small, drab homes along my route between Birmingham and Huntsville, towards Cullman, dead cars and discarded posessions frequently evident. I reflect on how unfortunate one has to be before not caring any more, but the upbeat and unanticipated perc in being here is how warm and polite everyone is.
Perhaps it's the rurality, perhaps just southern hospitality, but I am not used to having people ask me how I am, or saying good morning before I do. And it happens here most of the time. And people like to stop and chat. I had noticed this even when  Anders and I stayed 3 nights  at one of the rougher places  I have been to, a former Day's Inn, in Birmingham, on my previous visit to Barber.

[fj johnnie]

 Excellent report. I am enjoying this thoroughly. Last winter myself and two friends rode around Louisiana and Alabama as well. The people are very friendly. We found the small local non chain restaurants were very good. The poverty is quite overwhelming at times. It seems the car manufacturers are keen to sell them new wheels but many can't afford a roof over their heads.
   

[azure]

Thanks Johnnie!

I have been pretty fortunate in my life, but if I could have only one posession that I could be proud of, it might well be a bike or car.

That being said, I was surprised to find Cullman to be a pretty and gracious town, with an excellent coffee shop, that brought me back to the places where I played music as an itinerant musician back in the day.