It was awesome to see everyone and to meet some new people!

Sue, the girls, and I left Milwaukee Tuesday Morning, with the plan to arrive Wednesday night. We would then ride around some Thursday before settling in for the sessions over the weekend. We don't like to miss the classes to ride the roads, since the roads are there all the time and the classes aren't.

Since it was the four of us and the girl's daily range is only about 150 we 'cheated' and brought Cliff the RV. We would be giving a class on our summer trip with him too, so it kind of made sense for him to come along.



We've also managed to get Kaylei, Sue's older daughter, excited to empty the sewer tanks. I don't know how that happened but I'm not going to complain.



It wasn't perfectly smooth sailing on the way down - we had a punctured radiator hose which causes us to stop sooner than planned on Tuesday. In whiskey country.



But we were up and moving again the next morning after a replacement hose was installed. This meant we were behind schedule and, when we then lost a belt and had to replace that we decided to spend Wednesday night in Pigeon Forge, rather than going through the smokies at night.

So, the next morning we were up and driving again, and wishing we were on the bikes.





Once we got to Iron Horse we quickly parked, unloaded, and headed for Deal's Gap. I am not, automatically, a fan of the Dragon. I think there are better roads in the area, but we wanted Dragon Slayer Stickers for the RX3s and we don't cheat on that sort of thing.



We missed the first few classes but managed to get back in time for the evening, after sitting around the fire and catching up with friends.



The classes were all the usual awesome, and I didn't take a lot of pictures (because I always forget to take a lot of pictures).





Once the weekend was over (Waaaahhh!) everyone scattered, some to the south and east to see if they still had homes. Yeah, there was a hurricane again but this time we only got a light sprinkle in the mountains. We packed up, leaving late with all the goodbyes, and then broke down again.



Cliff just doesn't like Louisville. We are 0/3 on driving through that city without something going wrong.

The delay was enough for us to get back to Milwaukee after 10, rather than around 4 (again, taking 2 days to get back), but that is just travel sometimes.

So, naturally, looking forward to the next one!

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I write books about motorcycle travel. Small, cheap, motorcycle travel. Also superheroes.

I got to within 75 miles of home before my 60 miles per quart oil leak increased to 30 miles per quart and the bike got hard to start. I was afraid it would go down to 5 miles per quart and would seize the engine. Rode home on the back of the truck . Autopsy is complete and a new piston and cylinder on order.

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2000 KLR650, beater wanting to become ADV bike. John Deere livery
2010 Goldwing Airbag tourer, of course it is yellow!

Ugh. Been there, didn't want the t-shirt.

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I write books about motorcycle travel. Small, cheap, motorcycle travel. Also superheroes.