trip counter: 652
todays mileage: 178

Woke up in Hendersonville. Late start, out the hotel just
before 11am. Someone decided to use half of my parking
space to park there car in. Nice.

Breakfast at the gas station. Headed north to Asheville on
26, stop at the Farmers Market on the way. Headed into
Asheville with the intent of finding where I used to live.
I knew the street and the exit, but unfortunately, the
exit was “Haywood”. For whatever reason there are a couple
of Haywood streets in Asheville, and at least one “old Haywood”.
Didn’t help that some of the roads on my detailed Asheville
map were labeled wrong.

Roads in Asheville are horrible. No parallel roads, etc.
And I think there are about 50 “Brevard” roads.

Since I was in Asheville, I went though Tunnel Road.
Twice. Then wrong turn back onto 240, ended up on
Town Mountain Road which was cooler anyway.
Very curvy road over Asheville, which eventually
ran into the Blue Ridge Parkway. Headed north on
the BRP to Mt Mitchell. Road up to the top, saw another
Bonneville heading down. Lots of bikes out.

Went up to the top. Marked a waypoint on the GPS.
Went up into the tower and took some pics.

Someone asked if the bike was some sort of “cross”
bike. They weren’t quite able to convey to me what
they meant by “cross” other than not like a cruiser
or a dirt bike. Saw the GPS and asked if I geocache,
which I don’t, but keep meaning to try.

Down Mt Mitchell, then north up the parkway again,
was running a little low on gas so figured I’d get
off the next stop and fill up. Unfortunately, that
road was 80, and it was a long way to a gas station.
But 80 down to Marion is awesome. Highly recommended.

The road there mostly follows some river, which
I’ve forgotten the name of, but looked like it
would be excellent for white water rafting. So
road down the steep twisty road, with a white
water river on one side, and mountain on the
other side. Very cool.
I had sort of layered up to go up Mt Mitchell, but
it was actually pretty warm. So I unlayered in
Marion.

Which was a mistake, since not 10 miles north
it was thunderstorm time again. Stop and put
on my crappy rain gear, but I was already pretty
soaked. So kept riding up ?? towards Linville
caverns. Stopped there, but they were about to close,
so just hung out for a while. Then kept going up
north, figured I’d hit Boone.

Kept getting stuck behind these two guys on Harleys
who were running about 10-15 under the speed limit.
Every time I thought they had turned off, in a few
minutes, they would have taken some short cut and
gotten back in front of me.

Got to Boone, had trouble finding a room, but eventually
did. Even though it was warm out, I was riding around
soaked for about two hours and was pretty cold. So
took a hot shower and headed back out to get some
food and pick up a dry tshirt/socks from walmart.

Then back to the hotel, and watched some womens lacrosse.
Hmmm, chicks with sticks and funky goggles.

Not sure where I’m headed tomorrow. Might head north
to Tenn. Maybe west to Deals Gap. Maybe up the
BRP to Virgina.

Things learned:

my “rain” gear is not even remotely waterproof

Under Armor works great when it’s warm. When it’s
not hot and your soaked though, it keeps you
cold.

Strapping the top part of the modular tank bag
to the pillion part of the seat works well,
and throwing the reflective fest in the
map pocket works well.