Missing Something and the Blue Ridge Parkway

I don’t leave until maybe noon on Sunday, after getting a delicious breakfast of Jack-in-the-Box burgers and fries. I head back towards town to get on the freeway out of the city, and I finally get off I-85 and onto US highway 321 which will bring me up to the Blue Ridge Parkway. As I am just getting on 321, I see another motorcyclist and give him a wave because that’s just what motorcyclists do. It’s sort of like the Jeep wave, but not nearly as lame. Anyway, he makes this odd leaning and pointing his head motion towards me, as I am going by that leaves me temporarily nonplussed because I have never seen anyone do that before, but by the time I can think that thought I am gone. At the next light I check to make sure my saddlebags are latched and my load on the backseat is secure, in case he was trying to point something out, but all is well, and I just think, boy he was weird. I am doing a steady sixty-five north on 321, lost in thought and singing songs to myself when I hear a sound like something is going wrong on my left, but it is brief and fades into the distance just as the black thing in my left mirror fades into the distance behind me, bouncing along the road, getting tinier and tinier. That was my side cover, I realize, a mostly cosmetic piece of plastic that covers the little compartment that holds my tool kit and owner’s manual on the left side of my bike, right by my knee. I finish singing the song in my head while debating whether or not I should turn around and go back for it. By the time I get back there, off on the next exit and then going back on the other side of the divided highway until I reach yet another exit where I can circle around behind the cover, it will probably be run over and smashed. But then again, it would be a shame if it is still in one piece and I abandon it since my bike looks that much uglier without it, and it would probably be ridiculously expensive to replace. I guess I don’t have anywhere to be so I get off on the next exit and turn around. I drive south, spotting the cover in what looks to be one piece on my way towards an exit. I get off and head north again to pick it up. So this is probably what that odd gesture was all about. It’s a wonder that the cover stayed on as long as it did, driving through Charlotte and on the freeway and whatnot. I spot it ahead and begin to slow down. I drive a little pass it and pull off to the side. There is no shoulder of course, only about two inches of pavement on the other side of the white line before the grass starts, so I park my bike on the grass off the pavement and run up the side of the road. I feel just like the guy in Road Rash after he crashes his bike. I’m plodding up the side of the road while cars are buzzing by me. Running isn’t easy with boots and a full face helmet and a motorcycle jacket, and I’m sure people are confused when they see me, but I make it to the cover and it turns out that it is still intact, although it is covered in scratches from getting blown around the road by the whoosh of air trailing cars and trucks.
I feel pretty good that I got my cover back in one piece so now my bike can look normal. It is uneventful the rest of the way to Blowing Rock, a small town with access to the Blue Ridge Parkway. I would have liked to do all of the Parkway, but because I didn’t want to drive really far out of my way, not that I exactly have “a way”, I settle for getting on here, about one-third of the way up from Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina. When I get on the road, I can instantly see why this is one of the most popular roads to drive in the world, and why almost everyone in an online forum concerning great motorcycle roads mentioned it. It is a two-lane road that runs along a mountain ridge for four hundred and fifty-nine miles. There are spectacular views around pretty much all of the numerous turns, and there are no signs besides those telling you a scenic pulloff is ahead, or the occasional junction sign that indicates where you can get off the Parkway, and what road you will be getting on. It is soon evident that the majority of people driving this road are on motorcycles, which I find pretty cool. I make a couple stops at pulloffs early on to snap some photos of the Blue Ridge Mountains rolling off in the distance. The hills of green have a bluish tint to them, and I presume this is where the name comes from. It reminds me of the mountains west of Sydney in Australia where the eucalyptus leaves lent a bluish tint to the mists above them, giving them the name of the Blue Mountains. The speed limit on the Parkway is forty-five, so it is not the best road to take to make time, which I am okay with. I keep it around fifty and enjoy the endless scenery. It seems that whenever I make a stop to eat some food or use the bathroom or take some pictures or get some water or just have a rest, someone is always talking to me about where I am riding from and wanting to know where I’m headed and so on. It’s a nice feeling, because they are obviously asking out of friendly curiosity and everyone seems to be impressed with my ride from Utah. It seems I hear the phrase “do it while you’re young” a lot, and this is not unique just to the people I talk to on the Parkway. The scenery is not just limited to lush mountain vistas. Once in a while I am stuck behind a slow moving car and have to wait a long time to pass because there are few stretches with enough open line of sight to overtake a vehicle, and even less such areas that are marked as passing zones, so I take my chances and pass when I can. I’m sure the police I very infrequently see on the Parkway would disapprove, but I have to take my chances or suffer from not only being forced to ride at someone else’s pace, but have a large chunk of my view consist of a rear end of some clown’s automobile. Often the road goes through woods and absolutely picturesque farmland. There must be some sort of ordinance for anyone living on the Parkway that makes them have their fences pristinely painted and even as they roll up and down the hills and mark off fields which are just recently hayed and have smooth rolls of hay evenly distributed over the perfect green grass. There are farmhouses at various distances from the road with manicured lawns stopping directly at the gravel driveways, or sometimes there are just straight paths worn in the grass from years of driving the same exact ground. Each house might as well be out of a magazine, if there are any ugly modern fixtures on them, like cars or telephone lines, or electric meters, they are neither seen by my eyes nor recalled by my memory.
The miles go slowly by, and the time passes too quickly, and it’s late afternoon when I need to fill up my gas tank. I get off the Parkway at the first intersection I come to, and pull up to a gas station that is not far from the junction. I am just starting to fill up my tank when another biker walks up to me and starts saying, even before I can see this guy, “Hey man, you gotta learn the rules out there.” At this point I am thinking I did something stupid on the road that he noticed and I can now actually see the guy as he is to my side now and I mumble something noncommittal as he goes on, “Sometimes these people just go thirty-five with a trailer or something and then when you can finally pass them they go up to sixty and so I tell these coppers you just gotta go up to seventy-five or something, you know?” I am about finished filling up my tank and say yeah, I know what you mean just because I don’t know where this is coming from and I push my bike off to a parking space to go inside the store. A couple of guys on a pair of beautiful polished Harleys that are sparkling in the sun chat me up for a bit. “Youu-tah, well you’re a piece from home.” Yes, I sure am. I can’t help but admire their bikes, super clean and detailed, but I look at my bike, caked in dirt and grime from the road, a cloudy mist over all the chrome, high on mileage, and stuffed with gear, and I see it is gorgeous in a way that you can’t get with some cleaning agents and a couple of hours of work. All of a sudden I think back to the old stranger that came up to me and was talking about passing people and I look around and I don’t see him, or maybe I just didn’t actually look at him in a way to register his face in my mind. I really was distracted and I realize that it was very odd because he just came without a warning and left just as fast, and maybe this phantom was just cryptically telling me, “Go moan for man.”
After winding up and down the Parkway for some time more, I decide to get a late lunch, except there is nowhere to stop and no roads to get off on that look like they go anywhere. Eventually I see a little store on the side of the road, one of the very few I have seen all day. There are some people hanging around the porch by their bikes and I figure I’ll just pull up next to them. I may have been riding my motorcycle a whole lot but I don’t know the unwritten laws of biker interactions. I get off and just say hi but they don’t seem too talkative, maybe because I don’t have a big old Harley like them. Either way, they aren’t too talkative until one of the women reminds me my lights are on, and again, I have forgotten to take my key out. Maybe they weren’t too outgoing because I am clearly an amateur on motorcycles. Inside the menu has homemade sandwiches for something cheap like four dollars or something, so I get one with ranch dressing and it’s delicious and filling. I consider getting another to eat later since I plan on camping, but I just don’t. After I come back in from eating out on the porch, I ask the couple that owns the store that are sitting amongst the trinkets and Parkway photo books and handcrafts about a campground in the area. They tell me there is one about twenty miles up the road, which I calculate to be about thirty minutes away, and after telling them I like their place they hand me a piece of paper with all its realty information on it because apparently it’s for sale. About four hundred and sixty thousand for the store and the house behind it and the property it’s on. Not bad, considering how amazing this area is, but a little steep for my budget, so I fold it up and put it in my pocket and tell them I’ll pass the word along to someone who might be interested. They told me to watch out for deer and were surprised I had not seen any yet, but almost immediately after getting back on the road, I start seeing them all over. Late afternoon is the time when they come out to feed, they told me. I eventually get to the campground and pull up to the little ranger station and have a quick chat with one of the rangers who gives me the rundown on the camp area. Looking at the map, there are dozens and dozens of sites, but when I go in to choose mine, I see only two occupied. I pick one out that is close to the bathrooms, annoying labeled as a “comfort station”, and someone what near the other people, but not too close. I walk back to the station with a check. I ran out of cash a while ago and have not had the opportunity or the need to get more from an ATM as of yet, and they don’t take debit or credit cards, so I have my first opportunity to use one of the checks I have been dragging around with me for a month and a half. Sixteen bucks for the night, not the cheapest campground I have stayed at but I don’t mind supporting this sort of enterprise on this sort of road. I still have a couple hours of sunlight, and I don’t have a whole lot to do besides set up my camp and gather some wood to start a fire with. My tent goes up easy as always and soon I am walking around the area looking for sticks and kindling. I go past one of the other guests, a guy in a small Winnebago who has just been sitting at the window, listening to the radio since I got there, and bring a bunch of wiry sticks over to my campsite. I grab a few handfuls of dead leaves from the base of a tree nearby, and I start to make a little pile on the concrete slab where there is an upturned grill. I use a lighter to try and ignite the leaves and the small twigs I placed above them. It must have been wet here a few days ago as none of the stuff I have is entirely dry, but it all should burn. I burn out all the leaves, and go back for more. The entire undertaking is an uphill struggle, but after about thirty minutes of babysitting a tiny blaze by feeding leaves onto it until the smaller stuff caught, and then feeding small stuff on until the bigger stuff caught, I have a nice fire to enjoy just as nighttime fully descends. I even have to go out in the dark with my little flashlight to gather more wood. By the time I have a healthy fire going strong, I realize I am tired and have to wait until this thing mostly burns itself out. I play my guitar a little bit, but in the stillness of the night, even my little travel guitar has a loud sound, and I am not too worried about my rugged neighbor in the Winnebago, but I think that the older couple actually camped in a tent a few sites down can probably hear it, so I don’t really play a whole lot, especially since the guy was nice enough to bring me some good sticks to burn even though they were camped downwind of the smoke. Eventually I just dump a bunch of water from my CamelBak on the fire once it’s down to mostly embers, and I head to my tent to sleep.
It always takes me a long time to get to sleep when I am camped out, and I always spend the night twisting around while making sure to stay in my blanket because it’s usually cold, as it is tonight. I am in all the clothes I was wearing during the day, plus my track pants and lined jacket that I have not worn since I took them off in Escondido, California. I also have my motorcycle jacket covering my upper body and my camp towel over my head and nose so I don’t get a cold during the night. When I camp I sleep on and off and have all sorts of wild dreams that I usually can’t remember, but know are just out of this world. I don’t bother setting an alarm. In the morning, I awake to the sound of my camping neighbors breaking their campsite down. There is a noise like a high-pitched zipper that I cannot place in particular. I get outside and start packing up. When rolling up my tent, I have to brush off the sand from the bottom with each roll, and I figure out what the high-pitched zipper sound I woke up to was. The guy in the Winnebago gets up and just drives off, a real woodsman. I never saw him leave the car. I start to wonder why he even bothers coming up here if he’s going to sleep in a bed and listen to his radio with the electric lights on, but I think maybe there is some sad story about how he used to go camping with his wife every year until she died, and maybe he can’t bring himself to stay home every September anymore than he can actually go out and have fun in the woods without her once she’s gone. I don’t know how it is, so I give him the benefit of the doubt. I get on the road by about eight-fifteen AM, the last of the three campers to leave the campsites.