Linville Falls

We stopped for gas in Linville Falls, North Carolina, and discussed our evening plans. There was camping in the immediate vicinity, and though it was earlier than we would usually stop, the atlas made the next campground appear quite far away.

"We can check out the town and actually do some sight-seeing," I suggested.

"We can make camp and then go sight-seeing," Rogue replied, and that sounded good to me. Our tent went up at Linville Falls Campground, an adorable place right off the parkway. A river ran behind it, and we jumped down the wooded bank to go admire the water.

On our way back up, we heard a bike pull in. I nearly jumped up and down when I saw a lone rider park a red ST1000 and set up a tent. He gave us a nod and a wave and rode away again, leaving his tent near the river, and we went off to explore the town.

Our time at the Linville Falls Winery was limited to five minutes, as we showed up right before closing time. I sampled the blackberry and "cherry bounce" wines and wished I had room in the luggage to take some home.

The next stop was Linville Falls, which was actually on the same road as the campground. It required a little hiking, but the cool air invited a walk even in armored pants and leather boots.

I was tired and not as up for adventure as usual. When we arrived, though, the falls were worth the effort. There were two viewing points, one at the top of the fall itself, and another several hundred feet above the first, with an aerial view of the entire fall from top to bottom. Another hiker was there with us, photographing the falls from a tripod. Rogue commented on how nice her camera was.

Dusk was descending as we returned to the parking lot. There were some traffic cones sprinkled seemingly at random on one side of the central median, and I treated them like an obstacle course, making zigs and zags and wiggling my way back and forth while I waited for Rogue to gear up. I exited my impromptu skills test in the direction I'd come and Rogue, not realizing I had just been goofing around, turned around awkwardly and followed me instead of proceeding straight to the exit. I laughed at us both as we rode away.

Downtown Linville Falls consisted of a couple of cute country-flavored motels, two pubs, a post office, and a general store. We wandered through the store, amused at the wide variety of things they carried. There were hunting knives and wall art, canned beans and wire owls, fresh pizza and vehicle fuses and coffee mugs. We were about to leave when the woman behind the counter offered us the last two slices of pizza.

"Please don't judge us by this," she said. "It's been out a while, but you can have it if you want it."

It was warm, and we weren't about to turn down free food. She told us about the phenomenon of the Brown Mountain Lights, which shine in a nearby valley from no apparent source, and we put them on our list of things to come back for. Then we bought a bundle of firewood and headed back to camp.

The population of Linville Falls Campground was what I'd hoped to find in more places. We made friends with Josh, the biker, and Marlen, the photographer we'd seen at the falls, as well as a couple in a small camper. Rather than building our own fire, we brought our firewood to Josh's fire ring. Marlen brought s'mores, and we spent the evening telling travel stories.

Marlen was a German girl from California, temporarily stationed in Asheville for work. She also had a motorcycle, but it was back home in Los Angeles. Josh was on vacation; he had ridden the Blue Ridge before but never camped on a motorcycle. The couple with the camper were from Florida, coincidentally escaping the hurricane that was tearing apart their home state while we sat around the fire eating marshmallows.

When the rain started, we called it a night and bundled ourselves into the tent. By morning we were still dry but the rest of the world was soaked, and the weather showed no sign of letting up. We'd been overtaken by the outer edge of Hurricane Matthew.

Blue Ridge Parkway

The "short hop" over the mountains on 441 was scenic but irritating, as we got stuck in a long line of slow drivers. I tried to enjoy the misty golden sunlight filtering through endless trees and hoped that when we hit the Blue Ridge Parkway itself the traffic would clear.

Unfortunately that was not the case. In fact, the cars got even slower, until I experienced the joy that Cider had found in riding Pike's Peak: cars moving so slowly that following them actually becomes a struggle, because a bike needs a certain amount of speed to lean over without falling down. Frustrated, I zigged back and forth, dragged my feet on the pavement, and generally made an ass of myself while we crawled along like heroin-addled snails.

If the entire Parkway is like this, I'm going to survive about 5 miles before I stab someone.

Fortunately the worst of the offenders in cages turned off at scenic stops and we were able to pick up the pace a bit. I skipped the first few turnoffs and eventually exited the parkway to get gas in Maggie Valley.

"You are such a tease!" Rogue complained. "Stopping at that pull-off and then leaving again."

"I was just waiting for you," I said. "So you could follow me to gas."

"The scenery!" she said. "The mountains, oh my god! I want to take pictures!"

"That's nothing," I said, with a deliberately obnoxious been-there-done-that inflection. "You just wait. Don't waste your battery here; it gets better."

She stared at me doubtfully, but said she would trust my word.

Back on the parkway, I skipped a few more pull-outs and then stopped at one of the broadest views we'd seen yet. I enjoyed the scenery and cleaned my sunglasses while Rogue dug out her camera and did her photographer thing.

Among other reasons I was glad to have my derby wife along was her photography. A writer and a photographer are pretty perfect companions, and while I get some decent pictures, she has a trained eye that I don't. Many of the photos I'm posting from this trip are her work, and I'm grateful to have them.

We passed most of our day passing - cars, motorhomes, and the occasional bicyclist. I rode ahead, winding up the engine to get around slow vehicles in small spaces, enjoying the few wide-open miles I found but spending a huge amount of my day frustratedly stuck. The parkway was busier than it had been in August, and I didn't like the changed conditions.

One roadside stop promised a waterfall, but once we had parked, the sign said it was over a mile hike away. We unpacked our meatloaf sandwiches and ate them in the seats of a small amphitheatre. The air had a chill, but not a threatening one, and both walking and riding were pleasant. The sandwiches, the only home-made food we'd had while traveling, were delicious.

The Mystery of Pigeon Forge

Frank had slept curled up like a cat at the food of his own bed, and when he got up, I realized he'd been nesting in a pile of popcorn.

"Hope that was comfy," I teased. Rogue and I were packed and ready to go, and Lorre had made us meatloaf sandwiches for the road. I stowed them carefully under the cargo net so they wouldn't become meatloaf pancakes, and we were off.

It was 3pm by the time we hit the road, but the lazy morning had done us good. The air was warm and the sun friendly as we headed east. I40 is really nice riding for a highway; it has gentle, pleasant curves and some very pretty and leafy scenery. Fifty or sixty miles along, I started to smell smoke. I didn't think much of it until the air got hazy and the rays of sun seemed to be making a great effort to reach us through the thick air. The haze and the campfire smell went on for nearly thirty miles. The flames never became visible, but there was clearly a sizable wildfire in progress.

Nashville has odd graffiti.

We had planned to stay in Cherokee, North Carolina that night, but I didn't want our first mountain road experience to be in the dark, so we aimed for Pigeon Forge instead. I figured we could make the hop over the mountains to Cherokee in the morning.

Driving through Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge in the dark was a strange experience. They're not towns so much as they're huge carnivals, particularly Pigeon. Everything was lit up in flashing neon; it felt like driving down a giant midway. I half expected a short man with a handlebar mustache to insist that I shoot the metal horses to win the stuffed animal.

I'd chosen Alpine Hideaway because they specifically allowed tent camping, while most of the many other campgrounds were unclear on the level of hospitality they'd show to someone without a wheeled camper. When we drove up, the registration cabin was closed. I parked at the gate to search for information, and as I removed my helmet, a woman came out of a camper on the other side of the gate. She didn't greet me, just stood on her steps and stared.

"Hello," I called. She continued to stare. "We're looking for a place to tent."

"What?" she demanded.

"A place to tent for tonight," I repeated.

"We're closed," she barked.

"Do you know of another place we can go?"

She sighed. "Down the road. One of the other places."

"Okay. Thanks."

A man came out behind her and walked up to the gate. I thought for a moment he might open it or at least ask me for more details, but he just stood and watched as I replaced my helmet and started my engine. I imagined she had told him, Make sure them hooligans leave.

Annoyed, I walked through a multi-point turn, waited for Rogue to do the same, and headed back down the hill toward the brightly-lit chaos. At Riveredge, I asked after campsites, and though the young man behind the counter was refreshingly friendly, he told us they only accepted RVs.

"Try Riverslanding," he suggested. "They allow tents."

I thanked him and we moved on again. Riverslanding was easy to locate, but after driving through the camping loop three times, I couldn't find the office, only a general store that was closed. I exited over a curb and turned back the way we had come into town, headed for the option I'd been trying to avoid: the KOA.

People talk up KOA like they're the bee's knees, and while they've certainly got every amenity in the book and friendly staff to boot, you get what you pay for. I'd rather pay $7 for access to a water spigot and a bathroom than $40 for an in-ground heated pool. The other downside is that because they're so damn popular, you'd better hope to get good neighbors, because there will be a lot of them, and they'll be close.

The office was closed when we arrived, but while I was trying to figure out the oddly complicated after-hours check-in system, someone opened the door and invited us in. They asked whether we'd like a site with water and electricity, and since there was no price difference among any of the tent sites, we voted for utilities. The man behind the counter gave me a map and drew out the route for us to find our temporary home.

It wasn't hard to find, but when we got there, there was no place to park. The tent sites were located along the side of the river, on a steeply sloped grassy bank that did not invite motorcycles. I looped around again, hoping I'd missed a parking lot, and found nothing. Having passed the sites by, I looped a third time, then put my stand down in the middle of the road and walked back to Rogue.

"You think you can drive down that?" I asked. Bee could handle it if I was careful, although leaving in the morning might pose a bigger challenge.

"No," she said. "I'll drive right into the river."

I pulled out the map and was trying to figure out how to get to the non-utility sites when a man on a tiny golf cart drove up and asked if we needed help. When I explained our predicament, he said he would lead us to the other sites.

The road was made of enormous chunks of gravel, and I did my best to hang loose and just let Bee do what she wanted to do without interference. My front tire danced back and forth, but the biggest problem was the man in the golf cart, who was doing about 3 miles an hour. I stopped to let him get ahead, and he stopped too, perhaps afraid I wouldn't catch up again. I detoured onto the grass and rode along beside him instead.

The primitive sites were much better set up for our purposes. The slope was gentle, and we were able to park both bikes without incident and still have a large flat spot left for the tent. In the center of the gravel loop road, there was a city of tents, at least twenty of them. A lone man wandered among them.

"This is exciting," I said as we made camp. "Tent friends!"

Rogue agreed. That one location doubled the number of tents we'd seen in ten days on the road, and it was a welcome sight. We showered and turned in for the night, thinking maybe the KOA wasn't so bad after all.

The morning was chilly, and I spent quite a few minutes whining and refusing to leave my sleeping bag while Rogue laughed at me. Just before sunrise we stepped outside, and as I stood up and looked over Bee, I was greeted with a strange sight: an empty field. The city of tents was gone without a trace. The look on Rogue's face told me she was as mystified as I was.

The Joy of Nashville

As soon as I opened the door to my second home in Nashville, I heard Lorre's excited voice. We hugged and introductions were made, and within three minutes Rogue was whispering to me, "Oh my god she's so awesome!"

"Told you," I said, grinning as we unpacked the bikes. I had parked two inches too close to the V-Star and jammed my luggage shut against Frank's luggage, so I held Bee upright while Rogue extricated my bag of clothing.

We left our boots and bags in the basement, then returned to the living room and chattered with Lorre while she finished making dinner.

"I made meatloaf," she told us, "And I bought a whole chicken, so you'll have plenty to eat. How long are you staying?"

"Just tonight," I said, feeling bad about the obvious miscommunication.

"Oh no!" she said. "I was hoping you'd be here for the whole week!"

"I wish," I said fervently. "I promise we'll stay longer next time."

After dinner with Lorre and Ross we showered and then walked up the street to Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams. I visited in August and fell in love; I've never seen so many amazingly creative ice cream flavors. This time around I had Wildberry Lavender and Thai Pumpkin Curry, both of which were wonderful. I also sampled the Goat Cheese with Red Cherries, which was like cheesecake, only colder. As much as I wish we had a Jeni's equivalent in the northeast, it's probably a damn good thing for my wallet and my waistline that we don't.

(Author's note: I've just discovered that Jeni's ships to anywhere. I'm sorry and you're welcome.)

From there we walked to the end of 12 South and admired all the pretty restaurants and behatted hipsters. Then we turned north and walked toward The Gulch and Broadway. We didn't make it all the way there - it's a pretty lengthy walk - but it was a warm and inviting night to just ramble.

Eventually the ice cream settled enough for us to go back to the house, write a few postcards, and then fall asleep on Frank's bed.

When he came home at 3am, I heard his boots on the floor over my head and poked Rogue awake. He walked quietly into the room without turning on the light.

"Hi," I said, sitting up.

"Oh hey," he said. "I didn't think you'd be awake."

I made introductions, and Frank flopped sideways across the end of the bed. Polite chatter quickly became silly jokes, and not long after that we were all in sober drunken hysterics. Eric calls this "phone book o'clock," when you're so high on exhaustion that you could read the phone book and find it hilarious. Then I wandered upstairs and returned with popcorn, which was put to use as both snacks and projectiles. For the record, Frank started the popcorn fight; Rogue and I both hasten to point out that we are not the kind of guests who start a food fight in someone else's bed.

At nearly 8:30am, we finally fell asleep. I was up again two hours later. I knew immediately upon seeing the time that we wouldn't be leaving town at noon as planned, but I didn't care. We only had 200 miles to do that day, and it was important to me that Rogue see some of Nashville.

We began with breakfast at the Frothy Monkey. I already knew the food and the coffee were amazing, and it's about a three-minute walk from the house. I wish I knew how to make lavender lattes at home, because they're incredible.

Around noon we got back on the bikes, and I managed to navigate to downtown without using GPS or getting lost. We parked in a strangely awkward and narrow garage across from the library, then walked into the library garage and up the stairs with the idea of taking the Rennaissance Hotel's skywalk across the street. One flight up, there was a sudden shower of welding sparks from overhead, and we dove out of the way barely in time to avoid getting burned.

"Leave it to us to get set on fire trying to see a city," Rogue said. We raced back down the stairs and into the garage proper, then headed for a side door. Halfway there, I heard a man's voice behind us.

"Hey," it said. "Stop."

Unsure if the voice was addressing us, I turned around. A portly cop was walking toward us, gesturing. I stopped.

"Did you not see the sign?" he demanded. "The stairs are closed."

"I'm sorry," I said. "We're from out of town. We were trying to get to the hotel."

"English is still English," he drawled, glaring at me.

"Okay."

"When y'all come back, you go through the entrance at the other side." He pointed.

"We will."

He seemed to be working up another sentence. I turned and walked away, Rogue following.

"Next time I keep walking," I said.

Down on Broadway, we took a wander through the candy shop, where a very enthusiastic candy maker gave us samples of praline. Then he pulled up his sleeve with a big smile and showed me his ICP tattoo. I grinned awkwardly and gave him a thumbs-up, uncertain why the juggalo colors were being flown in my direction.

We walked down to the river, which Frank fondly calls the Scumberland, and looked out over the swirling, muddy water. There was a single shoe lying on an inaccessible concrete platform, and I wondered if the owner was angry with the thrower, or if perhaps the wearer and the pitcher were one in the same. Maybe there had been a drunken overenthusiastic shoe-flinging striptease.

We stopped into Broadway Boots, where I'd met Frank, and then into the Tequila Cowboy. We stayed for a song and then I told Rogue she should really remove me or we'd be staying a hell of a lot longer.

"I get it," she said. "This town has a great vibe. I wish we could spend more time here."

There was no greater joy for me on our entire trip than that moment.

ReTracing My Steps

The two of us scooted out early as planned and hit the Trace for real. We'd done a few miles on it while finding the campground, but hadn't been able to enjoy the scenery in the dark. Riding over the Barnett reservoir on the 43 bridge just after sunrise was peaceful and serene. A hint of mist hung over the water, and traffic was light.

We passed a whole lot of cars and a few bikes, and got stuck in some brief construction traffic. When a sign warned of bridge work ahead and to expect delays up to half an hour, we hit a pull-out so we could get a snack before potentially getting irritatingly stuck. There was only one vehicle in the parking lot: a KLR 650 in black and lime green.

Its owner, an older gentleman with white hair, was sitting on a picnic table. He watched as we parked, geared down, and dug through our bags. I got fouled up in the cargo net and poured a can of potato strings all over my luggage and the ground, then started laughing so hard I couldn't put them back and Rogue had to help me.

When I had gotten my poop in a group, at least for the current moment, we joined the man at the picnic table. We talked bikes and trail riding and he advised us on the location of the nearest gas station. Then a pickup truck with a couple of large antennas on it pulled in and I got distracted talking to the driver, who was a ham operator and also a Harley rider.

He stayed for five minutes or so and then moved on, and the rider of the KLR said, "I didn't want to say anything while he was here, but I'm really not a fan of Harleys."

The Trace has probably hundreds of stops, each with a name and a bit of historical signage. Some of them are hiking trails, some are picnic areas, some are Indian mounds, and at least one is a tobacco barn. Two of them are waterfalls, and I put away my desire to make miles long enough for a short climb down Fall Hollow. I'd stopped in that spot the previous year and wished I could've taken Rogue with me; now that I actually had her along, there was no excuse to pass it by.

Nearing the north end of the Trace, we were detoured onto state roads to avoid some construction. I'd been looking forward to riding the northernmost ten miles, which are the most twisty, but it became evident that we'd reach town faster by not returning to the parkway.

Somewhere along the way my phone ran out of data. I tried to buy more, but the device insisted that I must be connected to WiFi to perform that action. Whichever programmer thought that was a good way to write an app was not on my list of favorite people that day. I would hope that the one action it could still perform when out of data would be to buy more data.

At our last gas stop of the afternoon, I was channeling Grumpy Cat. Between the time of day (later than I'd hoped), the useless cellular device, and finding out that Frank had to work overnight on the only night we'd be in town, I was about ready to bite someone's head off. Fortunately I realized that lack of food was part of the problem and got myself a snack before I did anything regrettable. Rogue had the clever idea of tethering her phone into a hotspot so I could use the "WiFi" to get more data, and it worked.

With some coffee and crackers down my gullet and my GPS awake again, I navigated without incident to 12 South. I backed Bee in to the right of Frank's V-Star, and Rogue backed Hades in on the left; the three days since our arrival at Crockett Street had apparently made a difference for her.

"It's so little," Rogue said with a giggle, nodding at the V-Star. It did look rather hemmed in by its new companions.

Mississippi Stays Weird

Interstate 20 is pretty decent riding, and we sailed out of Texas and into Shreveport in good time. My GPS pointed me south, but when it told me to continue that way for 116 miles, I had to question its motives. I pulled off a glove and poked around until I had a wide-view map, then got my arm tangled in my audio cord and nearly lost my amplifier. At that point I did what I should've done in the first place and took an exit.

In my initial planning I'd failed to notice, probably because I hadn't actually mapped it all out, that Natchez, Mississippi is significantly south of Dallas, Texas. A glance at the map told me that I20 would take us straight to Jackson, and my memory contained the information that the Trace also runs through the capital city. I made an executive decision, knowing Rogue wouldn't object, and got back on 45 going north. We rejoined 20 east and continued across Louisiana.

At the next gas stop, I explained that we'd be cutting off about 100 miles of the Trace and shortening our drive to Nashville significantly. I assured Rogue that the southern 100 don't contain anything unique to the northern 344, and she said a shorter drive sounded like a great plan.

There were huge numbers of things on the road that both of us wanted to see. Rogue was learning the lesson I learned last year, that making miles negates your ability to see much of anything interesting. I felt bad for both of us that we had to skip so many cool sights, but I'd promised her that we could stop at the Mississippi River.

Our timing couldn't have been better. We hit the bridge at sunset and rolled along over the water in a cloudy pink haze. At the far shore, I took the exit and went bombing into the visitor center's parking lot. We dropped stands and jogged up the stairs to the pedestrian overpass, arriving just in time to see a glowing orange sun sink into a sea of pink and gold lava.

We arrived in Jackson well after dark, and then I experienced an odd delayed triumph when we made camp for the night in a campground that I'd failed to find on my own the previous year. We drove by the parking lot where I'd given up and turned around, and less than a mile later turned down the road for the campground.

The place was big, and full. After doing a very long loop over steep gravelly roads, I found one unoccupied site.

"I keep waiting for someone to come tell us to leave," Rogue said as she rolled out the tent. "That stupid place in Baton Rouge has me all paranoid."

No one seemed to be awake, though. A sign above the sink in the bathhouse read, "ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION AND DISORDERLY CONDUCT." A couple of words printed in red ink had long since faded into illegibility.

"I can follow instructions," I said, but in fact I couldn't, because I had no alcohol. The excessively-numbered spiders under the sink didn't offer me any; maybe they were worried about being caught by the video camera over the front door. Another sign over the toilet threatened that the bathroom would be "locked and not re-opened" if the non-flushing incidents continued. Rogue and I agreed to vacate the area before the office opened in the morning. Videotape my rear end.

Thousand (Creepy) Trails

The ride out to Thousand Trails campground south of Dallas was nice. We got to leave I35, which is a terrible riding road, and go tearing through the countryside on Farm to Market Road 933. Somehow I didn't remember ever running into that naming convention before; it's abbreviated FM933, but Robot Lady in the GPS announces the entire thing, as though she expects we're pulling a trailer full of cattle.

We found Thousand Trails campground at sunset. I picked a site, dismounted, and realized there wasn't much place to put a tent. I picked another site and went to put the bike there, but on the way, found a third site that was the best yet. We parked, unpacked, set up home, and made dinner. Rogue took a few pictures, in one of which my face mysteriously disappeared.

We got very lost walking to the bathhouse, but when we eventually found it, it was air-conditioned and spotlessly clean. Our site was actually close to it; we had walked the wrong way around the circle and made the journey longer than necessary. The air was warm, and there were coyotes howling around us as we turned in for the night. It was nice to hear wildlife, but I made sure my mace was handy just in case.

Around 2am, I was dreaming that Rogue and I were listening to someone talk and she started laughing inappropriately. I was puzzled by her response until I woke up in the tent and realized she was actually not laughing at all but caught in a nightmare. I woke her, and then we lay there for two hours unable to go back to sleep.

There was a light in the road that shone directly at the tent, making the walls glow slightly. The light blinked out as a shadow moved over the tent, then reappeared. Our conversation paused for a moment as we waited for further activity, but nothing happened.

"Huh," I finally said.

"You saw that too?" Rogue said. "Good. Okay. Well I'm done sleeping for tonight." Then, "If it weren't 2am, I'd suggest we just pack up and go."

"And I'd go," I said, "If we weren't vising Randy in the morning. Dropping in on him at 4am might be kinda rude. Hey, wake up, it's breakfast time!"

Eventually we drifted off to sleep again and woke at daylight. After the usual packing scurries, we were back on I35 toward Dallas. We were actually lined up to be early, until I stopped at a gas station because my shield was so bug-spattered I couldn't see. Then Rogue said her luggage was slipping, and when I checked the straps I found that one of the D-rings had broken. I finagled a new solution and we rolled out of the parking lot and up to a stop sign. When I looked in my mirror 15 seconds later, Rogue wasn't there.

I pulled over and waited, but after a couple of minutes, she still hadn't appeared. I was in the middle of the on-ramp to I35, but turning around there would be less dangerous than doing it on the highway, so I walked Bee through a three-pointer and headed back. I found Rogue and Hades parked on the side of the road.

"The bag slipped when I pulled out," she explained. "I almost dropped the bike."

I parked Bee in the entrance to a restaurant and went to take another look. I was kneeling at the back wheel when a tractor trailer rolled by with inches to spare.

"Can you back her up?" I asked. "Into this parking lot."

We got the bikes situated a little more safely and then did a thorough retooling of all the straps on the luggage. The cinch strap got tightened and the two straps with parachute clips were crossed for greater security. When I'd done what I could, I ear-boxed the luggage a few times to make sure it stayed.

That seemed to do the job. An hour later we had dropped our stands in Dallas, and Randy was bringing us to an adorable diner.

Rogue and Randy got along like a house on fire. I cuddled my coffee while they chattered, and enjoyed the satisfaction that comes from helping form a new friendship. Back at his house, Randy invited us to stay for a while, but we had to be getting on. Our day's goal as written was to make the southern end of the Natchez Trace Parkway, but I was actually hoping to get some of it done before making camp in the interest of shortening up our drive the following day.