Thanks for the offer of places to stay. When my next trip is in the planning stages I will get a hold of people.
From the Blue Ridge Parkway I planned on then going to deals gap but I ended up a bit west and decided to keep going instead of back tracking. I don't think it would have been nearly as much fun without my front brake anyways. A while of the same old stuff and I came to the Alabama boarder. I got off my bike to take a picture and the last brace for my rear fender gave out and my taillight stopped working. I assumed because it was no longer grounded to the frame. Turns out it was just the bulb and that one of my multimeter prongs was shot. All this AFTER adding a ground wire... There was a gas station about 20 feet behind me so I wheeled it over there. The gas station was pretty busy for being in a relatively rural location. There were video poker machines inside that were all full of people. A lot of people would walk in and out from there car, buying lotto tickets and scratching them in their car and then getting some more. It seemed to be the happenin' place. Which was weird because the gas station seemed like it should only be getting a few customers a day.
Dinner, lunch, breakfast.
I ended up bending the turn signal wire holders out and tying it with some extra wire. The bike was still leaking more and more oil. Since there was a lot of people I started asking any passer byers if they knew any welders with no luck. However one women I asked ended up asking me if "I like corvettes and if I want to go take a ride in her husbands while he was away" no, joke. Too bad she looked like the type to take up 2 seats on an airplane
I declined.
No one else even knew of a welder so I packed up things best I could and hoped it stayed off my tire.
sorry, I couldn't help it...
Not to far in to Alabama I hit rain. It rained pretty hard and never let up enough for me to be comfortably on the road. So I took shelter in front of a school right off the road. I sat there for a while, did not feel like sleeping so I messed with my camera and read a little.
The rain stopped so I jumped back on and took off only for it to rain some more not 3 miles later. I took shelter at an abandon looking gas station. There was this lone lawn chair so I sat it down and propped my feet up on my bike and covered myself with the tarp to wait out the rest of the hours until daybreak. JUST as I was leaving a depcripted looking truck pulled into the "abandon" gas stations grage. I guess it was not abandon after all. I am sorry I peed on your gas pump.
Went on for a while and then the rain got to heavy again so I took shelter in a car wash. It was resting here that I finally figure out the almighty goal of sleeping while standing, well leaning, up. It required me to lock one of my knees so I could not really do it more than 30 mins or my knee would hurt. After a large break I kept heading west. I came across a RV graveyard and I wanted to explore it so bad. But not bad enough to get shot. The people in this area were pretty polite. Greeting all strangers and friends. I got gas and got a greetings or good day from every person I passed.
A severe storm started to roll in from the south. A little while later I heard that a tornado watch was in effect for the area. Not exactly good news. I again did the mad dash to get past it. Going north west as it went north and I got past it with time to spare.
Went on and on for a while. I came into this small town. It was absolutely vacant as in not even a car or window light. I stopped under the bright light of a bank ATM drive though to check my map to try and find any easy places to sleep. I could not seem to find the road but I figured I would wander around until I found it. Then I saw the first car and then another. They both started following me and it took me a second to realize they were both cops but my heart rate had already jumped. They followed and followed but did not pull me over. I wanted them to just hurry up and pull me over, ask me some dumb questions then let me be on my way but all they did was tail me from a distance. I think they thought they were being a lot more stealthy then they actually were. So I said screw it and turned around and pulled up next to the first care to ask directions. Suddenly they seemed uninterested in me. I got my directions to the road I was looking for. Before I got out of the town I found a tank and took a break by it. Still certain the towns population was 3.
I went on and on for a while and finally reached a rather large town. The town started on the west side of the freeway and there was nothing on the east side. I pulled up to a hotel which had some sort of carnival circus going on right next to it. I asked the hotel if they knew of any campgrounds or national parks or such. They knew of nothing so I walked back out not knowing what to do as it was getting pretty late. I got the idea to try and sneak into the carnival going on next door but they had that place sealed up pretty tight. After about 20 mins I lost interest and got back on the freeway. After about an hour my rear tire went flat again. I was in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. I was only 15 miles out from the closest town so it could have been worse. So by my headlight I got out my sleeping bag as sleeping was really my only choice at the time.
I was worried about the wildlife of the crawling or slithering variety in the field so I cupped my tarp like a hammock and bungee'd the two ends to my bike and slept in there. It kept the edge of the tarp/cocoon off the ground. I was awoken the next morning by a cop. He seemed heavily interested and almost amused by my situation but never came close to offering any type of help. A couple hours later I was in the "Town" which was just a gas station. I was later informed that all the buildings of the town were spread out far from each other. At the gas station a older couple asked if I needed any help and instructed me to the nearest motorcycle shop. Which was about 10 miles away in the "town". They said that it was very easy to get lost and that I should just follow them there.
Did you know that you can go 50mph on a rear flat if you keep the bike perfectly still so the rubber does not shift to either side? About 5 miles in they made be pull over and wait while he went and got his trailer. They told me they were getting the trailer because my back end while riding was all over the place, when I did not keep the bike perfectly straight anyways... I could have made it but I waited and I was soon in the cab of a truck looking back at my bike. They explained to me how they really did not like the town. They had had a child there and had to wait to raise her until they could leave because they did not have a lot of money. They also told me that EVERYONE knows everyone else in the town and that people have kids and build a house half a mile away and thats how the town had gotten so spread out. Which reminds me I still have to write them a postcard.
I would have never got to the shop without them. Once there they gave me a parting gift of a bag of food and told me to call them when I got back home. The shop put on the new tube while I ate, the mechanic almost crashed it when he brought it out to me. Remember it had no front brake and he forgot to adjust the rear break arm. I was now back on the road.
To be continued...
