In May of this year, my girlfriend and I decided to take a trip on Skyline Drive and The Blue Ridge Parkway on motorcycles; camping along the way. Not wanting to fight DC morning rush hour traffic on bikes, we trailered them to Front Royal, Va. Once there, we loaded up all our gear for the next 5 days and hit the road.
The weather forecast was only calling for chances of scattered storms later in the week so we set off feeling confident the weather would totally change and ruin our vacation.
The going was slow as my girlfriend wasn't very confident in the twisties so we weren't putting down near the mileage I had hoped.
The first night, we camped in this awesome secluded National Forrest Service campground called Cave Mountain Lake.
They had two streams coming off the mountain, going right through the campground and feeding into the lake. Our campsite had a stream running between the parking space and the camping area with a footbridge connecting the two. To save on space and weight, we carried Clark Jungle Hammocks instead of a tent and sleeping bags. So we hung our hammocks right next to the creek and the sound of the running water lulled me off to a deep sleep interspersed with pee trips.
The Blue Ridge Parkway was built after Skyline Drive and serves as a connector between Shenandoah NP and Great Smoky Mountains NP. Unlike Skyline, the BRP is flanked on both sides by private land so the scenery is quite different. The speed limit is higher and there are way fewer vehicles. The riding is awesome!
When we reached our campground, we found that the Obamanation and their 'sequestration' had shut down our campground without making notifications.
We stayed in a hotel in Boone, NC that night. The next day, the weather was getting so bad that we decided to turn back. We camped again the third night and got up the next morning to pouring rain. We had to pack and get dressed in the rain. Unlike car camping, there is no thought of getting packed up and jumping in your dry car. Instead, you have the thought of riding in the rain looming over you. So we got started and headed for Skyline Dr. Then the fog hit. I have never driven a seatbelt and airbag equipped car through shit that thick. On a bike, it was madness. We missed the entrance sign for Skyline...even though it was 8 feet away. At one point, I almost rear-ended a white SUV that was, unbeknownst to me, only ten feet ahead. They were not using any lights so I suddenly had four round tail lights illuminate immediately in front of me. In fact, most asshats on Skyline that day were using no lights at all.
We were going to camp in SNP that night, but the forecast just called for more and more rain so we just soldiered on to Front Royal and came home a day early.
In spite of the weather, it was a magnificent ride and I'd suggest any of you outdoorsy types borrow a bike and try it sometime.
There's a great video on my FB page for any of you that are friends with me on there. If not and you'd still like to see it, just friends request me. Hell, all jeepers are my friends...except for Pennsyltardians, Jersey A-holes, anyone from NCC, Dr J, anybody who thinks they're a Jeeper because they drive an XJ with a CB, Jeepers with small dogs or cats, mall crawlers, hard-core crawlers, any jeeper who can't put away a pound of scrapple for a snack, anyone using anything from Rusty's Offroad and Andrew Marino.
https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10151672063343536¬if_t=video_processed
Enjoy!