We awoke to the building drone of motorcycle engines coming from all directions. It was a beautiful sound echoing through the mountains. We had the apartment room at the Deals Gap Motorcycle Resort for Thursday and Friday and was fired up like little kids on Christmas morning in anticipation.

The plan was to roll out sightseeing on the bike with all the storage empty and return with groceries and beer after a day of tearing up the area's roads. This plan worked great in the end!

The ride started off with a spirited blast down the mountain through the famous Deals Gap. It's a crazy little road built less than a hundred years ago following and old Indian trail across the rugged terrain. The traffic was lighter than I expected for the start of a holiday weekend.

Except for an old piece of shit conversion van that couldn't stay on the road in the corners we had a clear run down the mountain. The van was so slow that anything in front of him was long gone by the time we found a spot to squeeze by him.

Jane was excited to be able to video the whole run down the Gap. That was the plan but once the tires and engine warmed up a couple of miles down the hill the pace got a little too quick for her comfort zone and the camera hand turned into the hang on for dear life hand... We still got a few minutes of twisties on tape before we went into hyper drive. We managed to drag everything on that bike that could touch down around the corners before we were done and had a blast!!

The bikes that built up behind us following the van soon disappeared in the mirrors and the only thing between us and civilization was the occasional pack of Harleys white knuckling it like a bunch of milk trucks around the corners.

Most of them would move over and let the other bikes by. There were a handful of guys making the Harleys flat out boogie aground the turns faster than I thought a Hog could go and I have ridden FLHs from coast to coast. For the most part though they are the slowest things on the road. More a result of rider experience than design of the bike I think. If there is anything the Gap has a shortage of, it isn't the "Outlaw Leathers and a Learners Permit" crowd.

We ran US 129 north down to the bottom of the mountain and then hooked the 360 over the the awesome Cherohala Skyway. The weather got a little wet and chilly but even though we left our leathers at the room to make room for beer on the bike we did just fine.

Cherohala skyway is a great place to let a big bike like our BMW stretch it's legs and run. It chewed up the tight stuff in the Gap great but the long fast sweepers of the Skyway made the bike flat out stand up and giggle.

We took a break and waded around in the stream that ran along the road and touched base with people back home taking advantage of the cell phone service that we don't have at the motel.

We looped back in a giant triangle to Robbinsville and the backside of the mountain up to the Gap. The plan was to pick up beer and food in Robbinsville and head home to the motel room. We caught lunch at a small diner in town and asked the people there where we could find a grocery store.

We were met with rolling eyes and told that there is no grocery store in Robbinsville and all they have is "Ingles" and we would have to go 45 miles to a real town for a store. As I have written countless times before... show me a town with less than a thousand people and I will show you a town where no one knows where anything is. People grow up their whole lives in a 2 stoplight town and can't tell you if there is a 7-11 four blocks away!

Ingles ended up being a huge grocery store with everything except BEER! For beer we had to go to the Ingles in the next town... An hour and forty five minutes later we were back with beer and ready to head back up US 129 to the room.

we retraced the ride up the mountain we did the night before where we found an amazingly quite motel. I put together a rice and sausage dish that was warm and filling while Jane took charge of keeping the Margaritas flowing until we finally surrendered and retreated to the waiting twin sized bunk beds waiting in the bedroom....