Big Great Lakes Loop

Hey Jamie!

Finally caught up to you online. Great to meet you and spend some time together, both Neda and I learned a lot from you about budget travel! On the lookout for cemeteries in every single town we roll through! :) We're far behind on our own blog, but at least we've got it started.

Right now we're sitting in a cafe in Clearwater, BC. Hope to see you on the road again sometime!

Really? 4 pictures?! :huh

You take an epic trip like this, meet amazingly interesting people from ADV along the way, and all you have posted is 4 pics--one of your bike before you left and another of an old guy you scammed a steak dinner :dg from?! :eek1

How many days have you been home now? Where's the REAL ride report?

yeah

Coming soon!

Full ride report with photos and narrative.

See what happens when you combine a motorcycle, rain, heat, beer, Jägermeister, lots of Canadians, geocaching, an airplane, a canoe, motorcycle museums, waterfalls, classic cars, and friends and family who haven't been seen in years.



Jamie

It's about freaking time.

Like skipping foreplay, this trip started out unlike almost every trip I've ever taken. I got on the interstate to superslab straight for the good stuff.

Just before I got on the road, I snapped this pic of my loaded bike.



...and noted the odometer.



108,282 miles at the start.

Starting near the very southwest corner of Tennessee, I hoped to make it all the way to North Carolina by evening. I had worked the night before until 2am. It would be a long day.



The day started out hot. Like, 100°+ F hot. Then before Nashville a cold front came in and rain started to come down. I stopped to don my newly purchased Frogg Toggs.



The rain continued off and on for the next few hours and I was unimpressed by the performance of the rain gear and I shivered inside my riding suit.

During my planning, I had hoped to utilize the Tent Space list to meet and stay with as many other ADVriders as I could. First on my list was Party Boss and his Tent Space in Hot Springs, North Carolina. Unfortunately, I learned that Rick had passed away just a few months earlier.

From a post by knybanjo:



I never got to meet Rick, but his reputation was that of being a first-class host. A couple people I spoke to, including Rick's brother, agreed that Rick would be fine with a tent on his property in Hot Springs.

So I found myself climbing up his harrowing driveway in the faded light after sunset. At the top I found his beautiful cabin and decided to roll out my sleeping bag on the deck for the night.



(I later learned that the Tent Space offered by Rick is not at his cabin, but on some property down by the creek. Oops.)

I'd made it to my planned stop for the day and covered more than 500 miles. Ugh. At least I can say the Corbin seat I got in trade with socaltrailrider worked brilliantly. Tomorrow I'll be going to the Wheels Through Time museum down the road.

Jamie

In what will become a frustrating pattern, I hardly slept at all last night. Despite the luxury digs, I was cold and uncomfortable through the night even though the temperature was in the mid-60s and I've got a good sleeping bag.

As I sat on Rick's deck in the pre-dawn sounds of birds and dew dripping off the leaves, looking out over the space which has housed countless good times, I snapped this pic.



I was awake well before sunrise and despite my best efforts, was unable to get back to sleep, so I decided just to get up early. Today was my first "real" day of travel. Yesterday was just a mileage buster.

Back down the gravel hairpins which make up the driveway.



Since it was barely after sunrise and the museum doesn't open until 9am, I killed a couple hours by looking for a geocache. My dumb ass forgot my camera when I went for the hike, so I just got some bad iPhone pics.





I never did find the cache. I think it may have been vandalized since there was some recent tree cutting in the area. Nonetheless, I was glad to take the early morning walk in the woods. I wasn't feeling well at all.

I headed for the 9am opening of Wheels Through Time museum. When I arrived, I was the first one there.



The above pic was taken several hours later on my way out.

What an amazing facility, and as has been pointed out by numerous people, the owners and volunteers there are top notch. One volunteer, Skin, came outside and asked me about my bike and where I rode from and really took an interest. You don't see that everywhere.

Inside the museum, it's very hard to take pics, but here's a few I got.



Matt told us about riding this Henderson cross country. He reported no mechanical issues and pointed out that it likes to cruise about 50-55 mph, though it'll run up to about 70.



Later, Matt invited us outside to see his reproduction track bike.



According to Matt, the engine and wheels are original. As he said, he couldn't imagine racing and risking a piece of history. He claimed this was only the second time it's been started since the rebuild.

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Notice that the bike has no clutch and no brakes. It's direct drive and when the engine is running, the rear wheel is turning. Matt was prepping the bike for an upcoming race. From his blog a couple weeks later:

And here's the bike in action at the race, again from Matt's blog:

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Here, Dale starts up his 1918 (1919?) Indian. It was really loud. That's the exhaust pipe you see just in front of his toe.



Immediately afterward, he fired up a WWII-vintage Harley and drove it out of the museum, proclaiming to the gatherered crowd, "I'm going for a ride."

I had contacted TreeStrom on the Tent Space list a couple weeks ago and Ricky met me in Asheville, NC at the REI.



Ricky led the way up the Blue Ridge parkway, then we got onto some twisty roads.



I wasn't feeling good. It was wet out, and cold, and I felt feverish and achy. I couldn't wait to sleep in a comfortable bed.

We went through some amazing gravel roads just before arriving to his house, where his wife and some friends were waiting around a fire with hotdogs and other camp food. Ricky's wife made us hobo pies, which was two slices of bread with pie filling heated over the fire. Very warm and delicious. I was exhausted and didn't take a single picture.

Despite a comfortable bed in the guest room, I again didn't hardly sleep at all. Tossed and turned all night.

Jamie

I hadn't slept much last night and woke up with a headache and feeling both hot and cold at the same time. I couldn't figure out what was wrong, but I wasn't going to let that ruin this trip.

Ricky's wife Frida had breakfast ready on the table when we got up: omelets, toast, and mouth-watering homemade apple butter jelly. After eating we went out to the garage and Ricky checked my chain alignment, and according to him, "I've never seen one so far out of whack."



His wife sewed some repairs on a strap I had made before the trip, securing my fuel bottle.



And then Ricky showed me around his farm, where he harvests Christmas trees. This implement wraps the trees in twine for shipping.



And this conveyer lifts the trees into the truck.



And this view from behind Ricky's farm shows a neighboring tree farm. "I remember when this was all farmland as far as the eye could see. Old Man Peabody owned all of this. He had this crazy idea about breeding pine trees."



Just before I left, a group photo. Big thanks Ricky and Frida. Excellent hosts and good food!



I headed north.





My plan was to go see the New River Gorge bridge in West Virginia today. I dig bridges.



But with my late start and stopping for photos and riding the back roads, I wasn't sure I'd make it, let alone have time to see the place.

Quick story--no pics. I stopped for a short break at a convenience store and parked next to two cruisers. A couple guys came out and we started talking about riding. The younger guy looks at my license plate. "Did you ride from Mississippi?" I tell him I rode in the day before from the Memphis area. He sheepishly admits that he and his friend trailered their bikes from Nashville and are spending the weekend riding. A moment later a girl comes out of the store and does a double-take at the cruisers.

"Nice bikes!" she says to them. She makes a circle and notices their license plates. "Did you ride all the way from Tennessee?" she asks the guys, her eyes agape.

He looks up at her. "Sure did."

I rode down to historic Thurmond on the New River with the plan to see the old town and look for a place to camp for the night.



Stone Cliff Beach is a free campground near Thurmond where I hoped to stay. I stopped by an information booth to see what there was to know. Then I checked out the campground. It was mostly an open area near the beach and several families had already claimed it. The prospect of trying to sleep near a bunch of cutoff jeans-wearing, beer-drinking rednecks and their multiple kids turned me off, so I located Army Camp campground on my map which didn't look to be too far away.

The road was smooth gravel.



And there were some homes along the way. I found this abandoned farm to be particularly interesting.



But after the last house, the road worsened.



And worse than that.



Some spots had fallen trees.



Some hadn't yet been cleared out of the way.



The terrain was beautiful. I was nervous of encountering a show-stopper where I'd have to turn around and go back.



But pretty scary in the waning light.





I eventually made it to the other campground, which was much better suited to me. I made some dinner and aimed for bed. It had been a rough, but fun day.



Though an adventurous ride, that gravel road cost me a couple hours when I was planning to see Thurmond. Now, not only would I have to wait until tomorrow to see the town, but I'll have to go up and around about an hour to get back there tomorrow. No way I'm riding that hellish gravel again.

Jamie

Old Man Peabody....that made me laugh. Did you check out that old farm house?

I was wondering if anyone would catch that.

I didn't check out the farmhouse other than take a couple pictures. Here's a shot from a different angle.



There was no easy way back to the building. Everything was grown up waist deep, or higher.

In retrospect, I'm very glad I didn't waste any more time than I did. The road ahead was treacherous and I barely made it to my destination before dark.

Thanks for reading and asking questions.

Jamie

I hate to sound like a broken record, but another fitful night of sleep. Hot and cold all night. Couldn't get comfortable.

As is my custom, I took a snapshot of my campsite in the morning. I have a great appreciation for picnic tables and a lot of my stealth camping techniques involve finding a place with a bench or table.



As I said yesterday, I still hadn't seen the town of Thurmond, so I headed back, though not on the same road as yesterday.







The visitor center was closed due to "No Electricity."



Thurmond is an historic railroad town with a current population of five. In a car that drove by, I think I saw 40% of the residents.

Thurmond was an important stop along the C&O railroad in this coal mining area. The depot still exists, as well as several of the original buildings. Amtrak still runs through the town and until very recently was an official stop on the Amtrak line. Today, it's essentially a ghost town.



The post office was open until 1995, and then apparently locked up and abandoned.



The downtown area is all on the National Register of Historic Places. Officially, there are no roads downtown. The railroad tracks have been the town's main transportation. There were no operating businesses that I saw, and aside from the previously mentioned car which drove past, I didn't see anther person in the hour or so that I lurked around.



A few people do live here. According to the 2000 census, there were five households and seven people.





I headed east out of Thurmond, what's labeled as County Road 25/2. Shortly out of town I ran into a fella with the hood open on his truck. I stopped to see if everything was ok. He said he was just waiting for the truck to cool down. I asked him if the road went through to the highway, and in one of my exceedingly rare experiences of having a local actually know the area, he thought for a moment and said, "Well, if there aren't any trees down you should be able to get through, but it'll take a couple hours." He was dead right. And he told me to watch out for rattlesnakes.

No downed trees, but a lovely road to ride. Kinda like yesterdays one-lane gravel road, but less muddy. And no snakes.



About two hours later, I was back up to the highway. I went to see the big attraction here, the bridge over the New River Gorge. The visitor center was again closed due to power outage. There's a boardwalk which leads down to an observation where you get only an obstructed view.





I found it disappointing the number of people around me who were huffing and puffing from the few flights of stairs. Most didn't take the walk to the lower level where you get the money shot.



The New River Gorge bridge was at one time the longest single-span arch bridge in the world. The arch itself is 1,700 feet long and the bridge totals 3,030 feet in length, with the New River 876 feet below. At the time of its construction in 1977 it was the world's highest vehicular bridge.

And in the other direction.



Wait, what's that? Another bridge down there?

I followed this one-lane and partially one-way road down into the gorge to get to the bridge and found myself virtually alone at the bottom.





This is a reconstruction of the original New River Gorge bridge that the big one replaced 35 years ago.

From here, the view is spectacular.



There's another one-lane road leading up and out of the gorge on the other side.

I stopped to look for another geocache in a small hiking area down the road a bit. There were supposed to be some waterfalls, but they were just a muddy trickle when I was there.



Toward evening I made it to my daily goal, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. This image was taken as I left.



The crown jewel of the observatory is the Green Bank Telescope, a radio telescope located in the middle of the United States National Radio Quiet Zone, an area of 13,000 square miles where radio transmissions are strictly regulated.

Here's a model of the telescope inside the visitor center.



The telescope is the world's largest steerable radio telescope and is more than 400 feet tall. It's huge. I wish I could show you pictures, but the telescope is so senstive that the emissions from a digital camera could cause interference. Electronic devices are strictly prohibited from within a mile and a half of the telescope. I made a mistake and did not purchase a disposable film camera in the gift shop before my tour.

Frank Drake did some of his work here and he is acknowledged in the visitor center. I loves me some Drake equation.



I arrived after 5pm when I thought for sure they'd be closed. To my surprise, the last tour of the day is at 6pm, and I was able to sign up. I was the only one on the tour. A young woman named Vivian was my tour guide. She first gave a presentation in an auditorium--I was the only audience member--where she described the work of the observatory and a bit about the radio-free zone. Then the two of us went outside to this 50-passenger shuttle bus.



It's a diesel, of course. No spark-plug powered vehicles are allowed near the telescope. And the radio has been removed from the dash.

It was a pretty informal tour. I sat right up front and Vivian described the facilities and pointed out numerous deer as we drove the loop. A few times she stopped the bus and we got out for a closer look. Again, can't use my digital camera in this ultra-sensative area.

When we returned to the visitor center, she suggested I go check out this truck:



It's used to locate devices in the area which are causing interfere with the telescope. In one case that Vivian told me, they pin-pointed an electric blanket in a nearby house which was interfering with the telescopes. A blanket!



She also explained how the local school has a microwave oven housed inside a Faraday cage and constructed such that it won't operate unless doors to both the microwave itself *and* the cage are closed.

From the nearby highway, a distant view of the Green Bank Telescope. It's huge. Really.



When I left the observatory I headed north through the Monongahela National Forest and to find a place to stop for the night.



Not long after this picture, a bear and her cub came out of the woods and hesitated before scurrying across the road in front of me. Too quick for a pic. Today was the day for wildlife.

I found a National Forest campground and while making dinner by my tent I could see the sky lighting up and hear sounds of thunder in the distance.

Jamie

Very cool RR. Thanks for posting it.
I am also sorry I was a no-show when you came through St Louis. Looks like a great trip.
I'm interested to hear what was making you feel so poorly..
If you were out west, I'd have thought altitude sickness.
Jeff

Hey Jeff, wish you could have made it to dinner in St. Louis too. I was hoping for a big turnout. As is, it was a pretty good time. That comes later in the report.

I don't want to give away the ending, but I never really figured out what was going on. It eventually just went away. Gave me very minor flu-like symptoms. Even on the bike, I felt a very tiny bit disoriented now and then, especially if I moved my head too quickly.

Thanks for the comments.

Jamie

During the night, a torrential rain. I was smug knowing how dry I was until I felt a chill on my back sometime around 3am. I was laying in about an inch of water. The rain pounded on the outside of my tent.

What a miserable night, and I paid $12 for the opportunity. Today was going to be a long day.



Though I felt a bit cloudy-headed from my lack of sleep and whatever bug I seemed to have, I got on the bike as early as reasonable.



Lots of whitewater rafting in this area, and I stopped at this cool old store to gas up.



State highway 72 had been recommended to me, so I turned left onto the little country road.



Just after taking this pic, I noticed that none of my gauges were working, nor did I have any lights on the bike, save the headlight. What the heck? I found a blown fuse and a quick Google search informed me that this is one of the few common problems on the V-Strom. On one forum, it was referred to as the "Dreaded 15A fuse problem." Unfortunately the solution was not easy to find. I stopped just a few yards from the above pic and started searching around for any wires which may be grounding against the frame without luck.

Meanwhile, three people stopped to ask if I were all right. Two of those people suggested I "drift" down the hill to a local repair shop. Must be a regionalism, since both people used the word when they meant "coast." In the end, that's what I decided to do. Here's the repair shop.



Though we couldn't find the problem, we did find a switch I'd installed which had some exposed wires. The mechanic taped them up with electrical tape and we tried a new fuse. Seemed to work, so I went on my way. No charge.

Back on 72 I found a narrow, curvy road.





Twenty minutes into my ride, my gauges went out again. No speedometer. No taillight. No turn signals. No brake light. Great.

With my late start and electrical troubles, I was behind schedule. Today was one of the few days I had a set destination. I have a friend who lives in Jamestown, New York and we'd made arrangements that I'd stay with her tonight, her only free evening. Furthermore, the friend I was staying with <i>tomorrow</i> was heading out of town the following day, so I couldn't be late. I had a long way to go, and was already late.

I stopped at this former coal mine where there was a geocache, but I didn't have the time to look for it. Just a quick little look around and then on my way.



Though I was behind schedule, I still planned to see a few things. I stopped at Fallingwater, a Frank Lloyd Wright house built in 1937. The literature for the tour asks you to leave your camera behind since photography is prohibited. I followed the directions and left my camera on my bike.

Just before the start of the tour, the tour guide tells us that photography is not allowed inside the home, but you can take pictures outside. I must have been the only one who read the rules because everyone else had their cameras, and I was stuck taking pictures with my phone.



The main design element of the house is horizontal lines. You find very few vertical supports and where they are, they're either craftfully hidden or are made to be as small as possible.





Fallingwater is so named because it is built over a waterfall on a small creek.



The tour was quick (somewhere less than an hour) and expensive ($23), but it was an impressive sight as well as an interesting cultural lesson about life in the 30s. But what can I say? I had to wait in line on a Monday afternoon to get tickets, so it looks like they can charge as much as they want. At any moment, there are probably four or five different tour groups going through the house.

My next must-visit location was the Flight 93 National Memorial in southeastern Pennsylvania.



The memorial is a relatively new addition to the National Park Service, having been dedicated less than a year ago. As such, there wasn't a lot of infrastructure. There is a walkway and sculpture (which I think will eventually be a fountain) leading out to the wall of names. My understanding is that the actual crash site is spread out in the field just beyond this photo, though there is no public access.



The wall of names is still under construction.



Up near the parking lot there were some benches and some scattered plaques with photographs. One very cool aspect is that each photo had a QR code which would direct your phone to an audio recording describing the scene in the photo.



I talked to my friend in Jamestown and told her that I would be late, but I was on my way. I had a few more than 200 miles to her house. I replaced the blown 15A fuse hoping it would get me into the night. If it failed, I'd have to stop.

I pulled into her driveway about 10pm. Tired, but with lights. My friend was still awake, waiting up for me.

Jamie

Thurmond, WV looks fascinating. Makes me long for West Virginia. Fun fact: The New River is one of the oldest rivers in the world.

I did not know you'd visited Falling Water, Jamie!! It's on my bucket-list. I'm sooooo jealous.

It was pretty touristy, but the house and history was fascinating. I was there on a weekday afternoon, and the tour still felt rushed and crowded. The guide actually discouraged questions because we had to keep a certain pace.

I did their standard tour. They offer an "In Depth" tour, which is much more interesting, no doubt, at 3x the price. Cameras are allowed on the In-Depth tour, but not on the standard.

With the purchase of a ticket, you can spend all day on the grounds, which I would recommend. I did not, as I was in a bit of a rush to get to my friends house, but there are lots of opportunities for picnicking, hiking, and photography on the grounds.

Jamie

I like old, mostly abandoned towns like I found in Thurmond. I had with me this pdf, which you might be interested in looking at: http://www.nps.gov/neri/historyculture/upload/Thurmond2008.pdf

The roads around Thurmond were interesting too, as I hope you could see from my pictures. Fun to ride down and out of the canyon.

Interesting about the age. I seem to have read that somewhere. Only two rivers are known to be older, the Yangtze in China and the Meuse which flows through France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. I've been on the Yangtze, guess I'll have to put the Meuse on my list. Dang you.

Jamie

Oh, you're way ahead of me. I can only hope to get to some of those places. West Virginia is probably the only feasible option, and you've put it back on the map for me.