Natchez Trace Parkway 5-1-10

Day One

On the road again.....
Just a note...pictures coming soon....
This is the first long bike ride of 2010.Once again the folks involved are Jim, Doug and me (Fran). This time we have 2 additional riders with us, Tom, cousin to Jim and Doug, and Dick, a friend of Tom's. The original count for the trip was 10, but that number was slowly reduced to it's present 5. We had 6 on our first day but Mike, our sixth, had been bitten by a brown recluse spider and his doctor didn't want him too far from home as the damage from the bite progressed. Mike did however ride part of the first day with us. He left us when we stopped outside of the Buffalo Trace distillery. Hmmmmm. You don't suppose.....Nah...I'm sure he left and rode towards home....I think....


The day started when Doug, Jim and I met up at the Kroger in Cleves. We were to meet Tom and the others in Lawrenceburg. I noticed that when we were pulling out of the parking lot, Jim’s bike was smoking every time he accelerated. This might become a serious problem as we ride on through the day.

We met the others in Lawrenceburg IN. We were still expecting to be meeting 5 people. Tom was there along with Mike and Dick but no one else. Seems this was all there was going to be.

Ok, we can do this, not a problem. Before the trip officially started, we went into the local McDonalds for a cup of coffee to start the day. Not exactly the restaurant of choice but it was close, so McD’s it was.

After coffee, it was on the road to Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi and beyond.
The first leg of the trip was west on 56 to 156 to Belterra and across Markland Dam.

On the way, we all were watching the smoke from Jim’s bike wondering if it would last the day. Various guesses were tossed about as to how long Jim would last and what was actually wrong with the bike.

We continued on through Kentucky on route 127, 62, and 31E stopping briefly at the Buffalo Trace Distillery to say so long to Mike as he turned and headed back home.


The trip through Kentucky was a very neat bike ride. The only drawback today was the wind. The wind was blowing strong from every which direction. Sometimes it was hard to keep your line on the road.
When we stopped for gas just before we turned on to Rt.62, Jim suddenly looked surprised and said,” I think I know what the problem is.” It seems that when he stopped for gas in the morning he thinks he got the wrong hose at the gas pump and put diesel in the tank………what? And it’s still running? Well, what’s going to happen if you mix some diesel with gas? It’s going to smoke a lot and run like crap! Mystery solved! After a couple of tanks of new gas the bike is running swell!.....except for the rear brakes not working. It seems that somewhere along the road a rear brake pad had come unglued and fallen off.

OK…..We continued on toward the Natchez Trace Highway.

We stopped at the Harley dealer in Nashville for new brake pads. Jim figured we could install them at the campground tonight.



At the Harley dealer Tom asked if they had any of that Diesel fuel additive for a 2005 Harley. Jim won’t be living this one down for a while.

I told you..I need brake pads for a 2005 Harley diesel!!!






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We stopped at the Lovelace Café for a few pictures and an RC and a Moon Pie. Traditional snack at the café. We stopped long enough for a nice rest. After the snack it was on to the Natchez Trace highway









The Natchez Trace highway is built on the natural trails for American Indians, game animals and
early settlers of the Tennessee - Mississippi area.















We pulled into the Meriwether Lewis campground on the Natchez Trace. It was time to change the brake pads on Jim's bike. I think I heard…We can do this in a half hour…. Sure….This maintenance was done with the help of the campground host Jim Wagner, a gator, a log, a hatchet, and several assorted hand tools. Tom wants to know if that was a genuine Harley hatchet. OK…..we have pictures, I’m not kidding!










Note the log at Tom's foot....


I think it actually took about an hour. Not too bad considering the circumstances. Note the hatchet by Tom's knee.........ats a real Harley hatchet!



















See the Gator behind Jim's bike?
below is Jim Wagner without who's help this would have been a genuine ordeal!













On to bed. By the way, Doug is disappointed, my new tent works just fine. He was soooo looking forward to getting pictures of me all tangled up in the tent poles. He missed his chance.






Day Two

Waking up at the Meriwether Lewis Campground was accomplished with little fanfare. As we were packing up to leave our neighbor in the campground stopped over to visit for a bit. He and his wife were from Michigan. We had a nice conversation while we packed up. Jim Wagner stopped by to see how things were going. All was right with the world.

First stop was breakfast at the General Café in Hohenwald TN, hometown of Minnie Pearl. Ok, see, we come across all kinds of interesting tidbits. Breakfast was really good. Staff was friendly and contributed to a good start to the day. We were obviously the strangers in town. A young boy and his mother entered the restaurant and the boy immediately approached us and asked if we were the bikers. Mom, of course, told him “ leave the men eat”. I don’t know if that was from common courtesy (probably) or a stay away from the dangerous biker dudes. I’m sorry, that doesn’t even come close to fitting. Imagine seeing Doug, Jim, Dick, Tom, and me at a table. Can you imagine anything LESS threatening than that?
The photo on the left is of Doug (L) and Dick (R)
From here we went back on the road to the visitor’s center at Collinwood TN. We stopped and picked up some maps and travel info. We also had some very good oatmeal raisin cookies baked by the hostess only this morning. We found out that this visitor’s center caters to visiting motorcyclists. It sounded like they had some good plans for the future. Possibly a joint effort with some other cities or visitor centers on the Natchez.

From here we headed back to the Natchez highway. We drove into Alabama for a short period. We crossed the Tennessee River rode 15 more miles and on into Mississippi.


Next stop was the Pharr Indian Mounds for a brief rest stop and a little education. These Indian mounds were found to be burial mounds and in an interesting side note, the mounds contained artifacts traceable to the Hopewell Indians of the tri-state area. The Hopewell Indians were known to have traded all over the eastern United States. Cool.

See 'em out there?









From here it was back to Natchez Trace Parkway and more riding.




Doug's getting bored,

In Tupelo MS we stopped at the last Confederate battle site of the Civil War. It was a small park about 200 feet square, with three monuments two cannon and a flag and maps of the battlefield. Needless to say we were expecting something a bit larger. Still, it was interesting.

From here it was on to Elvis’s birthplace museum!!! WOW! They had his birthplace home that his father built, the church they attended AND the CHURCH OUTHOUSE!!! Wow! Elvis crapped here!!! (maybe). I can't believe none of us got a picture of that out house!


We took some interesting pictures at Elvis’s house. Swingin’ on the porch swing, settin’ on the porch steps….We all went into the gift shop…to see what there was to see. We saw it, and we left. Couldn’t see paying hard earned dollars for an Elvis coffee mug or place mat. Obviously we were in the minority on that one.

After absorbing all the atmosphere we could stand at the Elvis museum, we headed back to the Natchez Trace Highway. We still had nearly 1/3 of the highway to travel. Now, at this point it had already been decided that the Trace is better handled in smaller bites. The Natchez Trace highway is a beautiful ride, just not all at once.

Doug's getting bored again.

We rode on to Jackson Mississippi; Dick had to leave us at this point to go visit family. We settled in at the Askew’s Landing Campground.


Now the campground was a nice area with a couple of lakes and a large camping area. What it also was, was a home to several very vocal geese. After a while we were trying to decide which would be better to use…..a shotgun, a pellet gun, or just wring their necks.

Geese are really annoying.

For dinner, Doug and I had some Mountain House freeze dried for ourselves. These are actually quite good. We used them on the Grand Canyon trip and the last bike trip. We offered Jim and Tom each a dinner but they decided to go to town and buy some hot dogs, hamburgers or something. When they returned to the campground they had some buns and some canned sloppy joe mix. They were so proud…. They were going to have sloppy joes while Doug and I only had our freeze dried food.

We asked Jim where the hamburger was “What hamburger ?” They had purchased 2 cans in case Doug and I wanted some thinking that if we didn’t, they would have it tomorrow too. Always read the label….. I contributed a bag of chili mac and they mixed the sloppy joe mix with the freeze dried chili mac. Jim was ok with it, Tom, not exactly. Ya’ll really shouldn’t attempt these rides without your wives along. Maybe with detailed instructions for the days meals. Doug and I had a couple of chuckles over that one too.

In the morning it back to the Natchez Trace highway.
Along the way we had to stop for some minor repairs.
We continued on the Trace to the end of the trail in Natchez Mississippi.


From here we had just completed the 440 miles of the Natchez Trace parkway. This was a very cool ride, but as stated earlier, best taken in smaller bites.

After a couple of hours, it started to get old. The interesting parts, after the scenery, were the side trips we made to the smaller towns for lunch. Some pretty neat little places out there.

From Natchez it was on to New Orleans for the afternoon.


More soon

Here We Go Again

HellOOOooo.....Anybody out there? Knock Knock....Hmmmm. No answer... Oh well, it has been a long time. I guess I'll just start writin' and see what happens.
Well I have all the pictures from everybody on the last trip out west. I'm hoping to get them sorted out by day and location. I will probably post them in an album that can be viewed from here. There's more than 3000 pictures and I have a ways to go yet.

On to new stuff. The weather here in Cincinnati has turned warmer and drier. It's ridin' time again!
Doug, Jim and myself have all been out trying to get ready for the next trip. Doug has been riding his bike to work every day and Jim has been taking his out for some short trips. I have spent the last week doing short trips and finally got up to 120 miles. I have to build up the shoulder muscles so I can manage the longer runs. The good thing is the bike actually helps with this. See...now it's a medical necessity for me to ride my motorcycle! I like it!

On Friday this week, Jim and I met Doug out at Lunken airport for a short trip through Kentucky. It was a beautiful, bright, sunny day for a ride. The idea was to go to Natural Bridge State Park and ride through the area for a couple of hours. Jim also wanted to take us through an old logging tunnel off rt. 77 somewhere.Now this sounds pretty simple doesn't it? Ya'll know Jim don't ya?
For those folks out there who are friends, relatives, members of the Model T club, T'bird club etc. nothing is ever that simple....The drive to Natural Bridge is about 2 hours. That is if you use the normal routes and highways. What was it Jim, about 5 and a half hours to get to the tunnel? Now, most of you know that when you're going somewhere with Jim, the destination is only the goal of the trip, the journey IS the trip. The reason for the trip is to go see new places and things, and that means, if possible, routes that not many people would take if they didn't live there. We definitely accomplished this!
Let's see if I can remember... we took KY ST. Routes 27, 9, 25, 539, 165, 68, 36, I think 62 was in there too, 211, 77. I'm here to tell you, we had some very good roads to ride during this trip. Some of the roads were just flat fun to ride. Some were reminiscent of some of the roads in Wyoming.
After a few hours of riding we decided to stop and grab a bite to eat in the next town. Jim said we'd find us a mom n pop burger joint somewhere. We like to find local places to eat. Sure enough we pulled into a sizable mom n pop place and got some food. Pops name was Ronald I believe, funny lookin' guy with red hair, never did see Mom.
On route 77 we found the Nada Tunnel road LOGGING TUNNEL! Whooohooo!! Actually it was a neat place. The road at the tunnel was surrounded by the rocky hills of the Natural Bridge area and almost seemed to pop up out of nowhere. For a while it seemed as if we'd never get there, then there we were at the tunnel mouth.
We stopped and parked the bikes before entering the tunnel and just admired the scenery for a few minutes. We waved a few cars on through ahead of us to give ourselves a few more minutes before entering the darkness of the tunnel. Now, the tunnel isn't that long, 75-100 yards maybe. You could clearly see the exit at the other end and the drizzle of a waterfall we would have to ride through.
After a few minutes of admiring the area we decided to ride on through the tunnel.
Doug led off, with Jim next and me following behind. This was going to be soooo cool!! Into the tunnel we rode...then...everything went dark! All I could see was the light at the end of the tunnel (so to speak) and two little red tail lights ahead of me. Everything else had disappeared.
Remember that bright sunny day...yep...still had on my dark sunglasses. Couldn't see squat!
It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust enough to make out the road and the walls of the tunnel. That was interesting!
Neat ride all together. After the tunnel we decided to use the highways on the way home since it was getting late. We got onto the Bert T. Combs Mountain Parkway West to I64, then on to I 75 to home. We waved good bye on the highway as we separated and headed home.
This was a great ride to start the season off with. We were on the road from about noon until nearly 9PM.
I'm not sure if we'll manage another day ride before our trip to Mississippi and the Natchez Trail, but I'll be ready to go any time.

Some new pics

Days 27 and 28
This is us starting out on Thursday. Ridiculous, riding in this rain is nuts! Gotta be done though. Got places to go.

Note the fine gloves.


Home at last! 7698.1 miles.

It's been a week now since we completed our trip, it still seems somewhat unreal. It was definitely an unreal trip. Absolutely fantastic! I want to get some pictures of all of us in our "normal" mode of life. We're actually pretty regular folks....in a manner of speaking.

Days 27 and 28

Day 27-28
We arrived Home on Friday a day ahead of schedule. We were early because of the running ahead of the storms. Thursday was a miserable day. We woke up to rain and cold. Fortunately, we had the wisdom and the sheer exhaustion, to stay in a hotel on Thursday night. All day Thursday it rained. We were all just soaked. I don't think we even took a picture at all, except this one.
Our hotel for the night.
For a while we all had plastic bags over gloves to try and stay a bit drier. It helped until the wind tore the bags. Then we stopped and bought rubber gloves to go over garden gloves. This worked pretty well. Jim's and Doug's rain suits worked pretty good for keeping most of them dry. But with as wet as it was, nothing was perfect, we all got wet. Our first thought in the morning was that we would ride out of the rain in a few miles. Nooooooo. Not even....At first I was wearing a leather jacket. That was not a good idea. I then put on a rain jacket and rain chaps. The rain chaps were ok except that the new wind shield on my bike funneled the wind and rain up between my legs and up the center of my body. It's great in the desert. It sucks in the rain! That means I was always sitting in a puddle, and the wind and rain went right in the zipper of my jacket. This didn't make me real happy, nor comfortable. When we finally stopped for the night, I think I was colder than I have been in 20 years or more.
It rained until we stopped for the night, near Champaign, IL.

By morning the rain had stopped and the sky was not terribly threatening, although rain was in the forcast. We packed all of our still pretty wet gear, clothes and stuff and got ready to roll one more time. We had a quick breakfast in the hotel lobby, then were on the rode once again.
We had just over one hundred miles to Indianapolis then about a hundred home.
The ride was cold but the rain did hold off all the way to Jim's house where we officially ended this road trip with 7698.1 miles!

7698.1 mile....no mechanical problems of note.....one tire change, not serious... no injuries, slight sunburn.... no accidents.... no serious animal encounters, 'cept the skunk and that didn't turn serious and the bears that ignored us.....and surprisingly...no one really tried to run us over....except that one lady in Carmel, but even she didn't try real hard.
We did note several times through out this trip how people tended to give us added lee way, motioned us all three to go through stop signs or lights together, most usually didn't try to cut between us. It was actually noticeable that people tried to accomodate us. It was really quite a surprise!
Some lessons....a Wide Glide is not a touring bike, but it isn't bad, after market wind shields are for bugs only!
All in all, one terrific month of riding through this great country of ours!
We have a bunch of pictures yet to load up here. Between the 4 of us we took nearly 3000 pictures! (we won't load them all) Doug was by far the most prolific photographer, but then, he was the unofficial, official potographer for the group. His total was at least 2087, maybe more. I'm still looking. Between Jim and Pam there were 586, and for me, a paltry 311. An awesome collection of.... mostly... reasonably ok photos...a few really bad ones....some that can't be readily identified...and some really, really good ones. We still don't have Doug's 35 mm photos. That may take a while. When he switches to the 35mm, it usually means you're in for a treat. Some of his Grand Canyon photos from 2007 were simply fantastic!
I still want to get some last thoughts together from everyone and post them here. I also want to post more photos. If you're interested check back in a few days and maybe we'll have more of them up.

To those out there who followed this little adventure of ours, thanks for coming along, hope you enjoyed the ride. I know we did! This blog part was fun to put together too. It gave us a chance to kick around the days ride, and just recount the day and compare notes.
Maybe we'll do something like this again.

To Doug, Jim, and Pam, was this a hell of a ride or what!!!?

The following pictures were taken at Big Sur by our California friends Barbara and Ben.
Barb sent them along with a short note.
In both photos Pam's trying to hide, note the hat.....
Hello Ohio Friends,

Thank you for the photos! They add story to our trip and our grandkids (8 & 10) chose them as their favorite out of nearly 500.

I have many of the scenic route you were on, from Malibu to Fort Bragg (over the Golden Gate), to Leggett up 101. Giant redwoods,

beaches, wine country, Hearst Castle etc. Would be glad to share if you missed photos of something special. Hoping you continued

on having a wonderful vacation and arrived home safe and sound.

From Anaheim, California ........Safe travels, Barbara & Ben

Barbara H.

Indeed we did continue on, and in the end, arrived home safe and sound.

Day 26 another long ride

Day 26
Another loooooong day. Somewhere north of 450 miles again today. We ended up last night in I believe it was Big Springs NE. Today we rode again to keep ahead of the storms. We did stop in a town called Gothenburg to see the Pony Express Museum. They had moved an original Pony Express station to the town park to make a museum. Pretty interesting.
Pony Express Museum
On this same stop there was a sod house displayed and some interesting barbed wire sculptures.
Blow this up, it's kind of neat. Made from barbed wire.
Seems we didn't get a picture of the sod house. I was sure we did. After all, we got this next one and it was right outside the sod house......
Blowing this one up might help...but I doubt it!
Anyway....after this it was just more riding. A lot more riding.
I think, besides the storms, at this time we are probably a bit like horses in that when they know it's time to head for the barn, that's what they do. I think we see home getting closer and it's time to get there.

Day 25....looooong day

day 25
570 miles today, boy am I tired. That's a workout!
For Pam...we sure miss having you here...Now we have to make our own breakfast, wash our own clothes and fold up our own tents.
Jim wants to know who's going to make him coffee in the morning?
How's he going to get by on his own? Y'all know this could be serious right?
Anyway.....
This was one long day! There are snow storm warnings for the Rockies in Colorado, and Wyoming. There are storm warnings for the area around Cheyenne Wyoming. We were in Lyman Wyoming this morning.
The KOA in Lyman by the way is a very nice one. The tent camp sites are big and covered with thick grass. The common room has a couple of computers for guests to use. The common room also is open as long as you need it. That helped us a great deal. We were told to just turn out the lights when we left. Don't lock the door in case we want to go back in.
In the morning, the temp was down in the 40's. Fairly chilly. The mornings ride was going to be cold. Pulled my left shoulder out while trying to put on my chaps for the ride. It took a few minutes to figure out which way to move things to get me put back together. Eventually that was accomplished. This was the first time this trip that I had real problems with my shoulders. No lasting problems, a few aspirin and I'm on my way.
We decided in a "corporate decision" that we should ride down to the Flaming Gorge before turning east. So, off to the south to see the Flaming Gorged Dam and surrounding area.
We started off with breakfast at a local eatery. Much too much food, but, GOOD! Then...on to highway 414. Right outside of town we saw, of all things, a moose!
You'll need to enlarge these to see anything. We were running about 50 or 60 mph and he wasn't standing still.
This guy was just running along a fence line, apparently trying to get out of the fenced field
There were also horses in the field with the moose and they weren't happy at all!
We continued on down the road.....This road was supposed to be quite boring. It wasn't! Not at all! This road runs through active ranch land, so there are numerous fields with large numbers of cattle and horses. There are also many different land formations that are incredible sights! Canyons, meadows, ridge lines, hills, cliffs, anything you might associate with the west, it's here. The entire length of this road is a fascinating ride. The speed limit is generally 65 mph. The road surface is good and the road is gently winding, so it's also a comfortable ride, even for me.
Be very aware of the ranch vehicals that may come onto the highway from seemingly anywhere!

View along highway 414
Near the southern end of 414 there is a nondescript turn off labled Sheeps Creek Geological Route. This turns off to the right into a campground just off the road. From here the road continues through some extremely dramatic land formations. This is one cool ride!Views along Sheep Creek
Doug and Jim at Sheep Creek Campground

One heck of a nice surprise! This is a must do for anyone going down 414 to the Flaming Gorge Dam! The road is not always the best, some gravel and dirt,some black top. You should also leave the 30+ ft. motor home at the campground and drive the towed car. Narrow winding road. Well worth seeing.
At Flaming Gorge Dam, we stopped at the visitors center to ask about access to the dam.
View of bridge to dam from western approach
View of dam from the east side
The bridge to the dam area, west side
Approaching the bridge
At the visitors center we were informed that the only way to see the dam was with a formal tour. We all kindof did an awe' nuts type thing then the
lady ranger said that's not a problem, we're not busy, we can give you your own tour with just the 3 of you. This is way too cool! A private tour of the dam! Free! Then we found out we had to go through the metal detector and be searched just like the airports. Oh well, not too bad. A ranger completed these tasks and we were off to the dam!
We went down an elevator 6 stories to the top of the turbines.
From here we went out to the lower observation walkway just above the river. The white trucks have their noses right up to the fence of the visitors walkway.
From here we could see all the way to the top of the dam.
These are mainly trout gathered at the bottom of the dam.
Our tour guide was able to relate many facts concerning the dam and surrounding area. She was also able to field all of our questions.
Very neat tour!
View of eastern exit from the DamOnce through with the tour it was on the road again.
This time we meant business! We had storms to leave behind.
This detour took about 150 miles and 4 hours. We would travel another 420 miles before stopping to set up camp. We traveled interstate 80 to get as far ahead of the storms as possible.
We were very late and decided it would be easier to get a hotel than try to find a camp ground.
This we did. We had a very good dinner at a nearby steak house, then turned in for the night.
Tomorrows another day....we'll see where the storms are in the morning.