Sunday Day Three

This is the day we do stuff with the rest of the Harley Group. We started up the blue ridge parkway, may be twenty of us. Slow, very slow, annoyingly slow. Those of you who know me know that I am not good in groups. Mix that with annoying, slow bikers that are just in my opinion ignorant. It was more about how many miles you can get in in a day than enjoying the beautiful scenery. The Blue Ridge was lovly, following along a river where people swam an tubed. It was father's day and even though there was traffic, I don't think the traffic was as bad as the Harley guy leading the group blamed our slowness on. We were creating the traffic.

We kept with the group until we hit the Foothills of TN. That's were we left them and headed on off ahead of them. The foothills parkway was beautiful, a scenic route along the top of a mountain ridge. Vista of mountains to the left, and right. We glided on through, around the curves, up and down the hills. The Foothills Parkway landed us in Fontana, at the end of the Dragons Tail. Following 74 then to 360 we headed to the Chalohala Skyway. As we stopped for gas and some water we rested at a gas station. Figuring we were a good ways ahead of the group, we thought it was them who would need to wait for us at robbinsville. As were having out water I spotted the group, turning the corner onto 360, passing us.

It didn't take us long to get back on the road behind them but some how we never could get caught up with them. Great cruising through farmlands and banking sweeping turns. After 360 we hopped onto the Choholl Skyway, although, Honestly, I don't really remember the first half of the skyway. With the intolerable pain in my foot, I was pretty much blacked out there on the back of the bike. Gritting and bearing it, I recognized something was wrong when I tried to tell Alex to stop at the next overlook. I couldn't speak loud enough for me to here, let alone Alex through our intercoms over the buzz of the motor. The second time I was loud enough to get him to here me. Another mile or so and we were pulling over. I got down, stumbled a bit, everything felt like a blur, dizzy, weak. Went to the wall and sat down, helmet and all. When I finally got out of that black out, I realized what had happened. Altitude sickness, I had it once before in my life with pretty much the same symptoms. We were at about 4200 ft above sea level, and we had risen to that point pretty fast, I hadn't had time to acclimate. I was good to go after a bit of a rest.

It was a long day and I was tired, and in Mucho pain with my foot. The pain I've been having has been really bad, not sure what exactly it is, but I think it is stemming from my arch. No matter what I do, no matter how much pain killers I take, it still feels like someone is jamming a skewer into the bone next to my pinky toe. It really put me in such a miserable mood. No matter which position my foot is in, it hurts. I wish I could figure out how to get rid of it.

So we finish of the chohalla skyway in Robbinsville, and start heAding our way back to camp, sure as the sun is bright that Kathy and Al had beat us back to the came we gave up our chase after them. We stopped to rest at a gas station, i'm not going to say which one, but there are really nothing else around these parts. :-/ So we stop, drinking some water, and we joked saying, wouldn't it be funny if they went by? Sure enough, not two minutes later, two Harleys rumble up over the hill, it was them. Threw the rest of our waters away, helmets on in a flash, and we were off to chase them once again! It took us a bit but we caught them when they pulled over a few miles up the road. We then back as a group motored on back to camp together.

Couple of burgers over the camp fire, and a few marshmallows later, watching the fireflys in the thick woods behind our site, Alex and I started joking about Puckwudgies. It wasn't too much longer until we started seeing some strange lights a few feet up what seems to be some sort of a game trail leading up the steep ridge behind the house. This light was similar to the fireflys except they were a pure white (think led) and it would blink consecutively 4 or 5 times. I'm sure it was just a bug, but it was uncanny that it would only do it after Alex or Al mentioned "puckwudgie" this went on for at least an hour. You really got the feeling you wanted to check it out, but I knew better. ;-) The boys went into the camper for a bit, and the lights stopped. Was it just a camp fire story coincidence?

To add a bit more to this story, the next morning I was sitting under the ez up tent on the picnick table, now mind you, the whole table is covered by the tent... A partially chewed, unripe nut of some sort bounces off the table right next to me, and off the connected bench hitting the ground next to my feet. Something had thrown it, there was no possible way, with the tent covering the table, could it had fallen off the tree and bounced off the table next to me.

Remember, we are on the Cherokee Indian reservation. Outside our door of the trailer (we are in the back part of the trailer against these woods) there is a beautiful birch tree, this morning I could make out two native Americans in the bark, I'm hoping the I will get better lighting in the morning to photograph them.

There is just something out here, and it knows that I believe. While writing this I am being left with an uncomfortable feeling. It's Tuesday the 22, at 11:37, a hound dog of some sort is off in the distance howling at something. Rain drops from the storm earlier continue to fall from the trees. The mist is lingering in the trees mixed with campfire smoke, and all is quiet except for this dog. I have the feeling that I shouldn't be looking out the screen door, and everyone else is asleep.


~ Another Day, Another Adventure ;-)

Location:Tues Night @ Camp