Tag Archives: Gatlinburg

Camera Clicks – Clingmans Dome Observation Deck

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Camera Clicks – Clingmans Dome Observation Deck

Camera Clicks – Path to Clingmans Dome observation tower

As we ascended up this path, which is the equivalent of 36 flights of stairs, I had to pause for these shots along with precious AIR!! 🫁

Our 2 ½ weeks on the Harley’s (Part 2)

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So we made it to the cabin and we began our first leg of this adventure with some of our closest friends. On the third day, I have a mishap that totally threatens my being able to ride my bike the rest of the trip; I twist my ankle, badly. The Hubs makes alternate arrangements for Aengus (that’s the name of my bike) to ride home with a couple friends but I don’t like this idea. As nervous as I was about riding my bike on this trip, it never entered my mind that this could happen nor did I want to ruin this adventure because my hubs spent a lot of time planning out all our stops. So by Sunday morning, which was checkout day and the start of the second leg of the journey, I was determined to “suck it up buttercup!” So I told my hubs I was riding even if I did have some discomfort. Truth be told, I had a lot of discomfort but a compression bandage and a tightly laced boot got me through it for the remainder of the trip.

If you remember in part 1 I told you about that trip UP the driveway, well now I get to drive down that sucker. Luckily, I had ridden on the back of my hubs bike up and down that thing over the last few days so I was prepared. So off we go, slow and steady wins the race and when we got to the bottom I was able to breathe again! There are 3 of us on this leg and we are headed to Shelby OH then on to Michigan in the morning. It was a 12 hour day in the saddle and holy moly we had Monkey Butt! We saw some of the most beautiful scenery so far, if you ever took a long trip and drove in or around the mid-west you would agree that you saw a lot of corn growing. But the advantage on a motorcycle is you get to associate certain smells with this amazing scenery as well. Let me just add here, that each state (and some Cities) has its own unique smell but more on that another time. We pulled in for the night and the fellas wanted to sit by a fire to drink a brew; me, I wanted to not SIT anywhere!

In the morning The Hubs and I strike out on our own heading to South Haven MI to visit with family. It ended up being about a 6 hour drive on some non-interstate highways, just beautiful (you might get sick of hearing me say that lol) as we started out not much past daybreak. I am not sure I can adequately describe what it’s like to see a sunrise or sunset while riding through vast open areas. It is something that you should experience yourself even if it means you’ll be in a car. We got a little concerned when we drove nearly a hundred (yes! 100) miles without seeing a gas station! But just when we were starting to sweat it, bam! A gas station in the middle of God’s country! I kept thinking “where do these people gas up or buy lottery tickets” but when you live in a place like this what more could you possibly need? Have you ever seen an orchard of Cherry trees? These things amaze me and mean a lot since we live in Florida, where you see all kinds of groves of citrus or peaches but never orchards. Moving on, we reached our destination in the early afternoon just in time for a family gathering and it was a good thing because monkey butt was starting to act up. Ha ha

We rest up for about a day and a half and we head out on another short adventure with cousins; so we all ride in a four wheel vehicle (monkey butt said Thank you!) to test out some Microbrew/craft beer locations. So this area of Michigan has some excellent choices and I think our favorite was a place in Grand Rapids. As a matter of fact there are a few great ones but this one was at the top of the list for the fellas. I am not a huge beer fan, I do like dark beer (like Guinness) or ciders (like Angry Orchard) but I tasted all kinds this day. By the end of the week we are back on the bikes following the cousins who are pulling a big motorhome headed back towards Cincinnati OH for a Parrot Head gathering the next day. On the way we hit some serious weather and end up loading our bikes into their “Toy Hauler” for the rest of this part of the trip. But we make camp and the weather clears and we prepare for shenanigans!