KAWLIGA AND THE "LOST HIGHWAY"

For a die hard Rocker, I seem to have a lot of trivia in my head about country music. OLD country music. I guess I have Papa J and the Bear (my parents) to thank for that. I grew up in a household that the music of choice was Hank Williams, Kitty Wells, Jim Reeves, Loretta Lynn, Patsy Cline, ect, ect..., need I say more? I could recite with ease many of Hee Haw's one liners, and could always tell you what Grandpa had for supper that night. I must have had an underlying desire make a statement to my folks, because the first concert I ever went to at the age of 16 was Alice Cooper! SCHOOLS OUT FOR SUMMER!!

Montgomery has a lot of Hank Williams history attached to it. The Hank Williams Memorial "Lost Highway" is a 55 mile stretch of I65 between Montgomery and Greenville, dedicated to him. His grave site and museum located here, also attracts tourists year round.



One of our favorite places to ride is Lake Martin, which is about an hour northeast of Montgomery. Hank stayed in a cabin up in this area during the summer of '52, and it was then, he wrote "Kawliga" and "Your Cheatin' Heart". This is Kawliga Bridge. It crosses over a southern part of the lake. Back in the late 90's, Harley and I had a pontoon boat for three years. We spent a tremendous amount of time up here on the water. We camped, fished and enjoyed being able to get into some cool water anytime things got a little hot. We called it our "Party Barge". Woo Hoo!!

There is a really great little restaurant right on the lake called Sinclair's. In addition to vehicle parking from Hwy. 63, they have several boat slips out front, so you can pull up and enjoy some great food, while your boating on the lake.
The entrance to the restaurant is where their version of Kawliga , the Indian Chief is located. I remember, as little girl, feeling really bad for this poor guy when his black haired Indian Maiden was taken away to a far away place. What a heartbreaking story for an impressionable young girl. (Sniff!) Getting back to the food, they have great hamburgers, steaks, and their salads are meals in themselves! If your ever in this area, you won't be disappointed. Give them a try. We still come up this way often, only these days we're getting here on two wheels instead of on pontoons. This makes a great place to stop and have a stretch, eat lunch or just get something to drink, and move on. I just wanted to share some of our beautiful Alabama with you, and also to reiterate to anyone who cares, ROCK AND ROLL LIVES FOREVER!! Lady R

SWEET HOME ALABAMA

Hurray for the weekend! Today is Saturday, we have 74 degrees, sunshine, and Harley and I were actually ready to go riding early! I think both of us were in dyer need of some quality road therapy.

We headed north up Hwy. 231 for about 30 miles and turned northwest, onto a great little road we discovered on a previous weekend. These little county roads are fun to ride on because a lot of them are curvy. We carry a Topo map of Alabama so we can explore several different ways to get to the destinations we may aim for that day. This to me, is the fun part. I didn't realize how big this state is, until I started seeing it on a motorcycle. We ride almost every weekend and we have seen some very pretty roads.

Harley likes taking some of these curves faster than I do, but he has a great deal more riding experience than I have. I enjoy these curves as well, and I take them at a pace I'm comfortable with. When we come upon them, he usually gets a good bit ahead of me. This is one of these times. He stopped on the side of the road and caught this pic of me coming around the bend. Once I've caught back up to him, he likes to tease, "Where've you been?" I just give him a smile. He knows I stay pretty much within my comfort level, which changes every time I go. I feel an increase in my skill level every time we ride. We usually ride at least 150 to 200 miles every time we go out.

We turned East in Sylacauga and enjoyed the Southern portion of the Talladega National Forest for a few miles. We stopped for a break when we saw a safe pull off, and stretched our legs while we took in the scenery. Once we continued on our journey, we eventually turned south, which would bring us back to our beginning. Home, Sweet Home.



Riding this afternoon was really rejuvenating for me! I was absolutely having a great ride! I couldn't have wanted to spend this Saturday any other way. Ride on and ride safe! Lady R

I'LL GET YOU MY PRETTY AND YOUR LITTLE DOG TOO!

I think Atlanta has it out for me. Last weekend I got to enjoy snow while camping at the races. This weekend, another tooth fairy and I went back over to Atlanta for the big Hinman Dental convention and experienced an F2 tornado! Something tells me to stay the H*ll out of Atlanta for a while!

My friend and I were having a great Friday evening after a rather interesting day of lectures! We enjoyed a nice meal at the Hard Rock Cafe, met up with some other Tooth Fairies from South Carolina, and we all decided to go up to the Sun Dial Lounge in the Westin Tower. The glass elevator that takes you up is on the outside of the building, so you get to watch the street level get smaller and smaller as you ascend to the top. This rotating restaurant and lounge is 72 stories up with glass all around you, giving you a beautiful view of Atlanta's downtown area. We noticed that it started to rain and we were seeing a lot of lightning in the area.

We were ooohing and ahhhing over the beautiful light show, when all of a sudden something kind of large flew past the window and caught my eye. Two of us said, "Did you just see something?" We started watching toward the window wondering about the rain, when suddenly, we could see SEVERAL things flying around beyond the window. These "things" we were seeing were about the size of cooler lids of various shapes and they were slamming against the window with violent force. We started hearing loud popping noises, as if there were small explosions of glass, or debris hitting the building. I realized in that instant, that while being 72 stories high in the sky, and being able to see this many objects flying in the air at one time, something is seriously wrong! I looked over at my friend, and she had already slide out of her chair, down to the floor trying to get as low as she could. She revealed to me later, that she was seeing the windows shaking. My thought was to get away from the glass. I think in an effort to keep MYSELF calm, I stared telling everyone in our party "Stay calm, don't panic, we need to get away from the glass!" We just started grabbing stuff, whether it was ours or not, and ran to the nearest cubby that was surrounded by walls. We found ourselves huddled at the entrance to the Men's Room, waiting until it calmed down enough to venture back out to the open area. The outside glass elevator was not in operation, and only ONE of the four internal elevators were working, to take every one back to ground level. It took us about 30 minutes to get our feet back on the ground.

When we started walking back to our hotel, which was only two blocks away, we saw the debris everywhere. Insulation hanging from trees like tinsel, large pieces of foam big enough to float on were scattered around here and there. It looked like a war zone.

This tall round structure is the Westin Tower. We can't believe our fortune that this building appears to only have suffered from some blown windows. The Georgia World Congress Center, where our meetings were being held, suffered much more structure damage. We ate lunch at the CNN Center the day before all this, and it has endured some major damage as well. The SEC Basketball Tournament was taking place in Atlanta this weekend also, and only brought more people in the path of this startling storm. We reflected later, the fact that we had no warning this was going to happen. The employees told us they did not know of any weather warnings for our area either, when we asked them about it.

During the aftermath, I witnessed several Motorcycle Cops moving about performing various duties, and I thought to myself the extreme riding conditions they were having to deal with. Not only did the rain continue to come and go, you had power lines down, large structure debris laying everywhere, and shrubbery from small trees adding to the numerous hazards to avoid. My salute goes out to them!

I experienced something this weekend that put a lot of things into a somewhat different perspective. I thanked God for putting his angel on my shoulder that night. I think I had a little help coming out of that one with nothing more than wide eyes and a good story. Lady R

CHILLED OUT IN HOT-LANTA!

Brrrrrrr! Camping in Atlanta this past weekend was a bit on the chilly side to say the least. We were fortunate enough to get a big surprise from Mother Nature. SNOW IN ATLANTA! I've been bragging lately on how beautiful our warm riding weather has been. Well, there's nothing like frozen kahoona's and buwanna's to humble a person.

Friday night was pretty chilly, but nothing unbearable. In fact, Polar Bear decided he was going to sleep under the stars in his sleeping bag, and he did! However, we woke up to a snowy, freezing cold, Saturday morning. He didn't sleep in long. The thin layer of wet stuff didn't last that long either, but Red Light Roxanne still managed to scoop up what she could and made miniature snow people. That afternoon, when the sun came out, we kept moving around to stay in the sun spots. It was definitely warmer than in the shade. We had four layers of clothes on and still had to wrap up in a blanket to keep warm. You can't see it in this picture, but Harley and I are watching the TV under the camper awning. Yes, it's tough roughing it!

Through it all, we still managed to enjoy some of our usual camping activities. We play cards, cook good food, and just enjoyed hanging out with some great friends. I was fortunate enough to hold my own for a while in a good game of Texas Hold'em. My buddies take their Poker VERY seriously, and it was an honor for me to even be allowed to sit at the same table with them! I learned a new dice game too called, Left, Right, Center. I won some $$ on my second game! Can't beat that with a stick!

As I said, the sun came out, the fans came in, and the races were held. This is our viewpoint from the observation deck on the Lone Ranger's hauler. It's usually very windy up top, but it's the only place you can see the track when your in the infield. Congratulations to all you Kyle Bush fans out there. He took the checkers twice this weekend when he won the truck race Friday night and then the Nascar Spring Cup: Kobalt Tools 500 on Sunday. Matt Kenseth won the Busch race on Saturday. So, in summary, a good time was had by all, and we will look forward to our next adventure together. Maybe when we go back in the fall for the next race in Atlanta, we won't have to take our longjohns! Be chilly! Lady R

IS THE DOCTOR IN?

I have seen this phrase quite often in the past few weeks on other posts written by my fellow bloggers. Harley and I got a pillow that has this on it for Christmas one year. I thought it was kind of funny that this particular phrase kept coming up, so I thought I would share one of MY therapy sessions with you.

Since I have been blogging and reading blogs, I notice that a lot of you are in the North. Because the weather in your region is not very motorcycle friendly right now, many of you are chomping at the bit to get out there and enjoy riding again. I do feel a little guilty, about being able to ride and enjoy the nice 67 degree, sunny days, when some of you are still shoveling snow, or just to cold to go out yet. So, I wanted to send a little Alabama sunshine out your way and let you all know, that the warmer weather is coming and your riding days will soon be here.

This is one of our favorite roads to ride on. It has great big sweeping curves, and then some nice long straight stretches. You get the best of both worlds. I love to challenge my skills with curvy roads because they are usually more fun to ride on. Under the same token, it's fun to "open it up" now and then and feel the wind hit you hard while you cut through the air! This area has big rolling pastures and small creeks running close to the road, and it's funny to watch the cows or horses stop chewing their hay to watch you ride by. The ride we took this past Saturday was sunny and the air was still a bit crisp on your face as you rode. It was very invigorating! Things still look brown from the winter, but you can see a lot of new green growth and the promise of Spring color is everywhere.Someone asked me one time how I was able to put so many miles on my bike, when it didn't seem like I went on that many trips. Well, when you go out every Saturday or Sunday and ride an average of 200 miles or so, it doesn't take long. Then you can throw in a couple 1,000 mile trips during the summer, and going to Bike Events in the surrounding area, it all adds up.

But who counting! I love to ride my motorcycle! It really does allow me stress release. Nothing else matters, while your on that machine, but you and the road! Let's see....average tank of gas vs. one visit to the Doctor. I don't think it takes a mental giant to figure this one out. So, the next time your wondering if the Doctor is in, my bet is he's out riding his motorcycle. Ride on, Ride Free! Lady R.