BMW Multi Club Campout – Talihina State Park.

I had to go into work on Friday for 6 hours. It seemed like the day was never going to end. I went in really early so I was hoping to get off by 10AM. Vern was leaving Ft Worth at 9AM and he would hook up with me at my house as soon as I got off. The clocked finally struck 10 and I was out the door. The weather was wonderful. It was in the mid 70’s with plenty of blue sky. Vern rode up about 10 minutes after I got home. We finished putting things on the bike, and then took a few pictures. I love the storage that the Connie has. The bags are big and I had plenty of room for my stuff. I even took a chair to sit in by the fire at nights.. Life was good.

We did our regular route, as we jumped on 75 and then cut across 121 over to 82 thru Paris then 195 over to 37, then up 259.. or something like that. I might have left out a couple of roads. hehehe. We were out of town around 11AM. We stopped in Paris and ate a quick lunch at Popeyes, then headed the rest of the way up to the good roads. 259 is always fun and this was the first time that the Connie got to spread it’s wings.. It is an amazing machine. We did fast run up, getting the tires heated up and doing some high speed sight seeing. The bike was flawless. I am loving it more and more every single day.

While taking these pictures, we were sitting at the intersection of 259 and 1, when a black pick up came flying down the road, heading for the 20MPH corner, going at a rate much faster than that. He locked up his breaks, started to swerve, actually got up on two wheels before the truck finally came to rest just a few inches from the guard rail. I will make you a bet , that the driver is still pulling seat out of his ass. He was a very luck man, as he could have killed himself.

Another strange thing happened on this corner just a few minutes later. We were parked on the far side of the curve, when a group of cruisers came down the hill and turned left, THREE of them almost missed the corner and almost hit our bikes sitting there. Talk about target fixation.. We sat there for a little while as we did not want to hit the twisties with them holding things up. We got our gear on and headed up to Talimena State Park where the rally was being held. I took off and was doing a pretty quick pace up the hill. I would wait for Vern at the rangers station as we turned onto 271. I caught the Cruiser group about half way up and had to make my way around them, most was very nice and just moved over so I could proceed. One guy on a new Honda Fury, saw me coming and he decided that he was going to take off so I could not pass him. Well that lasted a few seconds and then I over took him. When I pulled into the ranger station to wait on Vern, the cruisers came into the station. I started to talk with the Fury guy and he was actually laughing.. I think the words he came up with was “what was I thinking” talking about himself trying to hold me off. We laughed together and shook hands. It was all good. At that time Vern rode in. We chatted for a few minutes then headed down the 1.5 miles to the camp ground.

We got to the camp site around 4PM. The cost to camp was $10 a day. The camp ground was very nice, it would get packed later as this BMW group was having their rally and a bunch of KTM dirt bike guys were there as well. The bathrooms were nice and they had plenty of stalls and showers. We set up camp and then headed into Talihina for some fuel and food.