Got up early enough to be on the road at 8am. Then lost an hour waiting for the same guy who got lost yesterday. When he turns his brights on, a fuse is blown and none of the lights work. My solution: don't use the brights. His solution: waste an hour of everyone's time.
Fortunately, this ultimately lead to us splitting the group of nine guys up into 4-3-2. Tim, my dad, Bret, and me were on our own, which for me made things exponentially more fun. We drove along I-40 for about 100 miles. It was very pretty, and the temperature was perfect. We went two hours with no stops, then gassed up in Bryson, NC (view as seen from pump #1):
Another half hour or so and we were getting into more winding roads. Tim and Doug did lunges to prepare for the upcoming roads.
We got sprinkled on a bit here and put rain gear on. As soon as we were all geared up, the rain stopped.
Our lunch stop was at the Fontana Village Resort. We sat on a big porch overlooking cabins, a pool, mini golf course, and our bikes.
The food was outstanding. Potato skins:
Blackened chicken and bleu cheese salad:
Cheesecake:
The rain came back with a vengeance. We killed an hour waiting for it to lighten up to the point that we could ride in it.
Another few miles from our lunch stop was the beginning of the route that brought is to North Carolina: the Tail of the Dragon, which is on highway 129 bordering NC and Tennessee. Google it and you can see a map along with locations and causes of motorcycle fatalities.
We saw this bike getting loaded up after a non-fatal crash:
It rained hard on us for the next 100 miles, but we made it to Chattanooga and our first stop was Rock City.
You can see 7 states from here: Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee.
Watching Tim and Doug squeeze through these gaps was comical.
Doug was not happy when I was doing some serious bouncing on the swinging bridge...giving me lessons about vector pulls, torsion, blah blah blah let's bounce!
After Rock City, we drove to the top of Lookout Mountain to see some Civil War sites.
We were right on time to catch the sunset. Gorgeous.
We checked into our room and went downtown where there was a giant festival going on. Took us forever to find a parking spot, then we walked a half mile to Sugar's Ribs.
It smelled terrific and a live blues band was rockin' the place.
We opted for the "little bit of everything" meal. Chips and queso dip:
Stuffed peppers:
Pork, chicken, brisket, and ribs:
There were 7 or 8 kinds of sauce. It was all great food. The banana pudding at the end really sealed the deal:
There were some homemade vanilla wafers hiding in there. Very tasty.
We walked back to our bikes, and were back at the hotel a minutes later.
It's 2am here and my load of laundry just finished. I'm going to be dragging tomorrow. I think we'll end up in Montgomery, AL.
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