Day 4 - Harriman, TN to Bryson City, NC (266 miles)

We kicked off today with a bang and headed directly over to the Tail of the Dragon. For those of you who don't know, this stretch of road goes right through the Smoky Mountains and spans both Tennessee and North Carolina. It's known for having 318 curves in only 11 miles. Whew! That's a lot of work! Steve and I both rode this back when we took our Blue Ridge Parkway trip several years ago, but this was Dad's first ride. The weather was perfect for us and as we headed in to the mountains where the Dragon begins, we started seeing a lot of other motorcyclists on the road too. We even saw a guy coming at us with a regular ol' point-n-shoot camera mounted to the top of his helmet so he could film his run. Hee hee hee! Silly....he should have mounted it on his handlebars behind the windshield like we did :)

Our run on the Dragon went without a hitch, thankfully. We stopped about half way through for a break and to watch all the other bikes go by. Some were going slow and steady like us, some a little faster, and some were crazy freakin' nut jobs on sport bikes going so fast they were almost dragging their knees around the corners! We just watched them in amazement, shaking our heads. Then we hopped back on and finished up the rest of it, including a stop at the famous Deals Gap Motorcycle Resort which is at the very end of the Dragon. Had a cold beverage break and Dad bought a shirt to prove he did it :)

As if that weren't enough excitement, after a quick stop for lunch we headed on to ride the Cherahola Skyway. That's about 40 miles going up to an elevation of 5400 feet, up and over the Smoky's. This road was full of big, sweeping curves which I like much better than all of those hairpins. There is a lot less shifting up and down to take the corners and you get in to a nice rhythm as you weave your way along. It got cloudy and chilly at the highest points and we thought it might actually rain but we were soon out of the clouds and back in to the sunshine, working our way back down. We stopped at several overlook points to take in the beautiful views and take pictures. Then we completed our trip on the Skyway and continued on through more country roads to work our way up to Bryson City, NC.

Today was another full day of twisties and we're all darn tired from riding. It was a nice break that the last 40 miles or so were on a pretty 4 lane highway at a steady 60mph. Feet up on the highway pegs and relax a little bit as we rolled in to our stopping point. Ahhhh.....

So here we are in the motel. It has wi-fi, but only Steve can get his laptop connected. I'm typing up our report on his computer but may not get pictures uploaded tonight. Not sure what kind of access we'll have tomorrow either so the blog updates could be a little delayed.

That's it for now....more later....must sleep now...zzzzzzzz