Pat and Natalie and the things we do

Sunset over the lake.

Took a ride to see Portal 31 in Lynch Kentucky

It was a beautiful day, Nat was travelin, we had a neighbor to watch the hound. Hm. Mow the lawn or ride?

Well along the ride (yeah, I chose to ride) I stopped over at this improvised overlook. My cell phone camera just can’t do this justice so I took a lot of shots.

The road I came up;

and the road I’m going up;

So off I went. Shortly after I left this spot I crossed into Kentucky. A sign at the border informed me that I was on Black Mountain at the highest point in Kentucky. The road I was on was 160 and not a lot of straight or level on it. Just my style. Not too much farther in was my goal.

Lots of history to this place. It was begun around 1912 on a government request to supply good quality coal for ammunition for World War I. They built an entire town around a coal mine and with a guaranteed market for the coal no expense was spared. Everything about it was state of the art.

Nowadays (but not today) they offer mine tours where you get to ride these cars. I shot this through the fence across the entrance.

This cute little machine was for grinding coal out of the mine.

I rode a little farther out looking for a good sized road. I found another town but didn’t note the name. They had a Hardees so I grabbed a nice lunch. While I was eating I could see a LOT of smoke rising off a hillside. After lunch I rode a little closer but not close enough to see what was going on.

My next notable stopover was the Cumberland Gap park and overlook.

With a vantage point like this it should be no surprise that this was a stronghold during the civil war. For both sides. Alternately. I my riding boots and temps in mid 70’s I wasn’t up to hiking around enough to see all those sights. I did get up to a cannon placement but took the wrong path to get closer to the cannon that was there. The real big gun was finally left in a cave down below. I don’t think the one there was it.

Down below at the main overlook you can see Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. In Kentucky the town of Middlesburg is built in an ancient meteor crater. It’s possible to make out the shape of the crater if you concentrate.

Lake level check. Morning after a night of heavy rains.

As TVA is bringing up our lake levels we had widespread heavy rains last night. It will take days for the rain to drain down into the lake but that should jump up the levels. These were taken the morning of 4/3/2014. I’ll try to add some more pics in about a week or so.

I took 4 pictures and let Google+ stitch them into a panoramic view of our little slice of the lake.

panoramic view of the lake channel behind our house. — Our lake level should jump up over the next few days. We had heavy storms through much of the night and it takes a few days to drain down into the lake. It should be fun to see how fast the lake rises. Taken 4/3/2014

I don’t think that’s gonna hold air.

Crawling around under my 1996 Buick Roadmaster Estate I discovered one of the air bags I have connected to the self leveling suspension has blown out. Since it was in the direction facing the nearest part of the exhaust I assume it was heat related. Ironically when I tried to reposition the heat shield some it broke off and I had to replace the shield and the air bag. Luckily I had bought a new set and installed it when I last worked on the suspension. The old set was still on my shelf since I didn’t see any problems with it.

Picture of an automotive air bag inside a coil spring. Air bag has blowout hole. — Most likely the heat shields weren’t enough to keep the exhaust heat from melting this while I sat idling. Note to self; don’t sit idling.

Pot pie in NC.

The North Carolina tag game on ADVRider.com was placed at Pot Pie in Marshall, NC. I rode out expecting a pot pie lunch, some pictures of the place, and a good ride. Unfortunately all they sell is frozen pies that you take home. >sigh< That sent me down the road for lunch. At any rate this is the picture I snapped of the place. Not much free parking but nobody inside.

Unusually warm day in East TN calls for a ride in the GSMNP

The temps were headed for the 70s on this early March day and I decided I needed to take a ride. Where to go? I considered chasing down my Appalachian Tag which is currently at a mine in West Virginia but decided I didn’t want that much of a ride this early in riding season for me.

It’s been quite a while since I rode through the GSMNP (Great Smoky Mountain National Park) or drove through for that matter. I decided to risk going through on my street bike for the first time. I used to run through there regularly on my old GSA but that’s built for the rough conditions. It’s a beautiful route through but all gravel and dirt. I knew with the trees bare some of the views would be better than usual.

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