Day 2: Old, Bold Thinking
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Copyright(c) 2014, Jim Beachy
I am surveying my beautiful red motorcycle lying on its side, resting on its crash bars. There’s a standard, well-published way to set it upright; I’ve seen a 90-pound woman do it, and so have I. But this time, as I back into the seat and grab the passenger rail and handlebar, it won’t budge. I finally give a mighty heave, and… suddenly come awake with a start, instantly on full alert.
After a tense evening of tornado warnings and people huddling in stairwells for shelter, all subjects here emerged unscathed, but strong storms pounded the area all night. I’m unnerved by my dream of a fallen Crusader, and the need to see if the bike is Ok is so overwhelming that at 6:12 AM I slip on a t-shirt and pair of raggedy gym shorts and pad out to the hotel entrance in my bare feet. All is well, covers still on the bike and trailer, and everything looks perfect.
Kitty is already in the gym doing her workout, so I turn on the Weather Channel as well as some local news to see how things look. It doesn’t look good. The monster storm that stretches from Michigan to the Gulf Coast and east to Virginia is trapped between pressure systems, and is setting up to do the same thing today that it did yesterday, spawning vicious cells and damaging weather. In our local area there are downed power lines, flooding, and downed trees. Much of Alabama has been declared a disaster area.
I borrow and modify a phrase from the fighter pilot jargon: “There are old riders and there are bold riders, but there are no old, bold riders.” Wandering around in moderately remote and unknown areas in these conditions seems unwise to this no-longer-bold rider (I ever I was a bold rider). We talk it over and decide to see if the hotel has any rooms for tonight. They do. Two. I book one. We have to move to a different room and as we’re transferring our luggage we talk about what to do today.
When our son Kevin was 13, he and I took a fondly-remembered two-up motorcycle trip down the Blue Ridge Parkway, around the Smoky Mountains, and somehow ended up in Cleveland, Tennessee, which acted as our launch point for a day of whitewater rafting on the Ocoee river. “For old times’ sake,” I tell Kitty, “if the weather is good enough, I’d like to ride that same road along the Ocoee.”
Most of the day locally is forecasted to be pleasant, with strong storms and possible tornadoes firing up again this evening, but it looks ok now. No storms or cells are in sight within a hundred miles on the weather radar. So after a leisurely breakfast, we set off for our pleasant little 110-mile round trip, winding along the very scenic Ocoee River just as Kevin and I did all those years ago..
Harnessing the power of its rivers, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has built a sprawling empire of hydroelectric power plants throughout Tennessee and even into Kentucky and Alabama. Their methodology has been controversial: On one hand, it garners praise because, in the length of a river, the same water energy can be harvested many times as the river flows downstream. On the other hand, it has been open to much criticism because what they do kills a river. Hydroelectric power production on the East Coast is very different from the mountains in the western United States. In the East, they build a dam and then carry the water runoff in sluice boxes for miles down the river under there’s enough water pressure gradient, and then divert the water in huge pipes down a steep bank and into the hydroelectric power plant. This can be repeated over and over again, based on the length and drop of the river. But when the water is dammed up, the river downstream is almost completely dry for miles much of the year, thereby making it devoid of normal life forms found in rivers.
But this is whitewater rafting country! In fact, the 1996 Olympic white-water rafting competition was held here. When the gates of a dam are open, the dry boulder-strewn riverbed becomes a raging torrent of rapids! Expeditions are a major source of income for the area.
At the former Olympic site, the gates are closed and the river bed is dry, filled with boulders. It's hard to imagine a wild river hosting an Olympic event: We stop to take a few pictures and I snap one of Kitty looking for something in the bike’s trunk. I think it looks like an alien is inspecting our motorcycle.
We continue the mesh jacket experiment. We’ve discovered one characteristic that is a deficit, at least for me: Often while traveling, Kitty for no apparent reason suddenly decides to impart a wonderfully relaxing back rub to my person. These jackets have crash protection in the form of a “tortoise shell”pad across the back, shoulder pads, and elbow pads. “There’s not much area left over for a back rub!” says Kitty.
On the return trip, 15 miles from Cleveland and the hotel, we stop for a late lunch at the Ocoee Dam Deli and Diner (http://www.ocoeedamdeli.com). “Why can’t we have a place like this at home!” Kitty exclaims as we walk in. It was recommended by the chief engineer back at the hotel, and if our experience is an indication, it is worth coming back to any time we’re in the Cleveland area. This is a very funky, very off-the-beaten path kind of place. In some ways it reminds me of another favorite, The Shed barbecue joint in Missisissippi. Kitty orders a mushroom and cheese hamburger, while I indulge in a black-and-bleu version that includes some decadent crumbly bleu cheese. With all due respects to my all-time favorite, the Kobe beef burger back home, at the Blue Duck restaurant in DC, this could be the best hamburger I’ve ever eaten. Perfectly prepared, tangy blue cheese, tomatoes, a little lettuce, and some sauce I can’t quite identify, perfectly delectable.
In the course of our lunch, we strike up a conversation with a couple of southern good ole’ boys about the huge wild boar’s head mounted on the wall. And thus commences a fascinating conversation about wild boar hunting, Crimson Tide football, accents and dialects throughout the country, how the TVA affected life around these parts (the dams covered over several little settlements, which one supposes are still there to this day), race and ethnicity, and the Amish settlements not far from here.
After saying good-bye to our new friends and leaving the restaurant, I tell Kitty “This is just practice for our next trip to Nova Scotia.” For that trip, whenever it happens, she has expressed an interest in going to some place, staying there for a few days, and doing some local exploring. This has turned out to be a fantastic day, with a delightful little 110-mile ride, rekindling some fine old memories, riding out of weather harm’s way, and absorbing some local color. What seemed a setback has become a little gem in its own right. And isn’t that how we should strive to live our lives? The old “make lemonade out of lemons” philosophy.
Crusader and the trailer are parked back underneath the canopy, and since we have plenty of time and opportunity, Kitty is doing laundry and I’m writing this blog.
Tomorrow the weather should be less severe and we plan to catch up our itinerary completely by riding to the same destination via Interstate vs. meandering mountain routes.
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