All Roads lead to Wing Ding (Saturday June 29th)

Tail Of The Dragon

We head out this morning to find the Tail of the Dragon.  Chuck and I have ridden this stretch of road a couple of times.  Seems like we always have a trailer on the back of the bike when we do, but that is just the way it works out. 

The weather is really nice, and the ride was the same.  We see that same strange sign we saw in Hendersonnville along the road again, only this time, there were words under the little guy...It says grooved highway...Ok, so we aren't water surfing on the bike!!! 

We make it Maryville, and turn towards the Dragon. 

Amazingly we are only about 5 minutes into this highway, and pass a bike wreck.  Not sure what happened, but it really wasn't even a bad area....who knows, but it looks like the girl was able to get back up, so that is a good sign.

As we ride the switchbacks and tight curves, paying attention to each and every piece of the highway, we pass by several of the guys that take pictures of you riding the road.  I am on the phone taking notes on what time we rode what area, and which photographer took the shot.  We will look at the finished pictures online in a day or so. 










You know we are connected via our blue tooth headsets to Diana & Chris.  Chris told us that his little guy on his GPS just puked.  Oh my gosh...where does he come up with this stuff...I laughed so hard I about wet my pants.









We stop at Deals Gap and get our pics taken and buy a t-shirt.  They had some food vendors there, so we go ahead and grab some lunch while we are stopped. 

We get a little chance to do so people watching and bike watching.  Interesting watch people pull out and head towards the curves. 

Diana made note that we rode Hwy. 129 on the 29th....and we all survived as well!!

We have rooms reserved in Robbinsville North Carolina for the night.  Great day of riding some really beautiful roads.  Floorboards are a little scraped from the sharp curves, and YES...that noise scares me to death.  Finally by the time we scraped a couple of times, I was ready for it, and didn't bother me as badly.  Guess like everything, you get used to it.  We "flatlanders" just don't have curves like that around Oklahoma. 






















We pull into our home away from home for the night.  We even walk to a local restaurant to eat some of that local food.  There is a wonderful sitting area outside the motel, and the weather is perfect for watching the bikers pull in and either unpack or ride on.  I think we could have sold our rooms quite a few times this evening.    This little sleepy town stays alive because of the bikes that frequent their little town.  The population is only a little over 700, and I bet in the winter it is really a very quiet town.  But today, it is very busy with motorcycles. 

We had a good area to sit and just watch what was going on, and this guy pulls up with a bike on the back of a flatbed truck.  Looks like one of the riders had gone down on his bike.  The bike didn't look very pretty on one side.  The rider was walking but had a limp.  I bet he is going to be sore tomorrow!!!
We overheard that he was riding the Cherohala Skyway.  That is the direction we are heading in the morning. 

Time to get some sleep...goodnight world.