HOLY COW, This is going to be awesome!

My desire to go somewhere new and exciting has been building for a while. Karen and I are planning on returning to Wales, and have discussed going in March during her spring break. I'd have enough vacation time, she would be off for a week, and a college friend of her's was interested in going with us. Seemed like a plan, if we saved up enough money and got into the mindset now.

My birthday was this week. For the week before my birthday, Karen had begun telling me that my Christmas gift was going to be incredible, fanciful stories meant to make me think it was a kangaroo, a Zeppelin, or a dual sidecar rocket powered motorcycle. The teasing got so bad, she told me that I was going to like it better than any sidecar motorcycle (drool.... Ural Patrol T) and we made a bet that if it wasn't as cool as a Ural, I could by one after Christmas. If I lost the bet, she gets a wine of the month club subscription. This continued all the way till my birthday. Karen gave me my birthday gift the night before my birthday, a nook e-reader, so that I could charge it and use it on my birthday. Very cool gift, already digging it immensely.

On the night of my birthday, she couldn't contain herself about Christmas any longer. When I picked her up, she told me that she was giving it to me that night, on my birthday, and that was final. I argued with her the entire way home that it was a bad idea, and this continue once we got home all the way up to the point that she actually handed me a bag. I really wanted to wait, but she lamented that it was physically painful for her to keep it a secret.

I grudgingly looked into the bag, and realized that there was a book inside. Really, a book? Cooler than a Ural?!?!?! HA! That bike was practically mine! I pushed the book back to get a grip on it and spied the cover. Peru? Wait, What? Why did she get me a travel guide to Peru? What is this paperwork inside of the book? I slid the book out of the bag, and it was indeed a Lonely Planet travel guide to Peru. Karen had a massive grin on her face, and she said "Read the paperwork!" I pulled the papers out of the book and opened them up. On the top of the first sheet was the Delta Airlines logo. Huh?!?!?!?

1 Ticket for me to Lima Peru on March 24th, 2012? I asked Karen what this was, and she said "You are going to Lima in March! I visited ADVRider.com (a popular motorcycle travel forum I'm on) and got suggestions for motorcycle rentals and hostels already. It's going to be cheap, you can rent a dual sport bike, and visit Machu Picchu!" It took a few minutes for it to register as to what was going on, and it took about 24 hours for me to really get a grasp on it all. I didn't even really start planning stuff correctly right away.

Now, I'm entering full blown planning mode. I am going to be using my motorcycle luggage as my luggage for the trip, so I'll be going super lightweight for the week. I am planning on getting new boots and a new helmet before the trip, and if I can get a decent price on my old car, I may buy a new riding suit before then as well. I've got a short list of things I want to borrow or buy before then (Spot Connect personal tracker or a Delorme inTouch personal tracker, point and shoot camera, dry bag, some sports clothing that will wash easily and keep me dry, etc) and I already have a rough itinerary as well. I've been reading ride reports on ADV, researching the best places to rent bikes, planning packing lists, and looking at travel sites. So much to do, but with Christmas coming, it's only a half-assed effort at best right now. Once January 1st hits, I have a feeling that I will know everything I need to do in short order.

I can't wait, a little over 100 days till I visit Peru, my first foray into South America! Thank you Karen, you are awesome! I love that you know me so well, and love what I want to do!

Obligatory Machu Picchu shot from someone else:

I haven't posted much of nothing up here lately, so I decided to simply grab this off of a Yamaha forum that I am on and repost it here:




I always mean to post more in this area, but lately I just have not been very good at taking pictures as I ride, nor about writing about it when I'm done. I read so many cool ride reports on various forums that most of the time I think it's sort of pointless to write up. This one is not much of an exception except that it was in an area I've wanted to ride for a while and a nice change after not riding for over a month (due to parts coming in).

Last week, my wife and I, and some good friends of ours loaded his and my bikes onto his trailer and headed for the mountains of Western North Carolina. We live in North Middle Tennessee and were only about 3.5-4 hours from home. Took the dogs, rented a couple of cabins and planned to ride, relax, and eat all weekend.

My wife and I got out of town a bit earlier than they did, and arrived in time to cook dinner and chill for the night. Matt (both of us share a name) and Leslie arrived around 3:00am on Friday morning. They were towing the bikes, and Leslie was teaching a Chemistry lab that night that ran late. They got in, texted us, and crashed out. I got up nice and early and lounged about until Matt texted me around 10:30. We definitely had a lazy morning and I arrived at their place (about 10 miles down the road) at around 11:15. By the time we got the bikes unloaded, geared up and ready to hit the road, it was nearly 1! Matt and Leslie were riding together the first day, so the three of us rode into Murphy, NC for a quick lunch at a dinner, and then hit the road. We had no definitive plan today, but Matt and I were planning on hitting the Tail of the Dragon and the Cherohala Skyway on Saturday.

We ended up taking 74 East for a couple of hours, stopping every so often to take in the views and watch the boats play. This area is very well known for it's Whitewater, and actually held a large number of events during the 1996 Olympics that were hosted in Atlanta.



We ended up tooling around for a bit, and found ourselves in Franklin, NC. Matt had mentioned that he wouldn't mind checking out Bridal Veil Falls and realized that we we only about 15 miles from it. So, we took off in that direction.

Bridal Veil Falls is unique, as a small side road has been cut to go underneath the falls, and you can ride/drive under it. The falls only hit the right side of the road, so we rode underneath them and grabbed a picture. The falls are fairly light, but the picture barely shows them. We had actually cleared most of the fall range, and the lighting looks bad from my cell phone picture.



Route 64 had this sign near the exit from Franklin that warning trucks of tight turns for the next 40 miles. Unfortunately, we only got to see about 10 miles of that as it was getting late in the day. We had to beat feet back to the cabin, and still got there slightly after dark. We do plan on going back next year and exploring some more though, lots of potential. We passed Dry Falls on the way back:



We got back and headed back to our place. My wife had smoked an AWESOME chicken in the Big Green Egg smoker that was at our rental house. I will very likely be investing in one of these soon! Had a fun night of overeating, great desert, and some fun board games. Matt and I planned to be up and out by around 10-11 the next morning.

After a good sleep that night, I was up around 7am. I very seriously considered going to go get my bike and exploring this 25-30 mile loop on the North side of Murphy that was all/mostly dirt and gravel, but it was a little chilly and I was really lazy that morning. Finally at around 10:30, I left the cabin and got ready to ride for the day. Met up with Matt again, and it was nearly 12 before we got on the road!

We rode toward the Tail of the Dragon today, and realized it was cooler than it looked. In the sun it was okay, but as soon as you got in the shadow of trees or a mountain, it was a little bit cool. I was actually wearing a tshirt and my mesh summer jacket, and had stupidly left my liner at the cabin. Yesterday, I didn't need the liner, and only put it in as the sun went down. I thought we would be back earlier tonight, and it seemed slightly warmer. Wrong choice!

We turned onto US129 North from Topton and found a road side BBQ truck. I again had smoked chicken and Matt had a pulled pork sandwich. I love pulled pork but I'm trying to limit my red meat intake and knew that we were going to have a smoked brisket that night for dinner. The chicken was excellent, and Matt said his pork was very tasty. The beans were really good too, in my opinion.

After a quick lunch and briefly talking with a guy on an older Moto Guzzi about the Dragon, we headed North to hit it up. Matt had ridden it last year, and I have driven it six years ago, but this was my attempt on a bike. I was not to be disappointed:







Pictures thanks to us129photos.com

We rode the Dragon North and stopped at the Harley "dealership" on the North side. Not sure what makes them a dealership, all they sell is HD Accessories that have the dragon printed on them. We were planning on riding around the lakes to Tellico Plains and then riding the Cherohala East back to Robbinsville, but it was getting later in the day. After briefly studying a map, we decided to turn around and and ride the dragon in the other direction, and then ride the Cherohala East to West. This would put us closer to the cabins, and probably save us 50-60 miles. Good call!

After a last glimpse of the rivers, we took off:



I have no more pictures from the Cherohala, unfortunately. It was very pretty, and I can't wait to ride it again, but I will do so in a warmer month. The Cherohala tops out at about 5400 feet, and while I know that's not very high for many people, my hometown is only at about 700 feet. It was markedly colder on this road that anywhere else we'd ridden all day. Fortunately, I had picked up a long sleeve tshirts from Deals Gap featuring the map of the Dragon, but it was still cold. We created the highest peak and began our descent into Tennessee, were it started to warm up.... for a while. The sun was headed over the horizon, and it was cooling off even more now.

We reached Tellico Plains about 6:45. I was sort of bummed as I had hoped to get there early enough to check out Tellico Motorcycle Outfitters, but realized that all of the missed opportunities were a good excuse to begin planning a return trip. US68 South was a great ride, but it was a bit dark to really seem a ton of stuff, plus 64 East of Franklin and the Cherohala are all going to be return trips, to be sure.

The only thing I really wish I had done was ride at least a little bit of dirt or gravel, but I did have a great ride, and a relaxing time when not on the bike. I got to ride with a good friend, some days I just wish I could talk him into getting a dual sport for his next bike. His wife rides with him a lot, so I think a BMW F800GS or even a Vstrom would be a good longer distance bike, but he is leaning more toward a sport touring. He recently told me that he was avoiding riding anything off pavement as he was afraid that he'd like it and want another bike!

Hope you enjoy this, and thought it would be cool to show of a semi-local area during prime fall riding season.

Got an itch......

And it's getting worse. Karen and I have been discussing and researching our New Year's travel plan options. We were planning on doing Brazil to visit our friend Mau, but tickets to Brazil would have very likely tapped out our entire travel budget. Karen has decided that she only wants to go for one week this year, wherever we end up, and that she wants to go overseas. I'm not sure where we are going to end up going, but all of this reading about places and not doing is making me itch, bad. My bike has been broken for three weeks, and it's likely to be two more weeks before I get parts for it. The weather is getting nicer and nicer (cooler) and I guess I just need to get out of the house on the weekends. I've been using my weekends to just do work around the house. Bleh.