Post by chanito on Nov 2, 2009 16:22:10 GMT -5
So after a full day of work i leave my home with the scooter loaded into the minivan, some gear for the ride and a lot of excitement about the fall ride.
As the trip progresses we got stuck in the north part of Miami with a big congestion, we were stuck in traffic for over three hours, finally we make it to the turnpike, but we are already running way behind schedule and tired. My original plan was to get all the way to the border with Georgia and find a motel to stay the night, but age and the time had gotten my wife and me super tired even before we reach Orlando which is the middle of the state, and had to stop on a rest stop to take a 1 hour nap in order to recharge the batteries, after which we continued north but failed way short of our goal and could only reach the end of the Florida turnpike and had to stop in Ocala (just into I-75) and sleep in a motel.
Next morning on Friday we started again on our trip but we we are at least 4 hour behind our plan schedule, so our hope of reaching Townsend close to noon are no longer real, as we start into Georgia we encounter a lot of road work making our speed even slower
To make matters worse it starts raining so we crawl into Atlanta a little after 1 in the afternoon, stooping for lunch seems like a good idea and we do so, the last stretch of the trip into the TN mountains take forever under a constant rain, and to make things even more interesting there is another traffic jam in I-75, close to our exit 
Finally we arrive in Townsend to the surprise of the older Kamino, and proceed to unload the scooters and get set up in the room, we go out to meet the other members of the ride and act like zombies as the trip have made us extremely tired (2 days with barely 5 hours of sleep)
The food (an excellent B-B-Q) was outstanding and people super friendly, some guys ask for my advice on a couple of problems, but after identifying one as the carburetor and end being the variator i decided to stop giving people bad advice
and go to bed
The next morning, we were ready for the ride (or so we thought) and went with most people to the gas station and to have some breakfast, the hi point being Kamino Chiizu dress as a cat for Halloween (with a cute set of ears and a furry tail). Meanwhile we had breakfast it started raining (I should had cut my loses and go back to the motel) but we decided to ride on anyway. my wife got some trash bags and make some boots for her and me, plus the riveruckuses let us borrow some rain gear, because our rain gear consisted of some rain ponchos (great for tropical Miami short hard showers, but outclassed for constant cold drizzle) and we started our great adventure, we had not even reach the park and rain was getting into my upper torso thru the big hole for my neck in my rain proof riding jacket The plastic bag boots keep sliding down my legs allowing my shoes to get wet 
As soon as we started the climbs i realized another big mistake of mine, last time i did the fall ride i had my big bore engine with me and i could keep up with the rest of the riders all of which have at least 60 lbs less mass to move around, and i could even pass them if the climb was long enough, this time i had the stock engine with a ported head and a HO cam, which i thought it would be enough due to the success some riders had with such a set up, Ha! what a fool, i could not keep up, and had to watch as they slowly disappear from my sight
The powerless feeling of riding a 50cc ruckus up a steep hill with a 225lb rider is heartbreaking when we finally made it to the look out point i was soaking wet and cold, another opportunity to turn around and cut my looses was presented to me, but i decided to soldier on downhill to Cherokee, and just because i had things not fun enough my fabric type air filter (K&N type) got wet and the engine developed a nasty misfire, i was hoping the rain will stop, but alas not such a thing, we stopped for lunch in a nice restaurant over there and hope for better riding conditions at the end of the meal, i am sure the people of the restaurant have a paper now with our picture on it, telling the employees to kick us out on the spot if we show up again, as we made a mess out of the place with our sploshing shoes and clothes, i know the lady with the mop was considering whacking a couple of us over the head with it, as we kept her busy using it during the whole time we sited there, a couple of the smartest one decided to get some dry fresh clothes from a store and got directions to it, those directions were wrong, but they by asking around got to the place, we on the other side were too proud to ask and never got to it and had to do the ride back with wet clothes on a cold rainy day (a phenomena unheard of in Miami) that was pure torture. Those 30 odd miles back to camp with a scary looking cold wife hatting my guts for putting her thru such an inhuman treatment is the stuff of Halloween horror stories
Finally we made it back with Katrina limping back (I do not think she will forgive me either) and my wife crying right behind asking herself why she did not listen to her mom about me
Thank God things went better from then on, my wife, the kaminos, mikethefox and me went for picture taking around with them playing guide to an old annoying couple from Florida. We had planned to have lunch at "Deadbeat Pete's" but they were closed for the winter, so after some talks we switched to another place and have a delicious dinner with a scary robot and a crazy cat, i can not thank Skuuter and his lovely wife enough for picking up the tap, which should have been considerable as we eat like starving teenagers.
Skuuter you were my hero before ;D but now i know that not even Kryptonite can hurt you. You are my super duper hero now ;D
Then we went back to the motel and got jealous i as watched the video of the summer ride with a couple of scary costumed dudes and a bunch of ruckus crazy folks ;D You guys rock ;D
Also watching the video of the accident of the older kamino in the dragon, was painful and scary (yes i guess it was Halloween)
Sunday morning was overcast so we rode the cages to breakfast at Bennet, were we again eat like starving teenagers and the older Kamino picked up the tap.
All this made me realized that as fun as riding up and down mountains in the scooters is; what make these trips fantastic is the wonderful people you get to spend time with
Thank you guys ;D ;D
If some one ask me: It is worth it, to drive 17 hours to and 17 back just to ride with a bunch of crazy folks on a very rainy cold day in the mountains of Tennessee? I would just have to answer
Heck, yeah!
;D This have been a fantastic trip
As the trip progresses we got stuck in the north part of Miami with a big congestion, we were stuck in traffic for over three hours, finally we make it to the turnpike, but we are already running way behind schedule and tired. My original plan was to get all the way to the border with Georgia and find a motel to stay the night, but age and the time had gotten my wife and me super tired even before we reach Orlando which is the middle of the state, and had to stop on a rest stop to take a 1 hour nap in order to recharge the batteries, after which we continued north but failed way short of our goal and could only reach the end of the Florida turnpike and had to stop in Ocala (just into I-75) and sleep in a motel.
Next morning on Friday we started again on our trip but we we are at least 4 hour behind our plan schedule, so our hope of reaching Townsend close to noon are no longer real, as we start into Georgia we encounter a lot of road work making our speed even slower
To make matters worse it starts raining so we crawl into Atlanta a little after 1 in the afternoon, stooping for lunch seems like a good idea and we do so, the last stretch of the trip into the TN mountains take forever under a constant rain, and to make things even more interesting there is another traffic jam in I-75, close to our exit Finally we arrive in Townsend to the surprise of the older Kamino, and proceed to unload the scooters and get set up in the room, we go out to meet the other members of the ride and act like zombies as the trip have made us extremely tired (2 days with barely 5 hours of sleep)
The food (an excellent B-B-Q) was outstanding and people super friendly, some guys ask for my advice on a couple of problems, but after identifying one as the carburetor and end being the variator i decided to stop giving people bad advice
and go to bed The next morning, we were ready for the ride (or so we thought) and went with most people to the gas station and to have some breakfast, the hi point being Kamino Chiizu dress as a cat for Halloween (with a cute set of ears and a furry tail). Meanwhile we had breakfast it started raining (I should had cut my loses and go back to the motel) but we decided to ride on anyway. my wife got some trash bags and make some boots for her and me, plus the riveruckuses let us borrow some rain gear, because our rain gear consisted of some rain ponchos (great for tropical Miami short hard showers, but outclassed for constant cold drizzle) and we started our great adventure, we had not even reach the park and rain was getting into my upper torso thru the big hole for my neck in my rain proof riding jacket
The plastic bag boots keep sliding down my legs allowing my shoes to get wet As soon as we started the climbs i realized another big mistake of mine, last time i did the fall ride i had my big bore engine with me and i could keep up with the rest of the riders all of which have at least 60 lbs less mass to move around, and i could even pass them if the climb was long enough, this time i had the stock engine with a ported head and a HO cam, which i thought it would be enough due to the success some riders had with such a set up, Ha! what a fool, i could not keep up, and had to watch as they slowly disappear from my sight
The powerless feeling of riding a 50cc ruckus up a steep hill with a 225lb rider is heartbreaking
when we finally made it to the look out point i was soaking wet and cold, another opportunity to turn around and cut my looses was presented to me, but i decided to soldier on downhill to Cherokee, and just because i had things not fun enough my fabric type air filter (K&N type) got wet and the engine developed a nasty misfire, i was hoping the rain will stop, but alas not such a thing, we stopped for lunch in a nice restaurant over there and hope for better riding conditions at the end of the meal, i am sure the people of the restaurant have a paper now with our picture on it, telling the employees to kick us out on the spot if we show up again, as we made a mess out of the place with our sploshing shoes and clothes, i know the lady with the mop was considering whacking a couple of us over the head with it, as we kept her busy using it during the whole time we sited there, a couple of the smartest one decided to get some dry fresh clothes from a store and got directions to it, those directions were wrong, but they by asking around got to the place, we on the other side were too proud to ask and never got to it and had to do the ride back with wet clothes on a cold rainy day (a phenomena unheard of in Miami) that was pure torture. Those 30 odd miles back to camp with a scary looking cold wife hatting my guts for putting her thru such an inhuman treatment is the stuff of Halloween horror stories Finally we made it back with Katrina limping back (I do not think she will forgive me either) and my wife crying right behind asking herself why she did not listen to her mom about me
Thank God things went better from then on, my wife, the kaminos, mikethefox and me went for picture taking around with them playing guide to an old annoying couple from Florida. We had planned to have lunch at "Deadbeat Pete's" but they were closed for the winter, so after some talks we switched to another place and have a delicious dinner with a scary robot and a crazy cat, i can not thank Skuuter and his lovely wife enough for picking up the tap, which should have been considerable as we eat like starving teenagers.
Skuuter you were my hero before ;D but now i know that not even Kryptonite can hurt you. You are my super duper hero now ;D
Then we went back to the motel and got jealous i as watched the video of the summer ride with a couple of scary costumed dudes and a bunch of ruckus crazy folks ;D You guys rock ;D
Also watching the video of the accident of the older kamino in the dragon, was painful and scary (yes i guess it was Halloween)
Sunday morning was overcast so we rode the cages to breakfast at Bennet, were we again eat like starving teenagers and the older Kamino picked up the tap.
All this made me realized that as fun as riding up and down mountains in the scooters is; what make these trips fantastic is the wonderful people you get to spend time with
Thank you guys ;D ;D
If some one ask me: It is worth it, to drive 17 hours to and 17 back just to ride with a bunch of crazy folks on a very rainy cold day in the mountains of Tennessee? I would just have to answer
Heck, yeah!
;D This have been a fantastic trip
......probably spend it ridin' too.....