10/17/08 - Two Wheels Only

I had a little vacation time to burn so I arranged to make a trip to a place in North Georgia called “Two Wheels Only” referred to in the motorcycling community as “TWO”. I’ve never been there before and it’s a solid 5 hour trip so I needed to make it a two day trip. I took off a Friday and a friend named Brad went with me. The weather man was calling for rain but they said it would end by 9AM. So off Brad and I went about 7:30AM from Springville. We ran out of the rain almost immediately so I thought we were going to actually do better than that but unfortunately it was a false hope. We soon ran back into the rain and never got out of it. We took a back road route from Gadsden to North Georgia. TWO is in a remote area. The route I chose unfortunately wound up being dirt. So I had to choose a different route. My next attempt went through Delonega and by then it was past noon. Brad was pretty hungry by now and I had read on the internet about a place called the wagon wheel. It turned out to be a pretty good place but was definitely in the category of the greasy meat and three. They had excellent pie as well. We left there we only had about a half hour drive to TWO which is up on a mountain. The rain was still misting down and the fog was so thick I had to almost come to a stop several times. Finally we arrived at TWO which is more or less a bed & breakfast plus campground. Brad and I put up tents real quick before the rain got worse. It was about 3PM or so when we go there and no one else was there besides the kitchen staff. There were other tents in the campground but the bikers were gone. The inside of TWO is full of biker magazines and paraphanalia from its many years of operation. The walls were covered with momentos from various groups that had stayed there. I spent about and hour or so just relaxing. Finally about 6 or 8 folks came in who were staying there. We spent the rest of the night talking about just about everything from motorcycles to the presidential election. I had their RibEye steak dinner and it was outstanding. Everyone turned in early and after a while alone again reading magazines I retired to my tent. The temps that night dropped to the upper 40’s. I could feel the cold but I was never uncomfortable. I woke up before daybreak the next day and went back to the lodge. I sat around on the front porch until they opened and went in and ordered breakfast. The breakfast wasn’t nearly as good as the dinner the night before. I’ve heard the gas station down the street has a much better breakfast. While at TWO we had been told about county road 180 which starts just up the street. Brad and I took off down that road which winds through some beautiful mountainous regions of North Georgia. After that we headed north up into North Carolina and ate the famous dragon burgers at Deals gap. After that we went back south and got on the Cherahala skyway which winds along the ridgetops over to Tellico Plains. The elevations on that road get up above 5000 feet in places, anything above 4000 you saw some breathtaking fall color. The whole road is really beautiful and most bikers go down it when they are in the area. Once we got to Tellico Plains we had to head home. We went from there to Cleveland, TN where we got on the interstate. We managed to get through Chattanooga before it got dark and finished up with dinner at Waffle house, the coffee always helps at the end of a long day in the saddle. We arrived home about 8:30PM