Enjoying The Tours

We've actually been doing a fair bit of riding lately. They haven't been jaw-dropping or awe-inspiring,but they have been enjoyable. And we have found some interesting things along the road.

A couple weeks ago it was a trip to the east. No destination, so we headed towards some unknown roads to see where they would take us. It was a quiet, leisurely ride just choosing roads at random. As lunchtime neared and I came to an intersection I recognized, I knew Subway's was just down the way. Let's see if we could get some Subway's and see if we could find a park.

Ok, the park was out, but Elder Mill Covered Bridge was just down the road. I think the garden club might have a bench to sit on in their little gardens.

Missed out on that score too and wound up spreading our jackets on the gravel. Oilburner wanted to go sit on a rock in, or by, the water...

But I nixed that idea when I discovered all of the paths down were overgrown with poison ivy. I can't help it, with all of the poison ivy in this state, I am always singing the Coasters song of the same name throughout summer.

Much greener now than when we have ever visited here in the past. It was nice and overgrown. But definitely not a forgotten road by the locals. And I wouldn't have minded owning the house right above the river.

Heading home on yet more previously untraveled roads we spotted some insanely ornate structure surrounded by a fence. The slightly run down appearance had me thinking it was some old school. But I wanted a closer look. We found the main entrance to the "Church"...

This structure wasn't the church itself, but rather was originally built to be the pastors residence. When it was completed he said it was too large and ornate and became the "guest" house. This place was a marvel. I just couldn't get over all of the wrought iron, staircases, walkways...everything!

Some members came upon us as we were getting ready to leave. They offered to show us inside, which I readily accepted.

Wow! I was speechless. Thosed curved railings are a marvel. They had quite a few craftsman in the congregation. And the model house is actually of 'The Little White House', FDR's Georigia home in Warm Springs when he came to partake of the geothermal baths. The model is on loan from the state. Why? I don't know. And yes, there are lights behind all the white and red ceiling panels. ;)

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Yesterday was another one of those days that didn't have any hope of coming up with a destination, so it was another thought to just hit the back roads. Oilburner didn't know where to go, and all I knew was that I wanted to leave the state. He was thinking Lake Hartwell on the border of South Carolina. And I thought I would rather enjoy it from the other side. (I was right. The SC side was more likely to follow the river and lake line. GA reserved that for the rich on their dead end streets, or the hill people they were never able to evict and their land would be a superfund site with all of the dead and rotting cars slowly sinking back into the ground.)

We hit the highway (the paved one) to get out of dodge and make tracks towards the border. Close to 40 miles up the road Oilburner's bike and my tummy both need fuel. Two birds, one stone when we stop for bike fuel and there is an attached cafe. Yes, the cafe was on the corner...

After filling everyone up we headed out to find our adventure. I took the GPS out and selected to just head towards a road that sat on the lake, crossed the state line, and wasn't an interstate. This was interesting. I enjoyed turning down a first never traveled road before. Enjoyed going through town, by the newer looking courthouse and along the back of the businesses on Main Street. I don't think we were missing much being on the "wrong" side. I think most of those businesses were empty.

However, I kept seeing a sign for "Traveler's Rest State Historic Site". And it just happened to be in the direction we were headed. So when the sign deviated from our path I had a decision to make. It was actually quite easy...

This place was AMAZING!! The Traveler's Rest was an Inn to service the travelers on the Unicoi Turnpike in the early 1800's. The initial portion of the inn was built in 1815. The size was doubled in 1835. And 85% of that wood is original. Wow!

Now these are rules that I can live by:

The hidden drawers where the owner kept his gold were a little more hidden before someone in the past put drawer pulls on them. Can you identify the hidden drawers?

One of 11 fireplaces in the Inn that are not safe for fires.

How do you make cranberry colored glass? Mix a little gold in during the manufacturing process, of course.

Interesting little bathtub, completely with curves for soaking comfort.

Handrail was carved from a single log.

The cradle was carved from a solid log of Black Cherry

Ghost in the mirror. But I'm more interested in the men's [top] hat box. Never seen one before.

No more than 5 to these beds? No problem!

It's the little things...I've never seen window locks like these. I want!

I uploaded tons of pictures of the Traveler's Rest to Flickr.

We hit the road again and took a wrong turn. Actually...didn't turn, and that was the problem. But the road meandered along the river and I hoped it would be a nice opportunity to cross over into South Carolina. Yeah, that wasn't in the cars, but we stopped to turn around at the old power plant.

So serene!!

The ride through South Carolina was peaceful. We were amazed at how low the water level was. The GPS said we were supposed to be over water. The long grasses convinced me there hadn't been water here for a season or two. We didn't stop for pictures. Wasn't much interesting to photograph, but the views will live in my mind.

The return trip home still held something in store for us. The long way home took us through the granite capital of Georgia...and again past the Guidestones. We were up for a quick stop.

Remember, it's not the destination...it's the journey. Hope you find some special places on your adventures.

Wandering in the North

"If you are going to ride naked make sure you have a clean can" the voice intoned.

"The Voice" belonged to Oilburner, and he hadn't quite realized what he had said until it was out and ringing in our ears.  I immediately busted up laughing.  He might actually have blushed a little at that one, if his face could have been seen through the helmet.

I was riding as close to naked as I ever had.  No saddlebags, no top box, no luggage except for the tank bag.  I did still have the luggage racks and windshield, so I wasn't completely bare.

The topic of conversation was the stainless steel "can" (exhaust).  My bike and I had ridden in the rain since the last washing.  And my dogs nose had left slime trails.  The can was desperately dirty and didn't look like the lovely shiny can it can be.

Who cares?  Not me.  I wanted to ride, not was my motorbike!

This was the first perfect autumn weekend and I wasn't wasting it.  Daytime temps were supposed to peak out at 77F (25C).  Humidity should be around 45% mid-day.  It doesn't get much better than this.

Unfortunately I also had an invite to make jam.  I was interested since I have never made it before.  But this day was not made to be spend indoors.

Oilburner and I saddled up and met up with a friend on the road.  No one had a clue where to go, so we just figured "north" into the mountains.  We wound up on some beautiful scenic byways and headed towards Hwy 60, a notoriously enjoyable twisty road up here.  The day was complete with perfect weather, beautiful blue skies and leaf litter scattered across the road.

Our lack of destination gave us roads to head towards, but no restrictions on how we arrived there.  I tried to navigate on the less traveled roads.  I was plagued by slow drivers whenever I had to take the well-known roads.

Our food goal, for lack of finding another place, was the marina at Lake Burton.  The food is good and the place can not be beat for ambiance.

It was a lovely day with no particular place to go.  Such fun taking turns at random.  Sometimes it back fired and we ended up somewhere we had just left.  Other times we were introduced to roads we had never yet met.

I did force us to take the long way home.  Adding a couple extra miles pushed my year-to-date mileage over 9,000 (14,484 km) to keep up with my goal of 1,000 miles (1609 km) per month.  And it also kicked the odometer of the bike to 41,000 miles (65,980 km).  Small victories.  :)

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I knew this trip was more about the ride and less about the scenery.  I knew I wasn't going to be able to play with the cameras, so just brought the point and shoot. I also discovered a way to attach it to my tank bag.  Therefore I was free to learn the complicated art of photography while riding.    I wasn't so successful all of the time.  For not taking many photos, I can't figure out how I had so many to upload.  You can view the more successful ones on Flickr.

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Work has been keeping me tied down lately. We've been working on a product release...that finally occurred last Sunday.  I've been absent in the blogosphere, but look forward to catching up on all of your adventures.  :)  Chat with you soon!

Stir, Don't Shake

It was going to be a hard job convincing me to get on that bike while it was 28 degrees out today.  Sure it was supposed to warm up to 47F.  Sure those clouds were supposed to give way to blue skies.  But that sure isn't happening this minute!!

I told myself that I was going to be more then happy to let Mr. Oilburner take that ride down to Hamburg State Park with the group while I sat in a nice warm house.  But when I saw him start to suit up I just couldn't handle it.  I drug my feet walking to the dressing room.

See, I really didn't have a problem riding in these temps.  And for the most part I do have the cold weather gear.  It's just that I seem to have put on some winter inches and I am terribly mad at myself about this.  I want to ride.  I just don't want to stretch and contort to get into said riding clothes.  Ugh!

No matter.  We still jumped on the bikes and headed for the group meeting point.  Little did we know the ride had been canceled two hours earlier.  We arrived just in time to see one person leaving.  Really not an issue.  We enjoy riding on our own.  So our new plan was to head towards Hamburg on our own.  Of course the GPS' wanted us to get on the highway.  But that wasn't happening in this weather.  Can you imagine how cold it would be in 28F speeding 70 mph down the highway??  Unh unh!! No Way! No How!

The roads we ended up on were great.  Unfortunately the clouds in this part of the state didn't seem to dissolve.  These clouds were thick without any visible blue peaking through.  Where did they go??  Mr. Oilburner hadn't put on all of his warm clothing thinking that we would be stopping at the meeting point to give him the opportunity to suit up. So now he was starting to freeze.  We didn't make it too far before turning towards home.

Mr. Oilburner and I compared temps the entire route.  They are consistently 2 degrees apart.  With mine being on the low/fatalistic side.  My temperatures fluctuated between 28F and 31F.  His dabbled between 30 and 34.  (I didn't look at mine arriving home like he did.)  He tried to convince me his was correct since his bike is newer.  Given that logic, I said that me and mine were correct since I was newer and an improved model.  ;-)

Arrived home and that bathtub was calling my name.  My thighs were absolutely frozen.  It's as if they had been frozen with liquid nitrogen.  I could see taking one of my legs off and using it as a martini stirrer.  James Bond may have a better idea for warming them up.  Trouble is, he just isn't around when needed.

We didn't ride as far as some.  But we did ride farther then others. It was still nice to be out and feeling the fresh air.