...darkness now, lightning strikes ahead in the south. Thunder is inaudible above the din of the wind noise. I ride through marshlands encircling Chatuge Lake - formed when the Chatuge Dam blocked the natural progression of the Hiawassee River. I must be close. I pull into Hiawassee about eleven pm. Stopping at a gas station to ask directions to the campground...LEG 1 DAY 4
COLONY HOUSE MOTOR LODGE - ROANOKE, VA TO
BMW MOA GEORGIA MOUNTAIN RALLY - HIAWASSEE, GA

402 MILES TODAY - 1086 MILES TOTAL

Defeated perhaps? More like premature surrender - my giving in to the rain and not sticking it out for another campground. “Get your money’s worth out the hotel” I said as I frequently talk to myself anymore. Last night, I spread all the wet things around the hotel room to dry, inverting the boots on top of the heater unit. The only real wetness problem I am having is with the pants... ...For a reason that is unclear to me now, I failed to procure the Gore-tex liner for the pants before the trip. I patronized the Super-K last night searching for a low cost solution to the pants problem. I found some cheap hip waders for riding and a poncho for setting up camp after the ride in torrential conditions.

Free Continental Breakfast - morning at the motor lodge. The freshness of a spring morning after a hard rain, overcast but not at all gloomy. Nice not to have to cook or find a place for breakfast. I have my fill of pastry, coffee and cold cereal while pondering the origin of the term Continental Breakfast. To me this conjures up visions of beaches, passion fruit, honeydew, scantily clad females... not raisin bran and doughnuts.

Escaping the madness of the typical strip mall road, I am quickly back to the relative safety of the Parkway. Within a few miles - Zen like trance states; leaning, floating, soaring. Piper’s Gap, Rocky Knob, Daniel Boone’s Chase, mile after blissful mile flow on. I pass a long distance bicyclist heavily loaded down. A sense of guilt quickly passes, I used to be him. Now the challenge is of another sphere, mental.

As I am heating up a can of beans at a vista point, I hear a motorcycle approaching from the north. A fellow pulls up from Quebec on one of these motorcycles that you lean way to far forward on. “Headed for the rally, eh?” he asks in a Canadian accent. “Rally?” I eloquently reply. “Yes, the Georgia Mountain BMW rally in Hiawassee, Georgia.” “What do you do at a rally” I ask. “Its a good deal he says camping, meals, great mountain rides, oh yeah there is a GS class for off road riding, you may like that.”
So, that was the selling point me - I was headed for Hiawassee.

I return to my gourmet pursuits as my friend from Canada takes off. I marvel again at the fact that he had been on his bike since eight pm last night, at the same time I am thinking Georgia? - that’s rather far. The man from Quebec didn’t want to contemplate the distance. The right brain chimes in with “if he can do it. I can do it.”

Still overcast as I continue rolling along the parkway. The clouds are becoming increasingly darker. Into very heavy rain again, I pull over to weatherproof, a bitch of a task with no cover overhead. For a few hours there are alternating periods of rain and sun, making for warm and damp conditions within the rain gear. I come to the realization that hip waders are not proper motorcycle attire.

Chattahoochee National Forest

Unwillingly, I leave the parkway to follow a more direct route to Georgia. I am just above Asheville, NC roundabout rush hour. Pretty heavy traffic until I break free of the city. The sun is starting to weigh heavy in the sky. I stop for fuel, caffeine and a look at the map, about ninety miles to go. Passing through national forest areas very dense, lush and green. The Nantahala National Forest becomes the Chattahoochee as I cross only my fifth state border of the trip.

Darkness now, lightning strikes ahead in the south. Thunder is inaudible above the din of the wind noise. I ride through marshlands encircling Chatuge Lake - formed when the Chatuge Dam blocked the natural progression of the Hiawassee River. I must be close. I pull into Hiawassee about eleven pm. Stopping at a gas station to ask directions to the campground I spot a BMW F650, I assume that the owner is attending the gathering.

Brad is from South Carolina and attends rallies frequently. He offers to follow me to a restaurant so that I can follow him to the campground, if and when I find a very late dinner. I settle on the delectable offerings served up at Hardee’s. The storm is of sufficient intensity as to cause the lights to flicker. Cash registers go haywire and it becomes quite difficult for the lady taking my order to figure my total and change. The rest of the employees are cheering for the lights to go off indefinitely so that they can escape the rigors of fast food preparation. Voracious “aws” as the fluorescent tubes flitter back to life. I remember jobs like that.

Finally I take my combo #3 and plastic tray over to the plastic chair and table combination that Brad has chosen. A very spaced out kid (late teens or early twenties) is sitting with Brad, completely drenched and shivering. This is awkward since I am forced to sit next to this guy at the undersized table. Twirling an unlit cigarette around and around in his shrivelled fingers, he rambles off sentence after unintelligible sentence as Brad sits silently and I attend to my meal. Our new found friend gets up and stumbles around the entire restaurant a few times. I ask Brad if he knows the guy which for some reason I had assumed. Brad shakes his head, “Nope.”

Our friend returns with a his cigarette now lit as the lady who took my order appears at our table. “Friend of yours” she asks. Now we both shake our heads. She promptly kicks him out. And with the look of a worried mother, she says “Hate to send ‘im out in the rain, but I ain’t gonna have ‘im bottering the customers.” Very heavy rain continues to pour as we wait it out and discuss the rally. I am still not sure what goes on at said rally.

We arrive at the campsite, I start to set up camp, the rain is diminished to a few showers here and there. Brad sets up his Kermit Motorcycle Chair, cracks a beer and spectates - I wrestle with the Bibler vestibule. Motorcycles, mainly BMWs, slowly putt by on the campground road. I gladly accept a beer from Brad and resort to duct tape to fasten the loose grommet on the vestibule. Brad tells me about working with his brother in a sound contracting company, I reminisce on my career in Acoustics. After wrapping up the conversation, exhausted, I crawl into my tent and crash.