When I first mentioned that I was going to be moving to the greater Greenville area to my family in VROC, Jim "Skid" Robinson said "Your day rides are going to be much better". Now that we have been here almost a month, I'm finally starting to see what he meant. Since I'm finding such wonderful roads, I'm going to attempt to do a better job of taking pictures, and throwing up a blog each time I go out. Hopefully some of you will enjoy my 'local' day trips.
I hit the road today late, didn't get out of the house until around 11:30, and did a bit of running around locally before I truly headed out for the ride. I knew that I wanted to ride up 178 again, because last time I rode it, it was with Renata, and she is seldom in the mood to listen to floorboards dragging. With that in mind, I pointed the bike towards the Pickens area to catch the fun roads.
When I got up to 178 & Hwy 11, there were a ton of bikes in the parking lot of the gas station. I chatted with the crotch rocket guys for a few minutes, and they let me know that it was wet at the top, and that a lady had just gone down when they were through there. There were clouds threatening all over the place, so I figured I'd just head up and see what happened. I initially intended to run 64 East when I got to it, but I caught up to some weather right as I hit the intersection, and figured I'd go West to get away from it for a bit.
At this point, I was some 80 miles from the KSL, so I thought about going there, I pulled into the opening of 215 to plug the KSL into Tom (GPS), when I looked ahead and saw one of those signs we Motorcyclists love... You know the one, "TRUCKER ADVISORY Next 34 Miles, numerous 10-15 mph curves alternate route suggested"... I figured that was all I needed to know, so I continued north. It turned out to be a great choice, because I got some great riding in, before I got some more great riding in on the Blue Ridge Parkway (just a short 10-15 mile stint), before jumping on 276 South to travel through chunks of the Pisgah National Forest. I caught some rain just coming into Caeasar's Head right on the SC border, but only had to pull into the park for a few minutes to let it pass.
It was a good day in the saddle, roughly 160 miles. Here's the map of where I went.
I took this shot on 215, what I didn't get a picture of was the snake that was watching me take the picture. He was about 6 feet off to my right, I didn't even realize he was sitting there until I turned to walk away. Brown in color, not very big around, but pretty darn long looking (he was coiled up).
Picture of the Placard that's in front Looking Glass Falls, in the Pisgah National Forest
I wasn't expecting to catch a waterfall today, but it was a good find. There was a nice basin at the bottom that people were swimming and wading in. My CruiserWorks boots didn't let me down, and I was able to walk out into the stream to catch another shot below, without even getting damp.
Another shot from inside the stream.
