Lake Lure/Chimney Rock 

May 29th, 2004

   By

Bobby Smith

Paul “PD” Randolph, Ron Wooten and Carol Tisdale were waiting for us when we arrived at the McDonald’s in Farragut.  After some brief introductions we headed for exit 407 where Jim and Lynda Hickey,  Glenn and Audrey Owens,  and Herbert “Peanut” Davis were waiting on us.  We topped off our tanks and set out for Newport via I-40.

 The group jumped off the interstate, hit highway 25 out of Newport and made our way to Asheville .  We didn’t really want to drive through Asheville and Glenn and Audrey knew a shortcut that would take us to the Blue Ridge Parkway .  The shortcut was great, nice twisties and it took us directly to BRP.  After a short stop at the visitor’s center we headed back onto the BRP and took highway 74 through Chimney Rock into Lake Lure .  The Margarita Grille was hoppin’ so we checked out some of the bikes while we waited on our lunch.

 Friday night I received an e-mail from Dan Molnar.  Turns out Dan follows our website and only lives about 20 minutes from Lake Lure .  He wanted to meet the group so I gave him a call and he came out and met everyone before we headed back.  Hopefully Dan can join us on a future ride.

 With bellies full we took 74 back up to the BRP where we headed toward Cherokee.  The temps really dropped on the parkway, the clouds set in and we battled some mild fog.  We stopped to put on rain gear which, as Jim pointed out, guaranteed that it wouldn’t rain. He was right, we got a few sprinkles but passed through some areas where the roads were soaked by rains that we just missed.

 It was great to have everyone on the ride.  After a few more stops the group headed toward Maryville where we all went our separate ways.  It was a long day but well worth the time.