Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Keeping it Between the Ditches

OK... you don't have to ride a Harley to really live. But until you've experienced the NC mountains on a motorcycle, you can't say you've fully lived.

There's just nothing like it.

Amy and I have started our sabbatical with two days on the Blue Ridge Parkway -- the only "pilgrimage" we'll undertake without our boys. (Originally we had written a week-long bike trip along California's famed Highway 1 into our grant proposal, but for various reasons, we dropped this. These two days have been a reasonable exchange!) We're staying at Jim and Jean Veilleux's wonderful house on Lake James, and from here have ridden out the last two mornings, for about 150 miles each day, to and around the Parkway. Yesterday was as good a biking day as we've ever had. Though the rain chased us home (we literally walked in the front door and the bottom fell out of the sky!), we had an amazing weather day and spectacular scenery.

Western NC boasts its famed "Tail of the Dragon," the 12-mile stretch from Deal's Gap to the Tennessee line, but since we've ridden that, too, I can tell you, objectively, that the Dragon has NOTHING on Highway 80, from Marion, north, to the Parkway. Even on our little Sportster, I met Amy coming around some of those hairpin turns behind me! From the Parkway, we rode to the highest peak on the Blue Ridge, Mt. Mitchell, and then down into Black Mountain, and home (after a stop at Thai Basil on Black Mountain's main drag) via Highway 70.

Until you've leaned into those turns... breathed in the freshness of Laurel and Honesuckle... taken in the goodness of blue sky and open road... you've missed something.

We're trying not to miss anything as we travel this summer. Thanks for the opportunity.

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