Boiled peanuts: the missing link

Well, folks. Here's the missing post from last Sunday which was the end, really, of the NC riding.

So, I got my boiled peanuts on our way out of Cherokee..... yuck! They're mushy *lol*. Of course, they would be since they're boiled. Duh. Per Mark's night-before declaration, we did get a fairly early start - 0835h by the time we gassed up and got on the road, and, luckily, the cauldron was set up on Rte 441 on our way to the Parkway. We ordered up our peanuts and I was presented with this bag of piping hot peanuts that the nice man dipped out of the cauldron. I looked at the steaming peanuts, looked at Nancy & Mark and said “what am I going to do with these on the bike?!” At this point, the vendor clued in that I was a boiled-peanut noob so he asked “have you had boiled peanuts before?” . “No” I tell him. “Well, you’d better try them first - before you buy them.” Good idea. In the meantime, a guy - a regular customer - came up behind us and bought “my” bag. Apparently, I hadn’t given them much of a chance. Mark ate several of them and developed a bit of a taste for them.

Back on the road again. We hit the Parkway and rode almost 400 kilometres - in and out of fog, drizzle and sun. When we the hit the Parkway around 0900h, I thought “wow, this is great. The cagers are still in bed!” No cars. Mark let me go ahead so he and Nancy could just mosey along. I hadn't gone very far when I came up on an SUV which, very thoughtfully - and unlike a lot of 4-wheelers - pulled into the next lookout to let me go by. I was fortunate to go another 45 minutes before I came up behind another vehicle :-) (or any I had to follow for any length of time, if I recall correctly)

It was such a perfect morning - mist coming off the valley and sun shining through the mist and the trees. The light was wonderful. Leaves were dropping and wafting down over the road which was slightly damp from the previous night's rain or fog. I was watchful and there weren’t enough wet leaves on the road lanes to create a hazard. It’s hard to believe that there would a difference in colours over a few days but I think there was. And, oddly, it was patchy - lots of colour in some places, more muted colours in others; many trees without leaves in some places and still greenish in others. Elevation didn’t seem to make a difference. And elevation didn’t seem to make a difference to the fog either. There was no rhyme nor reason - not that I observed, anyway. We approached a tunnel at one point (there were lots of those, by the way!) - the mountain ridges were bathed in sun and colour; came out the other end of the tunnel and I couldn’t see a anything for fog!

What to tell you about Sunday’s ride? Or our 3 days of riding. Earlier in the day, we had stopped at a Visitor / Folk Art & Craft Centre for a rest room break. A woman, slightly older than I maybe, was painting tiny dolls at a table near the washrooms and I asked her if I could leave my jacket, helmet and tankbag on the floor behind her while I went to the washroom. Yes, of course I could. When I came back out and was thanking her, she never missed a beat - kept right on painting and told me, smiling, “there’s no better way to see the world than from a motorcycle.” Holy smokes! Hadn’t I said that very thing the day before?. She’d had a motorcycle for years and got rid of it when her children became old enough to express interest. Of course, I encouraged her to get back into it since, from the look on her face, she clearly had very fond memories of it.

For 3 days, I’ve wondered how to describe the vistas. Mountain ranges and ridges with barely a rock face showing and bathed in colour; some of it vibrant, some of it muted. Some of it very colourful, some of it already reduced to shades of ochre. Recall the multicolour shag carpet from the seventies and picture it like mounds of ....I don’t know.... forest moss. That’s what the miles and miles of mountain range look like. Today, at around 1600 metres, I came around a turn and fog settled in around the peaks seemed to meet the clouds. Where one stopped and the other began seemed indistinguishable. It was like coming down along Lake Superior from Wawa in June at dusk. With the quality of the light from the setting sun, I couldn’t distinguish sky from water. For the most part, the Parkway hugs the mountain side and there are trees on the slope side of the road. Most of the turns are “winding”, not really sweepers, and a good number of them are descending radius turns. The speed limit on the Parkway is 45 mph except for curves that are 35 mph, 25 mph or less. S-turn after s-turn after s-turn.... up and around, then down and around and back up and around. VERY rhythmic and fun! And looking from one ridge to the next, you can see through the road snaking along the mountain and through the foliage. I wasn’t very successful in capturing that particular photo.

JUST when I thought we’d seen it all and it couldn’t get any better .... the last few miles of our ride today on the Parkway were THE most spectacular we’d seen, and the now-familiar lump returned to my throat. We had come upon a view of fall foliage and rock face - kind of rare (the rock face, that is). There were many cars pulled over in the lookout with people milling about taking photographs. Mark pulled over to take what was probably his third photograph so, of course, I followed. As it turned out, I refer to this particular photo op as a “sucker punch". The BEST shots were a couple of miles up the road and I didn’t have my camera around my neck where it had resided since Thursday. I’d neglected to charge the battery Saturday night and when the drizzle got particularly heavy on Sunday, I tucked the camera away. Too bad.

All of a sudden we came around a turn and there was everything we’d seen - in bits and pieces for 3 days - all laid out before us. Instead of having to glance off to the side to see the mountain ranges - kind of difficult and dangerous in the circumstances - this vista was right in front of us. Mountain ranges bathed in every colour of yellow, brown, orange, red, green; the roadway widened and we rode over a viaduct. Looking across to the next ridge, we could see the Parkway climbing through the trees and once across the viaduct, we could look back and see the viaducgct running along the side of the mountain. The area was plugged full of cars and people walking, setting up tripods for photographs or just standing admiring the veritable splendor of the panorama before them. It’s a good thing I didn’t have my camera out amidst all of that as it would have been a mishap begging to happen. Plus, as I’ve said before, my little pocket camera couldn’t have done it justice.

So.... there you have it. We’re back in Timberlake, kicking back for a couple of days before heading north, enjoying what will likely be our last ride for 6 months. Oddly enough, we’re not seeing that many bikes around here. The Parkway and the mountains had lots of riders over the weekend but when Mark was down here around this same time a few years ago, at a bike dealer in Durham, he commented on the dearth of bikes in the area. He was told that people stop riding “for the winter” . HUH?! It’s perfect riding weather here right now. They need to live where WE do. Pussies.

A few housekeeping notes. I was going to remark the other day on how you have to love the ‘mericuns for the way they observe and celebrate all special events - pagan and otherwise. Right now, the vast majority of commercial establishments (hotels, shops, even the little service station in the woods at the end of the Cherohala) are all decorated with sheaves of wheat, pumpkins, scarecrows, potted mums. Very beautiful. You also have to love the CHEAP gas! I think the most we’ve paid is $2.80-something for a couple of tanks of premium gas for mountain riding. The regular gas been been right around $2.30. Which, in a quickie conversion, is between $0.60 and $0.70 per liter. Nice.

What I don’t love about the ‘mericuns is the absence of daytime running lights on their damned cars. Man, there were times in fog and drizzle in the mountains that a car would be almost alongside me before I saw it. Or a car would be running with park (!) lights on. Jeepers. Mark and both have new LED lights on our bikes and there aren’t many around. Ours are two of probably fewer than two dozen FJRs (there ARE other bikes, eg., BMWs) that have them. They’re manufactured in California and I first found out about them at CFR. They’re highly visible so it was very easy to spot each other in our mirrors. Between those, bright double headlights and my 4-way flashers in the particularly soupy stuff, I felt pretty confident about my visibility to oncmoing traffic. It’s my hind end that needs work now - if you get my drift ;-)

Final post coming right up.....