Barber Vintage Motorcycle Festival - Day 1

Up and out early today. I was on the road by 6AM enroute to Birmingham. My route would take me well out of the way - intentionally of course. My goal was to use no freeway's, stop at some small town coffee shops, do a portion of the Kentuck Off Road Vehicle Trail in the Talladega Forest, stop at Horseshoe Ben Military Park for a photo op, then meet up with Andrew and Chris in Dadeville, AL by mid afternoon.

Well, I figured out pretty quickly that I bit off a little more than I had time for. I managed to hit 2 coffee shops - one in downtown Rome, GA and one in Jacksonville, AL. Then, I hit the trails at Kentuck. That was interesting. Nothing too difficult, but, with a bike completely loaded with gear and a near full load of fuel, I nearly dumped it a few times in the mud. I didn't do very much of the trail system at all - just not enough time. But, I know where it is, and hope to go back someday. Now the fun part began.....or should I say "adventurous" part.

NEVER LOST .......ONLY TEMPORARILY DISORIENTED

So as I headed our of Kentuck ORV Trail system, I thought about backtracking to Talladega and then picking up a 2 lane highway to get myself pointed towards Dadeville. NO, THAT WOULD BE TOO EASY AND BORING! I decided to take a right instead of a left and started following a series of gravel forest service roads. These roads eventually merged with public gravel roads. So here I am, my state map doesn't have gravel roads on it, the old hiking GPS I have has very little road detail, and I am fairly certain I am going to be late meeting Andrew and Chris. I must press on. So I basically just used the GPS compass and kept trying to head in the general direction of Dadeville. Kind of like dead reconing in N25WF - the 1940 Piper Cub I used to fly, except I can't go direct. I have to make the right decision at all these Y's and T roads. Left this way, right at this intersection, now left again. You get the picture. I eventually found a highway so I could reference my road map. My navigating worked out - even with a 15 minute road construction delay, I pulled in to the Dadeville at McDonald's just in time to see Andrew and Chris dismounting too. 2 hours later we would be toasting our day at Joe's Crab Shack.