Manchester GA (03-06-2009 )

Destination - Manchester, GA for lunch and coffee

My wife and I headed out Friday morning around 10:44 for Manchester GA. It was cloudy and about 65F when we left, which seemed nice until we got going around 60 and the wind hit us. It took awhile to get through the traffic of LaGrange and we were glad to get past the mall where the traffic thinned out. The road back there is mostly farm land with scatterings of cattle. As I drove along these roads, I was struck by the amount of trash on the side of the road. This did end the farther we got from town, but it was a discouraging way to start. I can’t understand why people litter.

As we got into Greenville, I noticed some snow still on the roof of one of the houses from the snow storm we got earlier in the week. It is a rare occurrence when we get snow in this part of Georgia and it is even rarer if it is still there two days later.

The town after Greenville was Warm Springs, which most riders down this way are familiar with. I would have liked to have hit the Xtreme Rider, but as they are only open on Saturday and Sunday, that will have to wait for another day. I drove around the ‘Art in Motion’ motorcycle museum and noticed that it has expanded since I was last down here – again this will need to be visited on another trip.

Upon entering Manchester, we saw a train leaving the station and enjoyed it’s snaky retreat prior to getting our long sought after cup of hot coffee. The sun had still not broken through the clouds and a slight chill had set in at this point.

We had coffee and lunch at ‘Generations Coffee House and Eatery.’ The ladies there were real nice and the coffee and food was excellent.

We left Manchester and headed into FDR State Park. The woodsy mountain scenery with the curvy roads made for a relaxing thoroughly enjoyable ride. I noticed quite a bit loose gravel on the road early in the ride and was very cautious in how I took the curves through the hills - once we got into the hills all sign of loose gravel was gone. We stopped at one of the overlooks to sit and soak up the sun which had now made it’s presence known. We noticed a few other bikers enjoying the drive as we road along the mountain top with a overlook to the valley below on both our left and right. The road leading us out of FDR Park dropped us off at the Callaway Country Store, which we stopped at to browse and look for potential future purchases (I saw some hot sauce that I’ll be getting down the road).

We took 18 from Pine Mountain to West Point and discovered a wonderful road. We had often intersected this road on our way to Columbus but this was the first time we traverse it. One of the joys of riding the motorcycle around these parts is finding roads that you would normally not get to enjoy because they don’t lead you to where you want to go.

We took a bypass after leaving West Point over the Dam and walked along West Point Lake for a little while. The next stop was home, but the journey wasn’t over. Our last leg took us around the lake where we got glimpses of the lake as we rode over and around it’s many inlets and offshoots.

We got home around 3:30, it was in the low 70’s and we had traveled 108.4 miles. The day trip took us through farm land, in several small scenic towns, along mountain passes, across a dam and around and over a lake. As I pulled into my neighbor a fellow friend and biker was leaving in his truck and gave us a wave. A great day.