I rode out into Great Smoky Mountain National Park and the traffic began to close in around me, apparently I wasn't the only one with the idea. I found out later that the reason for all the traffic is that one third of the US population lives within a day's drive of Gatlinburg, and the means that everyone wants to go on vacation here.
I rode on in spite of the crowds and pulled off in lots of turnouts to let the swarms pass, only to get caught in them again five minutes later.
At one turnout near the summit I met Jack, a truly Harley biker looking guy riding a 1980's BMW K75S. He told me that he has a newer softail Harley at home, but it kills him to ride it more than an hour, and he didn't know where he was going to end up so he took the BMW.
We talked about the weather we have been through and he said he managed to miss all the rain yesterday, which he explained by saying that he had someone riding with him. I took that to mean the Dude, but he really meant the ashes of an old drinking buddy.
Evidently this friend of his had told him years ago that if he ever got really sick he wanted Jack to get a gallon of whiskey and take him up in the mountains to a big oak tree where they could have one last drinking bout, and he wanted Jack to leave him there to die.
As I pondered whether this was a nice thing for a friend to do, he told me that he never had to do that because his friend had died of a heart attack on his porch. Jack has his ashes and takes some with him on rides and spreads a bit of him here and there as he goes. He said he usually has a beer with him when he does it, too. Maybe it's just me, but if I tried to do that it wouldn't be a very long ride…
Jack went on his way and I rode up the rest of the way to Newfound Gap and took some photos. One side in Tennessee:
And the other is North Carolina:
The view was wonderful and I wanted to go farther into the Park, but all the other people did too, so I opted to head back down the mountain to a noon meeting. The ride back down was far less crowded, and afforded me the opportunity to stop for this:
While not the most fun curve of the trip by far, it's novelty ranks pretty high. It really does wind all the way around and end in a tunnel beneath where you started. Neat.
I went back to the North Gatlinburg Group for a noon meeting and had a wonderful talk about the spiritual value of helping others. It was a wonderful way to spend the noon hour. Thanks again, North Gatlinburg Group!
After the meeting I went to lunch at the Mountain Lodge, where the waitress asked where I rode in from. I told her the story that I have started to tell most people, and that's that I wanted to take a long motorcycle trip, and that I want to marry Mandy, so I figured that I'd better get the trip out of my system now.
Apparently she liked the story because she told at least one other one other woman in the place and the other woman came over and gave me a list of books to read about marriage. From what I gather they are Christian Counseling books about making marriage work, and I appreciate the thought.
After lunch I spent the rest of the day doing as close to nothing as possible, and I am ready to continue north in the morning.
