Ride To Foxfire- August 13, 2011

I can't say it started smoothly. Half the group of six, who shall remain unnamed, failed at critical e-mail reading and arrived early (they say), at the wrong Chevron station. Once a cellphone connection was made we selected an alternate meeting place at a prominent Wells Fargo bank in Macedonia. We picked up one of the three there but the other two were not to be seen. Once again cellphones came to the rescue and we picked another meeting place at a Citco on SR 372, north of Freehome. Success at last. We were on our way.

The ride through Silver City, up SR 400 to the start of SR 115 went quickly and we were soon on our way to Clarkesville, where we picked up the famous (infamous?) Thunder Road of bootlegging days. Supposedly this was a favorite still-to-town road that frequently had hot rodded Ford V-8s loaded with moonshine outrunning the Revenuers. Today it's known as SR 179 and is a favorite among motorcyclists who know of its existence. A few feet of video was taken before Bob's trusty two-year old Flip froze (fright?) in the midst of one of the peg scrapers (he'll post what video he can salvage at a later date).

After passing by Lake Burton and Moccasin Creek State Park we took US 76, past the remnants of the tornado damage done in April of this year.

Since Steve had to get home early we blew past Clayton, Mountain City and Rabun Gap to get to the Dillard Inn for an early "lunch". Actually we arrived at the picturesque setting before the restaurant was open, but a short wait had us seated at a table for six that was absolutely loaded with delicious food. Twenty-one dollars buys you all you can eat of everything they had in the kitchen, including dessert of ice cream capped blackberry cobbler (they even offered "doggie-boxes" to take home whatever was left).

Although we were all stuffed and ready to lay out on the lawn for a while we got back on the bikes and headed back south to Mountain City, where we waived good-bye to Steve, and headed up Black Rock Mountain Road, the entrance road recommended by Foxfire. A couple miles up the twisty black top brought us to the turn off for Foxfire... a dirt and gravel fire-trail-like road that went up the mountain then, down again, finally reaching Foxfire's "driveway", a steep, rutted, gravely climb. Everyone made it up alright but it left a lingering concern about going down later.

Don't let the name Foxfire Museum fool you. The "museum" is nineteen historic structures, dissembled elsewhere, brought to the site and reconstructed, paying close attention to preserving the original. They are sited as they might have been in an Appalachian village and connected by a well marked and documented self-guided trail. The cost of purchasing and relocating the structures and the purchase of the acreage was funded by proceeds from the sale of the Foxfire Magazine and Foxfire books (8.5 million copies sold) with most of the authoring and physical labor done by local students.

While we were working our way around the trail we heard the call of mid-summer afternoons...thunder. Soon it was raining. We waited it out in the Mule Barn (don't laugh) while we speculated on how the "driveway" would be after a soaking. Not deterred, when the rain stopped we moved on to the church where we rang the bell, tried out the pews (hard) and looked over the hymnal (no page 5 and 15). Not leaving anything untested, the bravest among us (Nelson) laid down in the old-timey coffin they had on display (too small he said).

Around 3 p.m. it was time to go. Since a few drops were still falling and thunder could still be heard those that had,  put on rain gear. Off we went down the "driveway". With luck we all made it down without an upset, although we heard the last one down, who hates gravel roads, almost made it into a ditch. Don't know... no witnesses. 

Given the threat of rain we opted to take to direct route home rather than chance going over the mountains in a downpour. Although we saw many magnificent thunder heads in the distance we were dry enough by the time we reached Blairsville to take off the rain gear and have a cool(er) ride home

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