When we got off the north end of the Trace we refueled. There was a café next door and we rolled over and parked in the Motorcycles Only! spot. There were people everywhere. We stepped in and were told that the wait was about an hour and a half. We were not that hungry.
I weaved my way through the Tennessee countryside, working my way North and West. As we rolled through one small town a sign caught my attention and I decided to make a U-turn. Pop was wondering what I was doing and I told him, "It is 1:30 on a Sunday and that parking lot is full. The food has got to be good." And it was.
I got on Hwy 49 and stayed with it through many twists and turns until we reached Land Between the Lakes. This is between Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley and is in both Tennessee and Kentucky. A very pleasant road, a very pleasant ride, lots of beautiful scenery.
An iron ore blast furnace along the way:
When we were close to the north end I evaluated our distance and time and decided to roll the dice. I programmed the Garmin for Pennyrile Forest State Park.
Ah, yes. Kentucky State Parks. You see, my friend hppants gave me some tips on this with one of his RRs last year. I researched Kentucky's State Parks and decided that might be a good option. Thanks hppants, you really helped us out here. It was great.
I called and found that they had plenty rooms available, it is not their busy season. I plotted a route on my map, put my hand written directions in my tank bag map window and started following the Garmin. The Garmin and I agreed until we were almost there and then it directed me to turn one road earlier than I had planned. I had noticed the tiny lines on the map but had opted for the longer route with bigger road lines. Against my better judgment, I followed the Garmin.
At first, all went well. The road was tight, twisty, and small but Pop and I were having fun with it. Then, before I knew it, we turned onto a GRAVEL road. It was fairly well packed and did not look too bad, so what the hell. We decided to keep on going. Pop was laughing and joking with me through the Cardo and we were really having a good time with it. I did not share with him that the Garmin showed exactly 2 miles of that crap. Then, the road plummeted downward and the surface went to shit. There was more loose dirt than limestone, deep rain ruts and the rear tire had very little traction. I swear that it was so steep I would not have thought any bike without knobbies would have made it down or up.
We came upon a group of folks riding horses. The "WTF??" looks on their faces scared me more than anything else had. Pop noticed it too. "Did you see the look on their faces? They know something we don't and it ain't good!" At this point the bushes were slapping the sides of the bike and our legs, the surface was loose and the rear of the bike kept stepping out. We kept the power on and tried to forget that we were riding overloaded sport tourers. I knew that if one of us went down it was going to be bad. Very bad.
Pop was laughing. He laughed the whole time. When I told him it was all part of the adventure he said, "Adventure? I'll show you an adventure if we ever get parked. I am going to adventure you all over the next parking lot we stop in. If we ever get these bikes parked again you better hit the ground running!"
It was awesome. We are still laughing about it and congratulating ourselves for making it through there.
We reached Pennyrile Forest State Park and had a wonderful night. Nice room, nice price, nice restaurant, nice view. Much better than a hotel in town.
The view from our balcony when we got there:
We don't have these in South Louisiana:
The balcony view the next morning:
Out of nowhere, Pop asked me if I knew anything about Mammoth Cave. Since Pop hates caves and underground in general I had not researched this and had no plans to go there. He caught me off guard with this but I plotted a route and made plans to go look. Pop was undecided about going and kept changing his mind. I really did not want to waste that much of my motorcycle day in a cave but... We were on vacation after all.