smokey mountain chopper fest run

i spent a miserable night 2 days before we're supposed to leave town for the mountains, broke as hell, waiting for my checks to drop in my account, ubering til i ran out of gas. fretting im not going to have money for the trip the next morning i check my bank and BLAM out of the blue my IRS check drops on my account. the gods indeed DO want me to go on this adventure. so i finish packing the bike, send my dog off with the sitter and take the bike for a test run. everything is in order, so i proceed to drink myself into a stupor in preparation for an early ass 8am rise time. i painfully managed to get up, get dressed and out to the bike with somewhat of a rosy candor for being up at such an ungodly hour; one which was soon to disappear as soon as i hit the start button. fuckin dies on me, like the battery is dead. aaaaagggghhh the gods DON'T want me to go after all. frantic, i scramble to hook up a 100ft long extension cord and run it out to the shed to find the battery is good when i hook up the tender, so i proceed to go looking for the fuses on this bike for the first time since i bought it. located and pulled, all appeared to be in working order; im sick at heart, like a little kid left by the summer camp bus. but somehow some little slim piece of hope in my heart made me turn the keys one last time before giving up and going inside to cry myself back to sleep and damned if she didn't light up and turn over. the gods DO want me to go. I've got fifteen minutes to get to the far side of town before kickstands up, let me tell you it was some sketchy riding i was doing to get there in time but it was not a nervous grin i wore.

we managed to wind our way through backroad middle tennessee and headed up into the cumberland plateau and then later the smokeys themselves: we bivouacked & slightly partied just west of the cherokee national forest. some crazy nutjobs left nashville late after work and rolled into camp about 4am, so we were rolling about a dozen deep when we struck out the next morn. it was a beautiful sight seeing all those bikes with my friends(or about to be friends) stretched out on the highway, drifting apart and back together like a slinky as we slid up and down those gorgeous hills. one hell of a day went sideways on us right when we were 11 miles from the party, with two breakdowns miles from each other. this kept the chase van tied up for the better part of the early evening, which also had the food and somebody's better sense because some idiot decides he's gonna drink tequila on a super empty stomach and then blow through all his party materials the first night of the party. hahaha... the bands were damn good(most of them decent country this year), i even ran into dave the bass player from freakwater & reigning sound doing a gig there with some band from asheville. there were the usual bike shenanigans in the midway, but a hell of a lot tamer than last year. the midway was much smaller due to more people than the year before. a damn good time was had and finally ended with a shoe prodding me awake and telling me to crawl in my tent haha. apparently i yell in my sleep now along with the snoring because i was approached the next day by a guy who had ridden down from baltimore asking me if everything was alright; he thought i had been having night terrors. apparently i yelled out in the middle of the night "please don't search me, please don't search me" followed shortly later by "instagram". haha

the next morning came miserably early; a bright yellow tent in direct sunlight is not the refuge you need if you're a hungover late sleeper, so i crawled out and down to the riverbank to pass back out in the shade on a trash bag in the sand. a few hours later, finally feeling human again, i joined my friends in watching the shenanigans going over on "dude island" in the river for a few hours then headed off by myself up into the mountains to see some waterfalls i had scouted out on the map in preparation for this journey. great switchbacks and sweepers up in that area. when i got back, the party was back in full swing. more bike shenanigans, bands, bonfires, fireworks tossed in bonfires, bikes over bonfires,  titty shenanigans, raffles and even a wedding. another damn good time was had, if a somewhat lower key one for me. met and partied with some damn fine folk up there again this year; it was depressing to come back home and go to work. didnt want dirtbag summer camp to end.