MACH 15: Day 4 - All About What?

Wednesday Day 4
April 29, 2015
Copyright(c) 2015 Jim Beachy

255 miles today, 984 miles total on our slow-down lazy-days trip

Kitty has walked 4 or 5 miles just about every day for the last four years or more.  If it's too dark or too cold, she runs on our elliptical trainer.  When we're traveling she walks on a treadmill or elliptical machine in the hotel's gym.  She enters her miles into an online web site that has taken her on a virtual walk across America.  Some time ago she reached the West Coast in some small town in Oregon, and has now walked well over 4,000 miles since she began entering her miles.  I recently tried to compute how many steps this would entail and it was about 14.5 million steps.  Pretty impressive, don't you think?

This morning she's adding to those steps in the gym and doesn't get back to the hotel room until after 8:15.  Not that this matters a whit, because in slow-down mode there's rarely a need to set timelines or deadlines.  So it's quite late once again, nearing 10:00 AM, as we strike out westward on US 70 from Dickson, TN.  It's 59 F.

US 70 here is a rather narrow, 2-lane road that runs through mostly wooded areas.  In fact, much of US 70 has wandered through wooded areas save for the occasional large ranches or tilled fields.

As we ease on down the road, I think on how my attitudes and what I care about have changed over the years.  In the early years, a ride was all about riding.  If we didn't fill up the day from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM or later, I somehow felt cheated, felt like the day was a waste.  Kitty gamely tagged along in those days and never complained, even when we rode after dark, even one night when we kept riding until midnight.  Solo Guy still feels that way:  He will fill up the entire time of daylight and well beyond on either end, and sometimes the intervening nighttime hours, just for the cockpit time.  For him, it really is all about the ride.  For Slow-down Guy, not so much.  I've gotten a different perspective over the years and the many trips we've taken together.  Of course the ride is important; that's what we do!  And so is the ride's location, and sometimes, the ride's destination.  It's important to see our friends at the Mississippi Area Crawfish Hunt in Vicksburg; important to see our family in Gulfport later on.  But in a broader sense, it's no longer all about the ride.  It's all about spending quality time with Kitty, who loves doing this as much as I do, together on a motorcycle.  That's why we often ride slowly, sometimes ride short days.  It's the time together on the bike that matters, the time to ourselves, uncluttered by the demands of life and unfettered by normal constraints.  Sometimes we talk a lot on the headsets.  Sometimes we keep our silence for long periods of time.  Every minute is worth savoring, and for us, being on our motorcycle is the best way to savor it.  Why speed that up?  Why hurry to the day's end?

At the town of Huntingdon, TN, the temperature has risen to 70 F and I remove a layer of clothing and switch to my lightweight mesh summer gloves.  Here, US 70 begins to deflect to the south and east toward Jackson, TN.

I reflect on the characteristics of US 70.  There are roads on North American continent that I would call "destination" routes:  The Cabot Trail in Nova Scotia; the Million Dollar Highway (Rt 550) in Colorado; Beartooth Pass on the north side of Yellowstone National Park, even the Blue Ridge Parkway.  These are roads that many would ride thousands of miles just to experience (and in fact, I have done that).  US 70 is not one of those.  It is a pleasant, historic, 55 mph alternative to the Interstate.  It has the distinction of running coast-to-coast, so this little jaunt through about 450 miles of Tennessee is only a short segment.  Its road surface is good; its amenities are quite adequate; some sections are very historic; its towns are mostly small (we bypassed Nashville).  We've ridden the back roads of other states and found many of the towns to be moribund, with most of the businesses on Main Street boarded up; not so on US 70, where for the most part the towns are active and well-maintained.  All in all, I'm happy we finally had the opportunity to scratch this long-time itch.

We leave US 70 at Jackson, NT and catch TN 18, which continues as MS 7 after crossing the border into Mississippi.

"Toot-toot!" says Kitty loudly in the headset.

I'd forgotten!  In all our travels, whenever we enter the state of Mississippi, from whatever quarter that might be, we always give the loudest horn blast possible to honor our Mississippi Family!  So I give two loud, long blasts on the horn as we pass the blue "Welcome to Mississippi" sign.


Soon after we cross the border, we stop for a break near Lamar, MS to eat our lunch.  "Lunch" is relative.  We often pack up some carrots, peanut butter, and apples, and that's we consume for lunch stops if we don't find a funky, hometown restaurant.  The trailer has a cooler, and inside that we put another small cooler holding the lunch items; in hot weather we pack bottled water in ice in the evening, then dump out the melted water and repeat.  This trip it's been cool enough that we haven't needed the ice.

Several miles back, we'd noticed some large fields covered in brilliant yellow flowers.  "Surely those are crops and not weeds!" I commented.  So I asked a local man filling up his lawn mower gas cans about those fields.

"The first crop to be planted around here is corn, and then cotton," he said.  "Nobody plants anything this early.  Those are just plain old yellow weeds!  Nothing but weeds!"  I almost laugh because this is virtually the same conversation I had last year in a different part of Mississippi with a different person.  The shoulders of the road were not conducive for a big bike to stop and get a picture of the yellow weeds, but if you check last year's blog you'll see a reasonable replica.

Last night when I checked the route for today in my Garmin Basecamp mapping software, I wasn't really happy with the reviews for motels in Senatobia, MS, where my routing sketch ended today.  I read the reviews to Kitty (who really isn't particular about hotel arrangements) and she said "Yikes!  Maybe we better look elsewhere".  So I rerouted and booked another hotel closer to Memphis, which will add about 50 miles to Thursday's ride from Memphis to Vicksburg along the Mississippi River.  But that will make today shorter; so after our stop, I decide to retrace the original route to Senatobia, then zoom 30 or so miles north on I-55 and back in the "wrong" direction to our hotel.  Rt 7 to Holly Springs is a fine little ride, Rt 4 to Senatobia has a lot of pavement ridges and is rather nondescript.

We arrive at our hotel, which is a definite improvement over the reviews I read last night!  The hotel clerk tells us to park the bike under the wide canopy, and we wander off across a large car dealership's parking lot to find a very acceptable and very welcome steak dinner.

I've recovered nicely from my fall yesterday - only a little soreness in the right triceps where I apparently braced my fall with my right arm.

Tomorrow, Vicksburg or bust.

GPS Track (Elevation Graph is nondescsript for today's ride) 

  

MACH 15: Day 3 - Slow-Down Guy

Tuesday Day 3

April 28, 2015

Copyright(c) Jim Beachy, 2015

Last night when I posted a brief travel update on Facebook, our long-time friend Sheryl posted a message that she and her husband Judson live near Lenoir, TN, where we were staying.  I responded with a private message and we set up a meeting point.

Thus by 8:30 AM, we have packed up and ridden the chilly half mile to the Cracker Barrel restaurant Sheryl suggested last night.  The temperature is 42 F.  Sheryl and Judson find us in the country store, and she is fairly jumping up and down with excitement; we haven't seen each other since 2009, she says.  Over eggs, bacon, coffee, biscuits and gravy, we talk about old times and new, the good, the bad, and ugly.

By the time we say good-bye and I load the day's route to the GPS, the sky is a sun-kissed brilliant blue and the temperature has risen to 59 F.  This is another remarkably low-mileage day and I'm hoping to take our time, maybe find a few photos, maybe find a few stopping points.  This is my third attempt to ride US 70 across Tennessee, and I think the third time's a charm.

Leaving Lenoir to the west, US 70 is a comfortable two-lane road with pleasant sweeping turns and a few technical apex turns where the sharp curve also switches from uphill to downhill.  Look sharp for those!

The gentle curves invite a rhythm of leaning and countersteering (on a motorcycle, you "push right to go right, push left to go left"), all the while keeping the eyes level with the horizon, and out of this emerges for the first time in quite a while, the alter ego known as "Slow-down Guy."  I've described my two alter egos before in other writings:  Solo Guy is the one who streaks from coast to coast in 50 hours, or rides 1,000 miles a day just because he can, just for the sheer joy of the Long Road, probably for the same reason the dog sticks his head out of that pickup truck window.  Slow-down Guy emerges only when traveling two-up with Kitty, because the time with Kitty is sometimes best savored without the intrusion of Solo Guy's mad-dash mentality.  Slow-down guy would rarely exceed the speed limit, because why would anyone want to?

And it's Slow-down Guy that gently, joyfully, allows the big bike to lead itself around the sweeping curves and undulating hills.  No hurry today, no sense of the need to cover time or distance, just a sense of being in the moment with Kitty, the exhilaration of the crisp morning and the winding road among the early green Tennessee hills and valleys sometimes dotted with large herds of black cattle grazing contently on the lush spring grasses.

As we stop for a photo opportunity along the winding road, I am dismounting from the bike with a characteristic little hop on my left foot.  My riding boot catches a little offset in the macadam at the side of the road, and I go sprawling backward onto my side and elbow.  Fortunately my leather jacket has armor panels and elbow pads, so no harm done, but I will likely have some sore muscles tomorrow!  This points out one reason Kitty is often reticent to do hiking or climbing adventures:  If I were to be incapacitated due to an ankle sprain or a broken foot, she would need help to get the bike to wherever it needs to go.  So I always try to be careful!

Elevation graph - Cumberland Plateau

Running parallel to I-40, we pass the iconic power plant on the Tennessee River and see the ramparts of the Cumberland Plateau to the north.  I-40 attacks the climb to the Plateau quite a while before US 70, which continues for some miles running through the valley.  Eventually, though, after about 30 miles, we begin the climb to the Plateau in earnest, and a good bit more more attention to the technical 

aspects of the ride is warranted: These curves are a lot tighter, and we have left behind the gentle sweeping curves of the valleys.  The Cumberland Plateau is described as the longest hardwood plateau in the world, running from Alabama through Tennessee and into Kentucky.  It's about 1,000 feet higher than the surrounding terrain, and is clearly evident in the GPS track log graph from the day's trip.  We ride about 50 miles before returning to the level of the river valleys that crisscross Tennessee.  In the lower elevations, the temperature hovers around 68 F.

Taken through windshield

US 70 sometimes turns into a four-lane highway, sometimes with a medial strip and other times not, for the most part winding through the forested hills. At a fuel stop, I decide to reroute to stay farther south from Nashville, and find my GPS map is outdated:  Rt 840 ends on my map, but continues in real life.  I stay on 840 for about five more miles, meanwhile with my poor GPS voice going crazy trying to recalculate for roads that aren't in its memory.

Eventually we find a really, really back road winding along a small stream, and thus to Dickson, TN, where we find a motel next to a restaurant.  We've gained an hour and the GPS time has automatically compensated, so it's about 3:30 local time when we stop.  "This may be a record," I tell Kitty.  "I don't know that we've ever stopped this early!"  She agrees.

At dinner, the waitress automatically asks if she can bring us some drinks, then automatically launches into an apologetic disclaimer that they have no liquor or wine until this Friday.  Apparently Tennessee has a new law that requires every patron who is served alcohol to present an ID.  Apparently the bartender there served alcohol to a minor without asking for ID; the bartender was fired and in punishment, the State of Tennessee has decreed that the restaurant may not serve liquor for a period of two weeks.  Apparently Tennessee takes their new law very seriously!  Meanwhile, the cedar-plank salmon is extraordinary.

So ends another slow-down day wherein Slow-down Guy emerges under a crisp and brilliant sky to pilot his Gold Wing for 200 miles along the miles of US 70 as it winds among the Tennessee hills.

GPS Track (gray)

MACH 15: Day 2 - Don't Judge Me

Monday April 27, 2015

Copyright (c) 2015, Jim Beachy

Last night when we got back from dinner, the cup of strong coffee and a cookie seemed like an extraordinarily good idea.  By 7:00 AM, after trying unsuccessfully all night to calculate the Poisson probability of exactly 7 injuries in a basketball game when the average number of injuries is 2, well, not so much.  Why would a Poisson distribution come to trouble my hoped-for sleep?  I have no clue.  Don't judge me.

By the time we have breakfast and I take care of some travel insurance issues resulting from a hacked credit card several weeks ago, it's after 10:00 AM when we make the turn out of the hotel parking lot and make our way to I-81 south.  It seems warm, about 63 F, but I know we are heading into some higher elevations where it will be cooler; and, standing around in the sunshine dictates that extra layer or two for when you're cutting into the wind at 70 mph.  Usually we are on the road well before this time.  Please don't judge me.

In less than a half hour, the temperature has dropped to 52 F and then dipped to 50 F, so every layer is welcome, as are the heated seats and grips.  Kitty is riding a bit chilled this morning at these temperatures; the passenger always gets the worst of it, as the big fairing's still air pocket starts to collapse around her shoulders and creates wind turbulence that creeps around the edges of a chilly morning.

At this elevation, the trees are noticeably retarded in their springtime leafing ritual, and the redbuds have scarcely started pushing their purple blooms.  It's hilly here and we are running the speed limit of 70 mph on cruise control.  When riding two-up and towing a trailer, the added wind resistance at higher speed takes a dramatic toll on fuel mileage, and this morning 70 mph seems just about right for a lazy day.  Please don't judge me.

A UPS semi runs up beside us, then hits a grade and has to drop back.  We seesaw back and forth a few times over the next five miles or so, and Kitty notices that the driver waves at us each time.  I haven't had the CB on this morning but decide he might want to talk to us.

I key up the mic.  "Good morning, Mr. UPS.  How are you doing this fine morning?  Gold Wing callin'."

He comes back immediately and with gusto.  "Doin' mighty fine, mighty fine this morning, Gold Wing.  That is one mighty fine lookin' rig you got there! Where you headed?"

"Headed for Vicksburg to eat some crawfish!

We chat for a minutes until he hits a hill and eventually we're out of range.  He explains that he has a 1995 Gold Wing, the 10th Anniversary Edition so he always looks out for bikes on the road.

At our first fuel stop, Kitty decides to put on her balaclava, so I dig it out from underneath our warm-weather mesh jackets housed in the left saddlebag.  It's simply a satin hood with a face cutout; we each have one but I've rarely used mine.  I've always said this makes her look like a monk; after we're back on the road cruising at 70 mph, she says it makes a big difference and she feels a lot warmer.  We have electric gear but didn't bring it for a southern trip in late April, and I feel a little guilty for having left it behind.  Even without electrics, though, our rain gear could add another valuable layer should we need it.


At the fuel stop, I'd arbitrarily decided to reroute and run US 11 between Bristol, TN/VA and Knoxville, TN, a distance of roughly 100 miles.  I've never been on that segment; we'd asked a woman who came up to chat if she knew that route, and she did, telling us it was a nice road.

So we prepare to take the first exit in Tennessee, Exit 74-B, to US 11 south.  Not a mile before the exit, we catch up to the UPS driver who'd apparently passed us at our fuel stop.

"So you'll be in Vicksburg tomorrow night?" he asks.

"No, no, no, we're taking all the slow roads in Tennessee and then wondering along the Mississippi River to Vicksburg.  We'll plan to be there by Thursday evening."

"Well, you have a safe ride!  Have a blessed day, and God be with you!"

"Hey, He is, and we talk to Him every day!" is my last transmission.

US 11 runs to the west of Kingsport. I tell Kitty, "I'm in the mood for a funky hometown restaurant.  If you see one that doesn't have a gravel parking lot, feel free to point it out."  At that moment we pass a little place called Katy's, which looks funky enough and hometown-ish enough, but has a deep gravel parking lot so it's off limits for us on our big bike.  We settle for MacDonald's.  Don't judge us.

During the 50-mile descent to Bristol and onto US 11, the temperature has climbed to 70 F, representing a temperature change of 20 degrees from this morning.  At our second fuel stop, I opt to remove a layer of clothing, as I'm getting pretty warm in these temps.  Kitty holds steadfastly to all her layers and her balaclava.

US 11 is a pleasant if not spectacular ride after we get through Kingsport.  It's a gently winding four-lane highway that passes through a rolling valley flanked on either side by smallish but extremely steep hills.  I now begin to understand why there are few connecting roads between US 11 and I-81; a note that if you choose this route, you are pretty well committed for most of the distance to Knoxville.  At times the route takes us close to the Holston River that winds sinuously through the valley, and then again across Cherokee Lake.  The flat surface of the river and the lake coupled with the steepness of the surrounding hills offers a scenic and interesting contrast.  At Bean Station, the highway becomes a pleasant two-lane route for the remaining 40 miles or so to Knoxville.

I have not scoped out this route at all, having arbitrarily picked a waypoint with the bike's onboard GPS system, so I only presume US 11 will join the little I-640 beltway we usually take around Knoxville.  Well, I'm mighty surprised when we reach that point and US 11 simply passes underneath the bypass and connects directly to I-40 right through the heart of Knoxville, a route I've avoided for years.  I brace myself for the dreaded Knoxville traffic, and... it's a breeze!  In 10 minutes we're through the heart of Knoxville and exiting on the south side at 55 mph.

"You must have prayed that God would part the Red Sea!" I tell Kitty in the headset.

When we arrive at the hotel in Lenoir City, after a beautiful if sometimes chilly ride of just under 300 miles, I retrieve the luggage cart to load out our stuff.  Kitty just shakes her head and says "That's pathetic!"  All I can say is, don't judge me.  Or, maybe, judge for yourself.

GPS Track (gray) and Elevation Graph

MACH 15: Day 1 - To Go or Not To Go

MACH 15: Day 1
Sunday April 26, 2015
Copyright (C) 2015, Jim Beachy

3-day, 4-day, 5-day plans.  MACH.15.  Between 1,100 and 1,200 miles separate our home and Vicksburg, MS where the great Mississippi Area Crawfish Hunt will commence later this week.  Kitty and I have ridden that distance many times in two days of two-up Interstate riding but that's not our preference.  Give us a winding two-lane road in the countryside any day.

At last year's MACH.14, we had a slow-down two-lane route planned, but had to abandon it after hunkering down in Cleveland, TN for several days amid vicious tornado-spawning storms that moved through the area.  We spent one night gathered in the hotel stairwells for safety.  Because of the delay, we had to abandon our two-lane slow-down plans and finish the segment to Vicksburg on the Interstate.

Our good friend (actually, everyone's good friend) Roger Riley was the original MACH organizer, but was unable to attend last year because of illness.  We spent an evening passing around a Skype-enabled laptop talking to him while he lay in his hospital bed.  A week later he was gone.  Having just gotten home from that ride with Kitty after wandering around in West Texas for a while, when I heard of Roger's untimely death I jumped right back on the bike and rode the 850 miles or so west to Missouri for the memorial service.  This year, the event will continue at his wife Marlene's request, but it will not be the same without him.

Nevertheless, I've spent some time again planning a two-lane route, but this time with contingencies should we run into severe weather.  3-day, 4-day, and 5-day plans.  Yesterday while at Dad's I looked at the weather and thought we'd be into the 4-day plan because of heavy fronts moving through, but by this morning the front had moved through and we decided to execute the 5-day slow-down plan starting today.  Five days to ride 1,138 miles might be the lowest planned daily mileage we've ever done on any trip, even our slow-down trips.  After Vicksburg, we plan to slide on over to Gulfport, MS to see our son and family, and then probably an Interstate ride home from there. I need to conserve a few vacation days for another planned ride in June (stay tuned - not a slow-down ride!) and for some other family time in July.

"Clickety-click" says Kitty in the headset.  For years she would say "And there we go" when she was seated on the bike, plugged in, and ready to go. Her announcement has morphed into "Clickety-click" in honor of the small click heard on both our headsets when she plugs in her helmet.  Secretly, I miss the older time-honored phrase just a little.

But it still serves the same purpose, so at 12:54, after video-streaming our church service, we ease into the street and turn left at the first turn.  It's mostly sunny and 63 degrees F.  It's just a short 210 mile jaunt to Roanoke, VA where we plan to stay when this half-day ride ends.  We discuss whether to take US 11, a pleasant scenic route that parallels I-81, but somehow we stay on I-81 after making the 50-mile run on I-66 west.

It's considerably chillier than I'd envisioned.  While packing the bike and trailer, it always seems warm, and thoughts creep in about whether we really need the jacket liner or an extra layer.  But experience has taught us to always dress at least one layer heavier than seems warranted while packing.  And so it is.  We've brought both our leather jackets and our mesh jackets.  Just because we can.  The trailer enables us to do that:  One set of jackets in the left saddlebag, wear the other set, with the rest of our gear stowed carefully in the California Sidecar Excel trailer.  I'm glad I put the liner back into the leather jacket I'm wearing.

Heading south on I-81, the mountains to the east are showing some early Virginia green along the lower flanks, and what appears to be nearly bare trees on the upper elevations.  The stunning feature of today's ride is the prolific redbud trees in full bloom.  Their purple buds are everywhere among the light tree growth interspersed with the open, rolling green fields of the Shenandoah Valley.  Sometimes they seem to form a majestic purple gauntlet for us to ride through.

After a stop for fuel and a bite to eat near Staunton, VA, cloud cover has moved in and the temperature has dropped from about 61 F to 55 F.  I've had the engine cowl heat vents on all day, but now I also turn up the heated handgrips and seat.  Kitty has had her heated seat activated all day.  When I got this Gold Wing, I scoffed at the idea of heated grips and heated seat.  "What could that do to keep a rider warm?" I thought.  "You're still out there in the wind, and it's not like heating up your car in an enclosed space."  Well, those thoughts were put to rest the first time I actually used the heated components.  I can't explain why, but the introduction of an external heat source, even if just to the palms and fingers of the hands along with the seat and back rest, creates a completely different riding environment.  Before long I've gone from nearly shivering (I really should have added another t-shirt layer) to feeling warm and comfy at 53 F.

We stop as planned in Roanoke, VA after our short 200-plus mile sprint, clean the bike's windshield, cover the bike and trailer, and find a really excellent Mexican restaurant within walking distance.

Tomorrow is scripted as another short 300-mile day on Interstates.  I'm signing off now to see if I can find some non-Interstate routes that will get us to the same place by nightfall tomorrow.

See you then.

GPS Track Log