|
|
RR: SWR Fall Ride Loretta Lynn Ranch (Part 1)
|
Well, we headed out from Richmond, Ky on Thursday around 6:00 pm.
That's John, Chris and me. We're in John's GMC Duramax club cab and
towing a 37' Raptor toyhauler. It raining and continues to rain most of
the way. We had hoped to make the campground by midnight but due to
Chris being a little late and the rain... it just wasn't gonna happen.
We dialed up information on the cell phones and located a couple
Walmarts in the area of the ride. A call or two to them landed us in a
Walmart parking lot at Exit 201 off I40-west for the night. We needed
to pickup some things from Walmart anyway so that was convient. The
next morning we got up around 7:00? did a little shopping and headed on
down to the ranch.
We walked into the office to check in and right there on the wall was a
picture of Loretta in a flyer from Renfro Valley, Ky. for those that
don't know Renfro Valley is a sort of mini Grand Ole Opry. In it's hey
day all the big country stars passed though there at one time or
another and for years it had it's on Saturday night tv slot. Anyway, we
checked in and forked over some plastic and were now legally licensed
to hunt for a camp site. :) As it turns out the hunting was pretty good
this year and we managed to slip the big rig into a nice gravel
triangle right across from the pavillion and right square in the center
of everything. We had arrived just late enough to miss the first riders
meeting so we set up camp, registered, etc. and relaxed until time for
the second RM. Once we got our secret code on the wrist band we geared
up and headed for the complementary sound check. BTW - what color was
the R on Sunday. :) Chris (2001 YZ400f) came in at 98db on the nose.
They didn't even bother to check my 98 300 MXC... just gave me a
sticker. John has a Rekluse in his KTM 450 and when the sound check guy
went to rev the bike for the check it about jumped out from under John
(it was still in gear). :)For some reason I think John came in at
101db... very high?
Out to the trails for our first loop...
All was well as we went down a long hill, into a valley and up a nice
hill around through the woods and then back down and up and around and
down and up and then down (I'm getting dizzy). At this point we come to
the base of a hill where you can see the road (and the campground too I
think). It was a fair hill but that's about all. We wait at the bottom
for a few seconds until it looks okay. Well about 3/4's of the way up
there's a big pile up in the main line so I head to the right and Chris
follow me. I have no idea where John is at this point. After a few feet
it is clear that the right line comes back into the mess and I'm stuck
there. Chris sees me stop and heads hard left across the main line and
out into the woods a bit and I can see him work his way up and around
the jam. Once the way cleared after 2 tries I got a good start and
finished off the hill. We were expecting Jim Cook to arrive sometime
that morning and didn't want to burn out before he got there so we
decided not to run any of the single track loops during the am ride. So
we buzzed aroung the two-track as quickly as we could only stopping
when the way wasn't clear. It was a lot of fun and pretty un-eventfull
as the trails are pretty easy at anything other than full out pro
speeds. But somewhere around mile 15 or so John was leading and I was
pretty close to his tail when he missed a gear and came to a pretty
sudden slow down. I had to get on the brakes hard to keep from hitting
him and when I got stopped I found the ground was much further away
than my left leg could reach and took my one and only lay down of the
am. :) I neede a nap anyway. :) A couple more miles, down a hill with
lots of water bars and then a few water bar jumps up the final hill and
through the exit and headed for camp for a bite to eat and see if Jim
had made it yet.
|
Fred Bradford - CrashTestDummy
f.j.bradfordREMOVE@verizon.net
|
|
|