Thursday, October 15, 2009

DAY 2...


We made good time on the highway, no visible police, traffic moved well. We averaged roughly 70 to 80 mph the whole way down. The sky cleared up, lending itself to an incredible sunset. The sky was on fire with hues of pinks, purples, and blue. I could feel pockets of warm air as we rode through the valleys. By this point I had totally gotten over losing my sunglasses. The mountains started to appear, we were very close.
It was well after dark when we made it to North Carolina. The camp was just a few hours away. I set the GPS for the camp, it gave us two addresses, neither of which were correct. I improvised, choosing the address that was further away (there was a 400 marker, and a 1000 marker... we needed to go to 732) thinking we would eventually pass it on the way. There were a few roads into the park, I chose the road that was on the campsites address thinking it would take us there directly, Stony Fork Road. Little did I know this would turn out to be the "back way". Turning off the Highway, the road immediately tuned into a gravel road. Not small pebbles, but baseball and golf ball sized stones... It was pitch black with nothing but what our headlights could make out. With me taking the lead, I pushed forward through snaking "S" turns, slipping and sliding across loose rocks and wet leaves, coming extremely close to the edge at times. Of course we couldn't see what was over the edge, we found out later that was for the better. This went on for about and hour, until finally we see signs.... not for the camp, but for "ROAD CLOSED". My stomach turned... Peter and I stopped. There was no way I was going to turn around. I knew the camp was on this road, the signs must of been wrong (so I told myself). We rode on for about another mile when we saw more signs, eventually coming across a construction site. There lie before us a concrete slab, rebar poking out everywhere. Mounds of dirt and rocks. These were the later stages of a bridge, it wasn't pretty. We sat there for a few minutes, Peter cursing the GPS. I was certain we could get across this thing. I slipped into 1st gear and slowly made my way blindly across the slab, I could hear loud water moving on both sides....... I make it across!!! YES!! I honked my horn a few times to signal Peter. He reluctantly followed, slowly navigating the steel and concrete structure. With both of us safely on the other side we took a minute to catch our breath. The road across was exactly the same. Another 20 minutes of slipping and sliding we finally reached solid pavement.... and the camp!
I rode into camp with a feeling relief and a great sense of accomplishment. The first thing we did was pop open a few cans of the Tecate beer we bought at a local gas station and toasted, "We finally made it!! There was a group of people sitting by a camp fire. We introduced ourselves to the "old timers", we made quite an entrance arriving 4 hours late and from the WRONG direction. "We're the guys from Brooklyn"!! We told them about our ride in, they all kind of chuckled at the fact we came in from the backside, the "closed road". "Heck, I guess that bridge is open NOW?" said one of the guys. Another guy, who happened to be one of the founding members of "Airheads BMW Club" heard our story and said we were TRUE Airheads. "Hell, if you guys did that ride in the daylight, I guarantee you would of turned around"! Apparently the sides drop off pretty steep... Score 2 for Brooklyn!!
Right after we settled in to the cabin we were off again, headed to Boone (over an hour away), where we could eat and grab a drink. The Airheads people though we were INSANE... "So THAT'S how you guys do it in NYC". We took the CORRECT road this time, made it to Boone a "college" town (Appalachian College??) had dinner and a few drinks. We got back to camp around 3am. My sleeping bag never felt so good!!

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