On Charley's Creek Road, we stopped at a lodge run by the park service.  It is on a small lake, sleeps 18, is fully furnished (linens, dishes, the works), and only costs $200 per night to rent the whole thing.  What a place to use as basecamp for a motorcycle trip...

We gassed up in Highlands and made some calls.  Marc and Jamie were headed in this direction, so we hoped to meet up with them.  From our current position, a run down 28 to Warwoman Road seemed like a good plan.  28 is a beautiful road, full of long, sweeping turns through dense forest.  As we left Highlands, we found ourselves behind a Triumph Speed Triple, and a couple of cars.  Soon the cars turned off, and the Triumph rider walked away from us.  He was having a lot of fun.

Warwoman Road came.  And went.  Bill, leading, was having so much fun, that he missed the turnoff.  I stomped on the horn, but he couldn’t hear me and kept on going.  “Well” I thought “when he crosses the South Carolina line in a few miles, he will realize his mistake”.  We crossed the line.  Huge sign, can’t miss it.  Bill kept going.  So I rode up on his tail, stomped on the horn again, got his attention, and we pulled over.  Course corrected, we rode back into North Carolina and turned west onto Warwoman.  Bill said that Warwoman was one of Marc’s favorite roads, and that we might run into him there.  Sure enough, rounding a curve, we saw and R1 and an R6 headed our way…Marc and Jamie.  We waived as we passed each other and kept on going…we would catch up later. 

Our plan was to get to Helen, Georgia; pick up a bottle of wine, then ride the Richard Russell Parkway.  Helen is a very pretty little town.  It has a lot of Bavarian type architecture, with cobblestone alleys and old-world towers.  I don’t know if it was settled by some Bavarians or if it is just a way to attract tourists, but it’s a very popular place, and seems to always be crowded.  The liquor store that I wanted to go to was, of course, on the far end of town (this is only about a mile, it’s a pretty small place), so we crawled through the traffic and procured some vino.  On the way back, Bill tried to save some time by cutting down some side roads, but the road he chose dead-ended in a field of tall grass, and he wasn’t willing to dual-sport his pretty RT.  So we went back to the pavement.  It was about 1:30, and we were hungry, so we stopped at a little café on the other end of town.  The staff was badly disorganized, and explained that this was their first day in business.  Bill and I agreed that they weren’t going to last long.

We waited semi-patiently for our food and watched traffic crawl past.  The main road was packed.  There was an Elvis impersonator cruising back and forth in an old, drop-top Eldorado, 50’s tunes blaring.  And there were bikes everywhere, of all sorts…cruisers, tourers, sportbikes, dual-sports; we even saw a KTM 950 Adventure, the first I have ever seen outside of the showroom.  Traffic was moving at walking pace.  Soon we saw Marc and Jamie in the throng, so Bill ran over and invited them to join us, which they did.  Jamie told us that some yokel in a pickup truck passing a bunch of bicycles on a blind curve had run him off the road this morning.  The truck had been entirely in his lane, and the only place for Jamie to go was the weeds.  He kept the bike up and was not injured, but it reinforced the fact that you have to keep your wits about you on these mountain roads…you never know what is around the next corner.

We waited for about another hour for our food, some of which never came, and left about 3 to ride a round-about route to TWO. 

We rode south on 129, up Blood Mountain to Neel’s Gap, and the Walasi-Yi center.  Walasi-Yi is a hikers store that sits 32 miles north of the southern end of the Appalachian Trail.  They have a hostel there, a small grocery store, all sorts of camping gear, and a service to help hikers lighten their loads.  All of this in a beautiful stone building erected in 1932.  I had ridden by many times, but never stopped.  The rest of the group pulled in for a break, so I wandered about in the store while the others stayed outside and chatted.  It is a really neat place.

 A spot for hikers and bikers.

After our break, we headed in to TWO, where we set up camp and had an excellent dinner.  The food at TWO is always excellent.  The owners, GT and Britt, have backgrounds in food and beverage service, and they know how to run a kitchen.  GT had been smoking ribs over a peach-wood fire all day, and they smelled divine.  After dinner, Britt came around the dining room with a tray full of cobbler that she had made…I don’t remember what kind it was, but she had poured heavy cream on top, and it was delicious. 

Back in the campground, we were joined by Heath, from Valdosta, riding a brand-spanking new GS Adventure.  Marc seemed pretty interested in the bike, as well as an FJR that Heath had for sale.  We all shot the bull around the fire for a few hours, and hit the sack.  I think I was asleep in less than a minute.

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