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The head squid says one morning..."let's
pack up 5 bikes, 5 people, all the gear, the shop dog, and anything
else we can fit, and drive 2700 miles each way from Squid world
headquarters to Suches Georgia U. S. of A. so we can go ride
for an hour and a half in the hills of Georgia."
When
the head squid speaks....we listen! (Not to mention that we get
to not be at the shop for two whole weeks!!!)
So
at Oh dawn thirty on Sunday morning the 19th of October 2003,
we roll on out and hit the road!
The cast of players,
Susan, Rose, Margaret, and Barb. Lisa is meeting us in Memphis.
So what do we have here? Susan, over the hill, Rose sneaky fast,
Margaret silent but deadly, Barb hasn't raced in 3 years, Lisa
current #1 womens class in Nor Cal.
So a lot of
people ask us, why would we drive that far to ride for such a
short amount of time? It's simple, great roads, (read twisty),
beautiful scenery, 
wonderful people 
Suches Georgia.....doesn't get any better
than this!
We get all of 5 miles and have to stop
for gas, yes the gas mileage sucks on the motorhome, but this
time it is because I didn't have time to fill up before hand.
I notice that Barb and Margaret, having been on the road for
all of 10 minutes, are in the gas station mini mart shopping!
Those two are world class shoppers! Gas is $1.79/gallon. Not
bad for California! Now we are cruising down Highway 101. 40
miles later, we pass a friend of ours also cruising in their
motorhome on the way to Arizona. Small world!
We
get to Needles CA, this is in the heart of the desert, a godforsaken
town with no real good reason for being, and having gone 500
miles, we need gas.....$2.49/gallon. We buy 10 gallons and head
accross the Colorado River to Arizona where the gas price magically
drops to $1.59/gallon. What's up with that? Once again, screwed
in California, I'm sure Arnold will straighten that all out.
Yeh, that's it....Arnold. It's really cool being from a state
that has now replaced Florida as the Election screw up capitol
of the U. S. of A. We go as far as Kingman AZ and stop for the
day. Barb, Margaret and Rose are shopping in the campground store.
K.O.A. made lot's of bucks on these 3!
Monday morning
we hit the road (Interstate 40) and head for Santa Rosa New Mexico.
It's all uphill and we end up at about 7000' elevation. The fine
Ford V-10 Tritron engine doesn't seem to care and we cruise at
80mph all the way accross AZ and New Mexico. Arrive Santa Rosa,
the gang shops the K.O.A. store, (I think all the KOA's are linked
by computer and the word went out that world class shoppers were
traveling along their route!). Eat dinner, watch the world series....The
Florida Fish vs the Yankee underacheivers. Well....we all know
how that turned out!
Tuesday we head for Oklahoma
City where we hook up with Logan "Beau" Wilke  and his wife and new baby girl. It was great
to see Beau, Sena and the baby who is an awesome kid. If you
don't know Beau, you should, probably the best YSR Pilot ever!
Find his link on our race team page, it's worth reading. We visited
till late, hit the hay and prepared for the long run from OKC
to Memphis TN.
From OKC to Memphis is just about
the most boring drive you can imagine. To quote Gertrude Stein,
"There is no there there." Arkansas has just about
the worst roads in the U.S. And Memphis is always "under
construction". We perservere and finally pull up at the
Graceland Campground, right accross the street from Elvis' house.
The whole Memphis area is one big Elvis "I may be dead but
I can sure make a lot of money still" tourist trap area.
From where we are camped we can see the "Lisa Marie"
Airplane, Graceland's much graffittied fence, and tons of tourists.
Rose, Barb and Margaret, of course, go shopping after dinner
and Rose scores a CD of Sun Records greatest hits. Way good CD.
Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbason, and of course, Elvis.
Sun Records and a producer named Sam Phillips invented Rock and
Roll, a very interesting studio to visit. We all crash early
cause we are way tired and very confused as to what time zone
we are in.
Lisa Arrives via Taxi from the airport
Thursday A.M. and we are way glad to see her as we are tired
of looking at each other by now. We gave her quite a welcome,
but read her story to find out about that! We take off and by
dark we get to Chatanooga TN which is in still another time zone.
To bed early as tommorrow is food shopping for the weekend and
the drive to Suches.
Friday......Suches or Bust!
It's not a very long way from Chatanooga, but it's quite a challenge.
Number one, Suches is not on most maps of Georgia. Number two
the motorhome is wider than most of the lanes on the road. Number
3, if we can find the right roads, they are way twisty and way
up and down. After getting lost a couple of times we arrive at
T.W.O.,
T.W.O Lodge
set up camp at the airport,
and enjoy the view. Not bad, eh?
By
3pm, we have the bikes out, leathers on, and off we go to try
out the twistys. Head on down to Lake Winfield Scott, come back,
and by then it is time to head to the lodge for dinner. Now let's
talk about food, Brit and GT, the proprietors of the T.W.O. campground,
are both 5 star chefs. Unbelievable cuisine. This bill of fare
is 5 star for any where, much less the beautiful hills of Georgia.
Friday evening I had Salmon, probably the best I have ever eaten,
and it is priced right! Way to go guys! As I am finishing dinner
the shoppers are buying out the Lodge store. Little did I know,
the addition of Lisa definitely put the other three into a shopping
frenzy.
Saturday we do a lot of smoozing, meeting
up with Jimmy and Phyllis Eads From Louisianna, Jason Kind from
New York, Ray and Pete from Florida, the fabulous Ed Dunn, and
a bunch of others that we are really glad to see.
The crew from New York
Soon
my four companions go for a 3 hour street ride that, of course,
invovles shopping, I opt to go hang out at the lodge. We are
joined in the late afternoon back at camp by Linda Garmon and
Tom.
Always good to see Linda, one of the all
time great people. She also has brought with her an absolutely
cherry 1992 YSR....so clean you can eat off it! The shoppers
in the group go nuts! When the dust settles, Margaret has bought
it! The other 3 shoppers have been out shopped!
The
shopping title goes uncontested to Margaret Martinez. Margaret
explains that she had not planned on buying a bike in Suches,
and that in no way will this slow down her shopping on the way
home as it doesn't count! Next time you see Margaret ask her
about the 15 post cards she bought for $15 and then tipped the
seller $5!
We find our way to the T.W.O. Lodge
for dinner and Saturday Night Blue grass music. Food is again
outstanding, musice great! We get our maps for the Grits Run
and head back to camp to rest up for the next day's run.
Wake
up Sunday morning to a torrential downpour. You wanna talk rain?
Hey! Buckets of rain. The sky opened and never closed! We suit
up and off to the Lodge for the start of the run. By the time
we arrive we are soaked through and through, all except for Rose
who has some trick rain suit that goes over her leathers. Not
fair! Hell, I can barely get my leathers on much less try to
get a rain suit over them!
Jay Curtis and Friend ! The Creek is
swollen by the massive rain storm. Cows? Hey! Whatever tweeks
your udders!
Decide that this year, due to inclement
weather, I will start about 1/2 of the way back from the first
group. That should be enough of a challenge when there is an
inch of water on the ground. Ben Cheatwood gives me the old shoulder
tap, and off I go! Big Fun. The only difference about riding
in the rain versus dry is, it is wet! And you damn sure can't
hit the pavement lines or you will become one with the pavement!
The
five of us had agreed to meet at the first checkpoint and make
the deciscion to continue or not. I am not kidding when I say
there was a serious amount of rain. Would guess 2" in the
time we were riding. Like riding with a fire hose turned on you.
16 miles later I stop at first check point that
is being manned by Seldon Deemer. Nice to see another old friend.
My gang is no where in sight. Lot's of people are passing me
while i stand around and wait. This is not good! I hate it when
that happens. About 10 minutes later the 4 shoppers show up.
I figured they had been shopping but instead they were just showing
good sense and taking it easy. We all agree we want to finish.
Put my helmet back on, fire up the bike and......Decided I can't
handle all those folks who passed me while I was waiting for
the rest of the squids, so I wick the Yerbi into 6th gear WFO
and go for it. No problem, caught them all! Damn, feel better!
Keep on booking cause it is really wet and uncomfortable, no
longer a question of passing people, just want to get back and
get dry! The Yerbi never missed a beat, the IRC tires stuck like
glue, no problem! Arrive back at lodge, checked in with Ben and
get coffee, food, and warm! 62 miles in torrential rain is very
exhilarating!
The awards were the usual fun presentations.
Cheatwoods sense of Humor is second to none. I was lucky enough
to receive the "2003 Grand Grits Galaxy Champion" as
presented by Brian Drebber from Speed TV. Thanks Ben and Brian,
it's appreciated!
Back to camp to pack up and hit
the road for Nashville then Memphis so we can put Barb on a plane
for home. Nothing like twisty turnies in a motorhome with a trailer
in pouring rain!
Music...B. B. Style
Best Ribs in Memphis!
R & R in Memphis, Beale St, W.C. Handy, The Peabody, Graceland,
Sun Records, Bar-B-Q, etc. Good fun, and of course cause we weren't
riding, good weather.Up late, leave early Tuesday for OKC and
the Memorial at the Murrah Building. Awesome memorial.
Very well done.
On to
Amarillo, Margaret has been talking since we left squid world
headquarters about the 72 ounce steak at the Big Texas Bar B
Que in Amarillo.
and now Lisa is going to join her in
the attempt to chow down a 72oz steak, salad, roll, shrimp cocktail
etc., all in one hour!
That's a lot of steak!
They went for it, and 30 minutes in
had more than half gone, but read their stories to find out more!
Ok,
it's time to do some serious driving, and I do mean serious.
All the way from Eastern New Mexico to the California border
it was mucho windy, gusts to 50mph! This sucked but we forged
on.
Arrived Squid World Headquarters Friday Evening
exhausted but happy to see home. Can't think of a better group
of women to travel with. Barb is the Princess of course, Lisa
is giving her a run for her money, Margaret has that dry wit
that just lays you out, and Rose is Gracie (for you youngsters,
that is a reference to Gracie Allen wife of George Burns....Google
it).
And of course Phoebe makes it just like
home.
The Annual True Grits in Georgia is just
about the most enjoyable event we attend. With few exceptions
the riders have it in the right perspective, the course is fabulous
even in the rain, the scenery beautiful. The Lodge at T.W.O.
is first class...It doesn't get any better than this. Can't wait
until next year. Thanks for letting me play. |
