10/26/2017
Yesterday the wife and I thought we'd take a ride up to the Foothills Parkway to check on how the fall leaves were developing and then off to the diner at the Gap for lunch. The view from the parkway was gorgeous as always and the leaves are coming along but still have a ways to go before they really get colorful. The ride was a relaxed affair with me taking it fairly easy. Still, even with me keeping speeds down I still had fun banking into the turns and managed to scrub in the tread on both tires all the way across...no chicken strips here! I also managed to grind hard parts on both sides. So now my center stand has matching right and left shiny flat spots on the legs. Great fun and I was reminded again how experienced and trusting my passenger is when her only comment to the grinding was to wonder if it was the exhaust or undercarriage that was touching down.
When we got to the Gap we found the diner crowded and lots of bikes and trikes in the lot. The burgers were great and I dug my Deals Gap coffee mug out of the saddlebags to get that free coffee. After eating we wandered around checking out the shops and chatting with folks. I particularly enjoyed meeting a young fella on an older Gold Wing who had picked the bike up in Arizona and was heading home to Philadelphia. It was his first visit to the Gap and he was enjoying himself hugely. I warned him that based on my 25 year relationship with Deal's Gap he could plan on being a return visitor.
After leaving the CROT we had a nice ride home with more tire scrubbing on the way down the hill. Everybody seemed to be on their best behavior on the road with folks using the pull offs to let us by and waving thanks when we did the same for faster traffic. A good day and a good ride!
