Alternate Universe Tennessee Dirt Devil Ride

[thinwater]

It was the best of rides, it was the worst of gps direction age.  My wife and I leave North Alabama at 5:30pm on what my TomTom 550 rider says is an hour and a half ride to the camp spot.  It is HOT, the wind of the ride was much appreciated it got really hot putting the last few items off the checklist on the bike.  So now I have a rotopax gas can and water can attached to the Royal Enfield Himalayan to test out the mount on a ride.  If it breaks I want it to break locally not on the TAT.  As we pass through Waynesboro and go underneath the Natchez Trace Parkway I think about ditching my GPS suggested fastest route and turning right onto the Parkway which I know is where the meet up spot is.  But nagh, trust the GPS.
 
  My wife's Honda CRF250L with its enlarged tank starts blinking the fuel light.  She tells me over the Cardo comms, I say we want to be full right before we get there and I have the rotopax gas can full on my bike so lets see if we can make it to the fuel stop that is 34 miles away, then we will be close and full for the morning ride.  25 miles later she tells me that her bike is fluttering in a curve and picked up when straightened up.  So we pull over in the next 300yds to a shop driveway and I remove my; trifold chair, tent, bedroll, unstrap the nelson soft saddlebag on one side to lift if off of the gas can it is covering.  With the Honda holding a fresh gallon of gas and my bike re-packed we continue.

  Originally the 1.5 hour ride to camp didn't include a emergency refuel unpack and repack nor the fuel stop we were going to make to be full for the ride.  The original leave time not counting all these factors would have us there at 8:34pm.  I'm thinking about setting up in the dark, and I see through the humidity to the North a very tall dark thunderhead.  The humidity is so dense that down low the thunderstorm is masked.  25mile out from destination I notice Big Bear Hotel and restaurant on the right, I ask my wife if she wants to avoid setting up in the storm and get a room for the night right there.  No, she said you like the stories around the campfire, lets go on through.  So immediately we hit a gas station gas up both bikes and the reserve rotopax.  I say since you wanna go on you better rain suit up.  I made us more late and more hot suiting up before the storm but we did, then onward.  300yards up the road we met the edge of the storm, I'd guess 40mph side gusts.  My wife says this is insane, I said I know, now what do you think about the room at Big Bear?  "Lets go!", she says.  Of course I didn't fail to point out that we could have been there for 10 minutes by now resting and listening to the storm outside.

   Big Bear had great rooms and a bar/restaurant on an upper floor, and had separated cabins.  The manager let us place the unpacked bikes in the gazebo out back for dry keeps overnight!

  We get a start in the morning to finish the 25 miles to the camp and catch up with the bikes for the ride.  We arrive!/???? https://www.google.com/maps/place/Natchez+Trace+State+Park/@35.7966643,-88.2646834,21z/data=!4m8!1m2!2m1!1sPark+ranger+station+Natchez+Trace+State+Park!3m4!1s0x0:0x453e26176b68693f!8m2!3d35.7966755!4d-88.2646202?hl=en

No bikes to be seen.  It's a Park Ranger Station converted from an old campground named Merriweather Lewis Campground on West Natches Rd according to TomTom Mydrive.  The nice lady ranger that was pulling out as I pulled in was surprised that she could look up her workplace as Merriweather campground after never hearing of it before.  Now I knew I should've taken that right turn at Alberqwerki (right onto the Trace at Waynesboro).  I'm 50 miles from the crew and don't know the number of any of them.  Being that following the GPS faithfully and the screen being zoomed in to the road so tight I didn't see how far out of bounds we were getting as I would have with a wide view showing cities and such.
Oh well I guess this is our own ride now.  For the record there are great trails even though fresh trees were down by the storm that we rode in Natches Trace State Pk of Tennessee. We rode our own ride and decided we'd work our way towards Centerville TN on back roads and go the lunch spot I'd saved in my GPS also.  Beacon Light Tea Room.


We saw a lot of storm damage on the way, downed powerlines, had a lady flag us down frantically in the road.  She told us that there were cows in the road just over the hill, I thanked her.  She tried to stop me again as I pulled out and switched to my wife frantically flagging her down.  My wife had heard the conversation over comms and just told her thanks as we eased by.  I grew up with cows, no sweat.  I am glad of the warning so that I wasn't surprised if they had been immediately at the top of the hill and I was going too fast, but we weren't.  Sure enough there is a small heard of healthy cows and the bull.  About 15 total cows calves and all.  I let it idle in 1st and maintained my line slowly in the correct lane and the group parted and I spoke to them like they were mine and they didn't get all alarmed.  So we passed right through without stampeding them.  Onto Centerville. 

  I had the GPS tracks from the tndualsport group ride in the same area.  I knew the roads would be mostly the same but didn't know the routing of the DirtDevil ride nor the order so I didn't try to ride the trails and try my luck at happening into the crew.   

  We fuel again in Centerville, 15 miles south of Beacon Light Tea Room as I remember the name.  I'll add pictures later and the name may be slightly different.  NO bikes at the lunch spot.  As we wait for a table I notice the large party dining room had menus placed at a lot of chairs.  I showed my wife and said that's for the crew we're at the right place.  We'll eat and catch up to them here it was 11:20pm.  The food was great, and the hospitality.  I overhear a phone call come in, the large party will be an hour late, "uh oh they've had some kind of trouble".  My wife and I speculate over if the storm was just rough on everyone and they got sleep late and in turn got a late start to try and recover from it, or if there was a flat, or a dropped bike at a water crossing that was getting drIed out.....so many options.

  I left a note "Thinwater was here" and something along the lines of we've had adventurous trouble and it looks like ya'll may have had the same.  Rather than kill another hour waiting, then possibly another hour waiting on the crew to eat before riding we headed out.  Cash Hollow Rd was a road I'd found in the past 15 miles to the West.  Just south of the Canoe Rental a remote trail road we rode and forked off to find even more trail roads that were not all explored, but the ones we did were great trails.  We should ride that area sometime and also the error found Natchez State Park.  I started recording my route on GPS and will try to upload the GPX file it covers the trails we took and then our ride towards home.

  We planned to camp with everybody, ride Saturday, and then be back home to pick up kids and back to life.  As error and fate would have it we rode our own ride and then as time shrank headed for home.  We went by the real campsite, saw evidence of a rainy camp night, clothes hanging to dry and such.  I snapped another I was here pic in front of the tent shower that converstion kinda went strange on.  Then I picked the shortest path home avoiding nothing on my trusty TomTom 550rider.  This usually results into good backroads discovery, and it did.  I recorded that too, so for a dual sport ride to the DirtDevil camp next year you could follow this GPS track up.  It strayed from the plan a little to shoot a gap in the storm line.  Successfully we navigated the storm and found another fantastic backroad I didn't know close enough to afternoon ride from North Alabama.

We made lemonade out of lemon directions and circumstances, I feel like we probably slept better than the DirtDevil ride crew.  Sorry I didn't get to see ya'll and ride with you.  I tried, TWICE! 

[lazeebum]

What part of North Alabama?

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[Nice Goat]

Sorry we missed y'all!  The nice people at the restaurant made sure that we saw your note!  Saturday night camping was much better since the storm seems to have just skirted around our campground.

[lazeebum]

Yeah, that storm was ripping down hwy 64.

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[KevinB]

Sorry to miss you guys and to hear about your troubles, but it sounds like adventure was had nonetheless.  :)

[kdtrull]

Great story.  Reminds me of one of my favorite lines from this site...."Adventure is adversity in retrospect."

[thinwater]

What part of North Alabama?

As late as the day lasts in the summer I'm sure you could ride to Minor Hill TN and back before dark from Huntsville after work.  The gps track will start near the rocket on I-65 near Elkmont.  I have to offload it still and pics to add also.

[thinwater]

I'll have to get lessons from klaviator on how to get the pics places were you want them in a ride report.