[OneSickPsycho]

As I wake up the next morning I notice that I had a few friends staying with me for the night... Some real strange bug was chillin' in the peak of my tent... as was a ladybug. I escorted them out and started to get myself together... when I notice another visitor...

An adolescent, female, wolf spider. For those of you who don't know about wolf spiders... they are like mini-tarantulas... probably the biggest spider native to TN up through OH... This one was slightly larger than a quarter, so nothing crazy, but I hate spiders. Close encounters such as that seriously make my manhood suck back up into my stomach and is quickly replaced by a salty vagina.

As I sat there thinking about how if my head would have been turned the other way when I woke up, it would have been 6 inches away from my eyeball, I contemplated how I was going to deal with it. The first thought was to pull out my gun and shoot it, but I had a new tent and .40 hollow points may have been a bit much. I decided to do the next best thing and use the plastic bag my gun was in to squish that bitch and toss it out the flap.

Mission accomplished... with minimal crying.

I exit my tent to find Gramps and Nighthawk packing up... they were heading home... I expressed to them my appreciation for the shared experience as well as the opportunity to come along. Three generations of family... then my dumbass. What good people.

We part ways at that point for the last time in the trip. Drewpy and I had planned on heading to Wheeler's (local shop) to have our suspension tuned, but it was probably to late, so we just headed to the store.

We ate breakfast, met up with Trip, and decided to give Wheeler's a shot anyway. They weren't too busy, but a Harley guy blew a stator so it would be a couple hours until he could fit us in.

We took off and Trip led us through some different roads in the surrounding area... Good roads, good scenery, but nothing compared to The Gap. Nothing compares to that insanity.

We rolled along and per my request Trip waived me ahead so he could give me pointers on my form. I was a little pissed that I wasn't draggin' my knee yet, but I had scraped my toes a couple times. I knew something was wrong, but I also knew it wasn't my foot position.

It turns out that my form wasn't completely terrible, with the exception of one little thing... Instead of rotating my ass off the seat around the tank, I was just hanging straight off the side. The second he said it, I realized it was damn true and I set about correcting it.

From there I felt soooo much better... it would have been nice for someone to tell me that like 10,000 miles earlier!

I still have a lot of practicing to do, but with the new body position everything was easier... Less work for my legs for certain. The only issue that I was having is now I wasn't supporting my upper body enough with my legs and core... that's my opportunity now.

We went back to Wheeler's a few hours later and got our suspensions set up... AMAZING what having someone that knows what the hell they are doing can do to make your bike feel totally different... and a MILLION times better.

With everything stiffened up, we explored a little more and headed back to The Dragon.

The couple passes I layed down were much faster than before, but still nothing to write home about... I watched Trip and Drewpy lay sparks from their knee pucks, but had no luck getting the knee down... No biggie, I wasn't pushing for it anyway, but rather focusing on improving my form...

We head back to the campsite, pack up all our shit, load the bikes, and head back up the hill... We hit the store to do some touristy souvenir shopping and take a couple pictures... Mission accomplished... it's time to head home...

Interestingly enough, the last pass through The Gap was probably my fastest despite the fact that I had all my shit hanging off the back of my bike. I did push it a little two far a couple times... weight on my bars from my failure to full adapt to the change in my form, and all the crap on my bike... there were a few points where my front tire started to wash out, but I was getting enough feedback from the bike that I had time to react appropriately...

When we got back to the overlook, Drewpy exclaimed, "you got your knee down, I KNOW IT!"... Nope, not at all, but I guess I was, as he put it, "a dog's ass hair away"... Again, not a huge deal... now I know I can do it with just a little more work on my form, but I'll be honest... it was slightly frustrating being right up Trip's ass through the turns and watching him so effortlessly draggin' knees and shooting pretty white titanium sparks... *sniffle* I want sparks.

Anywho, it's time to head back to Knoxville (Nashville for Drewpy), get my truck, and get the hell back home...

The ride back to Trip's was ok... Did some squidliness on the highway... triple digits... whatever... I got to watch Trip and Drewpy use motorcycle sign language back and forth for like 10 miles as Trip tried to explain which exit Drewpy needed. It probably would have been slightly easier to just have talked about it before we left The Gap.

At Trip's exit we parted ways... I flipped Drewpy the bird, then waved like a newbie... 'later buddy, it was fun...'

Rollin' through Trip's neighborhood some punks were havin' a party and tossing the football around in the drive... They motioned for us to do wheelies... Retards.

Get to my truck, unload all the gear into the front seat, strip down to my skivvies, and thrown on a pair of shorts... time to load the bike...

Trip rides my bike over to the gas station, I line the truck up, pull the bike on, strap her down, and head on down the road... It's just getting dark...

I drove all through the night to get home... Energy drink after energy drink... stopped at a couple rest stops, did some jumping jacks, pushups, and stretched to keep the blood flowing... Anything to keep me awake...

Not sure where it was, or what time it was cause everything from that night was such a blur... somewhere along the way I run into some drunk kid at a random gas station... probably in GA.

Dude is fascinated with my bike and starts asking me all sorts of dumbass questions... I humor him with solid information and tell the short, short, short version of my trip... He asks me what I think of the 'Hayabusa 700' and I tell him it's a girl's bike... he should get a Tomahawk.

I finally make it home... somewhere around 7am. I am greeted by my parents wiener dog and the folks. We talk for a while about the trip, I unload all my shit, we unload the bike, and chill.

I end up not being able to really sleep... still sorta pumped from the trip... my mind raced, trying to catch up with all of the events over the past 10 days... What a blur...

Finally, after nearly 36 hours without sleep... I crash. Hard.