Tuesday, July 7th
Today we left Hot Springs, North Carolina and continued down along the NC-TN border. This brought us through the Smoky Mountains to the famous "Tail of the Dragon"
The day started out on some fun back country roads. So often we stop for gas at small country stores like this. They are usually interested to hear our story and we get to learn a bit about them. It's also fun to use the old mechanical pumps again.
This couple had a story. Their store had burned to the ground a few years earlier. All they were able to save was their bible:
Shortly after we got to cut up into the forest for some even smaller roads and some fun slippery mud
This brought us into the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. This is part of the Cascades and I learned that it is "Smoky" only because of the weather. In some areas, it rains more than 80" per year and the warm weather combines to make the blue smoke which is the evaporation and humidity.
The park was beautiful and I coud see why this is the most visited park in the US. We took the scenic loop and ran into our biggest obstacle yet:
Just as Hank and I were discussing riding up on the side to get past this, I noticed a Ranger was close enough to hear what we were saying. He was standing up on the embankment watching. I asked if we could just push our bikes up along the side but he was unyielding... we stayed in traffic for almost 45 minutes trying to keep our bikes from overheating. Eventually, we got up to the cause of all this:
That's a Black Bear. It's clear that the bears and dear in the park have become very domesticated. We latter past a dear resting by the side of the road just a few feet from the cars. Not at all like the bear and dear we have seen earlier. As we entered into a less traveled area of the park, we were treated to a fun dirt road and our own Black Bear cub. It's a bit like thoses Big Foot videos you've seen but I think you'll agree that this is, in fact, a Black Bear cub!:
That dirt road eventually led us to the "Tail of the Dragon" OK, maybe we're just a dirt bikers at heart, but this was just another windy section of pavement to us. Maybe it would be different if we had the right bikes for this but we were going to have fun either way.
Our hotel for the night was Deals Gap Motorcycle Resort. This is the place to stay if you are going to ride the dragon's tail. It was pretty cool talking to the people there and checking out the bikes. The "Tree of Shame and a Lot of Pain" sparked our imagine trying to imagine how some of that stuff got there.
We'll be leaving North Carolina on day 15 and heading directly west through Tennessee. It's a long 250 mile day which will bring us to Lynchburg Tennessee.
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