Blue Ridge Parkway Trip – Day 7

Welcome to "Ride & Rally" with Fix My Hog. Well, here's kind of a... Not kind of, it is a typical morning for us. Charlie and I are both self-employed, so have laptop will travel. Mine's over in my room.

And this hotel breakfast was... We had the hotel's breakfast which was... Very soggy, very stale. Old raisin bran. So, I'm having a dehydrated breakfast skillet that I had brought a bunch of these dehydrated meals, just like Charlie did.

So a little bit of work here this morning yet. How much time do you need to wrap up for you? Probably a half hour. And then we gotta wipe the bikes off. It is a downside to this time of year, is the bikes are dripping wet with dew in the morning.

But yeah, I mean, I'm not complaining 'cuz that's a little thing to live with. Brought a Chamois so we can wipe them down, and then we'll get rolling for Boone today. Boone. We're changing states. Where are we going?

Virginia to whatever's next, North Carolina. All right, that looks fun. We'll find out when we get to the border. Yeah, we'll know when we see the sign. So we just had the coolest thing.

We just bumped into, not literally, but we bumped into Frank here on the parkway at one of these little stops. And where are you from, Frank? I'm from Charlotte. And as you can see, I'm not as good looking as George and Charlie. I'm just a old redneck from North Carolina, but they're from Michigan and the Civil War ended a long time ago, and those things are mostly forgotten down here but we still remember some of 'em.

But I've tried to give 'em some good direction on going down the parkway and some back roads and going through some rural areas in North Carolina where they can really see and get immersed in the culture. And of course, as most guys with bikes going through... I would encourage you, Charlie's better at this than I am, but I would encourage you when you're on these trips to find people like Frank. What a great find that, how would we have ever found 276 and 209 and Trust is where we're going? Right.

And he's telling us not just the roads, but the right diners to eat along the way. And he even said if we mention his name at one, we're gonna get a free meal. Is that - No. They'll probably charge you more and make you eat outside. That's what they'll do.

But this is a big part of what Charlie and I wanted to experience, is not just get on the road and drive the road, but really just exactly what you're saying, immerse in the culture, see more of what's really going on. Yeah, and I can't wait to get to the next stop and meet another Frank. There's gonna be another one at the next stop. Oh, there may not be another Frank. It's gotta be better than me, guys.

I mean, it really has to. They're starting at the bottom. I'm on my little KTM here, 390 CC. And these guys got these Harleys that cost about three or four times what this little bike did, but they're still good guys. They're still good guys.

Well, thanks for that. Yeah, well, thanks for the great advice, Frank. And same, when you're on these trips, as cars go by, when you're on these trips, don't be shy about talking to people. You're gonna find great people like Frank, like we do. Absolutely.

Thank you, sir. Thank you. Okay, thank y'all. This is our lunchtime video, but we already had lunch. We're hiking.

This is the first on this trip for us. We're walking to Cascade Falls just off the Blue Ridge, about a three hour round trip. No, about a 30 minute round trip. And we'll see. There's been a lot of rain, so it'll be cool if the falls are really flowing like crazy.

We've honestly run into very little of this. And today is Saturday, which I didn't realize until a little bit ago. So not a huge surprise that there's more traffic on parkway today, but overall, we've been really, really lucky with not running into this kind of traffic. Wow! This is the Aqueduct.

I don't remember what it's called, but it's amazing. Just a road ledge built right onto the side of the mountain. Two hikes in one day, Charlie, you're a taskmaster man. Can we just ride the motorcycles and not have to walk? No.

You gotta get in shape, George. I don't wanna walk anymore. Are we there yet? So, now we're going to Linville Falls. Think we're almost there.

Hey, George. Hey. This place is fantastic. It's wonderful. So let's talk a little bit about the planning part of the trip.

I'm more prone to like, let's get a hotel for this night, let's get a hotel for this night. Charlie's more prone to, let's see what happens. I see to my pants is here and let's ride it. And I was a little concerned about not knowing if all colors were gonna be changed at this time of year and stuff. So anyway, what this all shakes down to is, we canceled out of ending in Boone today, and we decided, could we get as far as Asheville?

We didn't know. And if we didn't, we'd play that by ear. So, we're actually in what's called the Linville Falls community, just a little bit south of Linville Falls which you just saw in videos. And Charlie found this amazing place. Should we do like the rolling about?

Go ahead, I'm gonna stay here. You stay there. It's- You need to revolve around me, George. And you tip it, my world does revolve around you. What is it called again?

'Cuz I'm happy to call this place out. I don't remember what the name of this place is, but we'll get it so it's- It's one of two places in Linville Falls and it's the cottage. Linville Cottage, I think, but we'll figure that out. Yeah, it's really, really nice. The people who own it, a family has owned it since- '74.

'74. And they're very nice. The setting is amazing. Yeah. I mean, I would come back to this part of the country just to stay here for a few days or a week 'cuz it's a really cool spot.

So we actually got a- Cottage. We got our own cottage right back there. Kitchen, two bedrooms. Yeah, we're in the lap of luxury, which we're not at all used to. Right.

So we're gonna get cleaned up, and then there's a restaurant right across the street. And they have a bar right here. And a bar. And the restaurant serves catfish. Mm-hmm.

I'm all in. Anything else? Good job. You were right, again. All right, see yah.

See you next time.