Fall Getaway

[klaviator]

Sometimes you just need to get away and enjoy the scenery.  It looks like I picked a good week for it.  I went out this morning a played around with my camera while Debbi was still sleeping.



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[polarissalesman]

Great pictures.... I'm so jealous... I don't have any vacation days left   :(  :'(

[klaviator]

Great pictures.... I'm so jealous... I don't have any vacation days left   :(  :'(

I'm using my last vacation days for this. 

We decided to ride and enjoy the Blue Ridge Parkway. The Section from 19 just above Maggie Valley to Asheville is probably the best part of the BRP.

At our motel before heading out.



Taking a break at Waterrock Knob.



Although the speed limit on the BRP is 45 MPH most of the time most of the cage traffic was going 30-35 and in some cases as slow as 20 MPH. Same with a group of trikes we got stuck behind. So we stopped at a lot of overlooks instead of staying behind the slow traffic. Sometime the slow traffic was nice enough to pull into the overlooks and let us by.

This is one overlook we would have stopped at anyway. Debbi was still doing her bank robber impersonation just like the pic at the motel.



More pics along the BRP. Since the leaves were starting to change on our drive up here, even in Alabama, we expected that they might be past their peak up here. This was not the case. They are probably a week away from peak but they were still pretty.



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[Chuck A.]

Boy! Making me want to pull some "sick time" to be able to ride up for the leaves. Boss want let me take vacation right now. Love your write ups Win. Keep'em coming.

[klaviator]

I've been too busy riding to work on this report.. Let me try to finish day one.

Our next stop was at Devil's Courthouse.



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Debbi decided she wanted to hike to the top so up we went.



It's a bit of an uphill hike But it's a great view from the top. Our bike is in that parking lot way down there.



Zooming in for a closer view.



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After the hike we were getting hungry so we stopped at the Pisgah Inn for lunch. I didn't take any food pics but lunch was great and we got a table right by the window. If you have never eaten there the restaurant has great views of the mountains.

After lunch we continued a few miles on the Parkway then turned onto Route 151. This is a nice twisty road that heads down the mountain towards Asheville. It is a fun ride.

Part of the way down we stopped and Debbi decided to do her Killboy impersonation.



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Or using a different setting on the camera:



Then we headed back the way we came. We wanted to be at Watterock Knob for Sunset. Luckily traffic on the Parkway was much lighter than it had been earlier in the day and we were able to cruise at a "reasonable" speed. We made it in time and took a bunch of pics.



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[klaviator]

Maggie Valley is a great place to stay for a rider. Not only is it surrounded by fantastic roads, it's just a pretty little town.



Across the street from our motel is Joey's pancake house. They only do breakfast and close at noon but they are always packed. There were a lot of people waiting every morning this week.




I did eat their Tuesday morning and it was worth the wait.

Time to ride. This time Debbi took the camera so most of the pics for this day were taken by her. Today's ride was to Hot Springs NC. Instead of being up on the mountain looking down we would mostly be in the valleys looking up at the scenery. 209 to Hot Springs is one of my favorite roads and riding it on an absolutely beautiful day like we had on this day is just fantastic. I'll let Debbi's pictures do the talking.



This is not 209, it's some back roads I use to connect Maggie Valley to 209. There is never much traffic on these roads.  The road surface isn't always the best but these roads are plenty curvy.



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Debbi wasn't used to this camera and sometimes got her finger in the top left of the picture.



Now we're on 209.  It's very scenic in addition to being very twisty.



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We took a break here.



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[klaviator]

After our stop we continued on 209 to Hot Springs.



I wanted to have lunch at the little country store in front of the campground and eat outside at a picnic table like I have many times in the past but it was closed. So we tried someplace new.



The food was very good but we ate waaaaay too much.

A pic of Hot Springs. We weren't the only riders in town.




Then we continued on and did a loop out of Hot Springs.

Debbi trying to get some action shots.  If you look real hard you can see me coming around the curve.



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The problem with this spot was that this road was so twisty that it was hard to find a place to safely turn around. I had to go quite a ways in either direction.

Took a super twisty road down to the river and stopped here to get some shots and take a break.



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Eventually we ended up back in Hot Springs and then heading South on 209. Debbi got some more shots as we were riding.



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That's I-40 up there.

[klaviator]

I got up early the next morning and headed up to Waterrock Knob. I've been wanting to hike the trail to the top for years but never got around to it. Most of the times I've been there I've been dressed in riding gear and wearing riding boots. This time I wore hiking boots. It's about 10 miles from the motel to Waterrock Knob. It was a chilly ride but scenic and fun. I rode a bit past the Knob and took this pic:



Then I parked at Waterrock Knob and started my hike.  This trail isn't real long but it is steep.



Besides the fact that I really needed to get some exercise due to all the food I've been eating, thehike was worth it for the nice views up here. That's the parkway down there.



Using the zoom.



Harrah's Casino in Cherokee if I'm not mistaken.



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The ride back to MV on the BRP was very scenic. The leaves still aren't at peak but more colorful than two days earlier. However most of the pics I took didn't really show the colors. This one was the best:

[VWCarlos]

Awesome pics! I hope I can make it to the hills before the leaves peak.

[klaviator]

I headed back to the motel where Debbi was ready for some breakfast. She is not normally a big breakfast eater but was in the mood for pancakes this morning. Unfortunately Joey's pancake house is closed on Thursdays:( So we decided to try the Maggie Valley Restaurant. The pancakes there were as good if not better than Joey's. Of course we ended up eating way too much.......again.

Got this pic back at the motel.



Oh, almost forgot. I took this pic in front of the motel first thing in the morning when the light was just right.



Since we ate so much we were feeling lazy and just hung out at the motel for a while. There is a creek behind the motel and they had a hammock for two so we laid in it for a while and enjoyed the sounds of the creek. Finally we got up and I took a few pics of the creek.

[klaviator]

Debbi was feeling like vegging out so I ended up going riding by myself. I decided to ride a road I wanted to work into the previous day's ride but didn't. So I headed out on my normal route towards Hot Springs.  Instead of taking main roads to get to 209 I take some back roads that don't seem to be well known by riders because I don't recall seeing any other bikes on these roads.  One of these roads was dirt/gravel until a few years ago and is still a little rough.  It is also twisty as hell[/img]

I first discovered these roads while on an organized dual sport ride many years ago.



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Anyone seen the movie Field of Dreams? Well if you did you should know why I posted the next pic:



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I ended up on 209.



Then I turned on to 63.  I rode this years ago and remembered that it was a good road.  Some scenic stuff right at the beginning:



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Continuing on 63:



I was hoping to get some pics to show how awesome this road as but I don't think I succeeded.  Here's a few:



This road is real twisty as it goes over the mountain.



And the view isn't bad either.  This was the view from the curve in the last pic:



After getting over the mountain I went a few miles and took a few pics before turning around and heading back the way I came.



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Back on 209.



And back on those little side roads I was on earlier.



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Maggie Valley really gets into decorating for the fall.



Another great day of riding!  The next day we were planning to head over to Sevierville to be typical tourists......but not before doing some more riding

[Hammerdown77]

Man. MAN. I wish I was back there right now, where it's not still in the mid 80's in the Fall...

Awesome pictures.

[griff]

Maggie Valley is someplace I'd like to go again.

[klaviator]

Man. MAN. I wish I was back there right now, where it's not still in the mid 80's in the Fall...

Awesome pictures.

I wish I was back there too.  I really didn't want to leave.  We really lucked out with the weather on this trip.  I think that in a few more days the leaves would have been hitting their peak colors. 

[klaviator]

Friday was a great day as I ended up going on three rides. First, I got up early and headed out while Debbi was still sleeping. I headed up to the BRP to see if the leaves had gotten better in the last few days. I got to the BRP shorty after eight. It was a bit chilly but since it was early there wasn't a lot of traffic. I guess the leaf peepers like to sleep in. Good thing because they tend to drive 10-25 MPH under the speed limit. So I was able to have a little fun cruising the parkway and still get some pics.



Playing around with my camera I took the same pic again.



The colors had changed quite a bit more since the first day we rode the BRP.



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Saw this interesting "RV" at Waterrock Knob. It looks like they took and old U haul truck, re-painted it, added some windows and maybe some stuff to the inside. The inportant thing was they had room to haul their bikes.



As I was exiting the BRP to head back to MV I noticed a couple of Harleys stopped at the side of the road. Then I noticed more bikes stopped. There were three ELK feeding just off the road.



Everyone was stopping to take pics. Eventually I needed to go so I just cruised by slowly and got a closer pic.