Well it was too Damn Nice!

Well, Jenn and I had big plans this weekend. Spend some time dusting of the cobwebs on the KLR's by running a combination of paved and fire roads on Saturday;  then spend Sunday spooning on the new tires, changing the oil, lubing the chain, and generally getting things ready for the trip in a couple of weeks. So Saturday started according to plan. We got on the road around 10 and pointed the bikes towards Locust Stake. For those that don't know, it is a national ATV park north of Toccoa Georgia. It has a good mix of gravel, and single/double track trails that lends itself to most levels of off-road riding. We spend some time runnning the fire roads and getting re-acquainted with our bikes. Although we have had them less than 1 year, they have over 8k miles on them and have spent a lot of time in the "junk" (See Martin's Up and About link). However, after we returned from the Artic Circle trip last June, they have mostly be allocated to the back of the garage in favor of the bikes that we use on the street. Anyway, the weather and road was perfect, so after a while on the trails, we decided to buzz the 30+ miles over to Helen and had a wonderful lunch down by the river at a place called "The Troll". Afterwards, I asked Jenn if she was up for some more riding and she said she would follow me! So I headed up route 17 to route 180 and struck out over to Suches and "Two Wheels Only". So we shot "Wolfpens Gap" and drove the 40+ miles over to buy a Diet Coke, talk some $hit with the moto crowd, and hot foot it home. What a great day, perfect weather (70's & Sunny), perfect company, a worthy machine, and beautiful roads to ride. As we pulled back into the lake house we thought they day couldn't have been much better. After tossing back a couple of liquid refreshments, we decided to screw the work tomorrow and we would take another run at the roads.  Sunday was a little cooler, but still a spectacular day. We again rode up to Helen in search of a fire road we found on a map. After a couple of false starts we finally found the road, and what a road. The first mile or so started off easy enough, just dirt and some loose gravel, but soon it started a steep climb with sharp counter pitched turns, filled with deep stones the size of golf balls. We climbed the switchback trail until we reached the waterfall in the pictures. We stopped grabbed some water and after checking the time decided we had better head back. This road we will take a nother run at, but not today. Overall a wonderful weekend riding with my beautiful wife. The bike performed as expected (after all it conquered the Dempster!), and the testing of our new equipment proved we were ready for the TAT. Next up, the Final Prep and Load!