I’ve always
wanted to discover America.
The traditional way of doing this is on a road trip, and in the past, Beloved
Wife and I have discovered West Virginia, New England, and Florida. This time,
the opportunity presented itself to spend more time and to travel further
afield.
I had an
offer to visit a friend in New Jersey,
and possibly even the chance to borrow a motorbike, but the latter never came to
fruition because of logistical problems involving bike gear, insurance, registration,
and Beloved Wife’s extreme reluctance in the Department of Pillion. Not that a
Ducati has a realistic passenger seat. Motorcycling in the USA will have
to wait for some future occasion, when I'm old[er] and [even] grey[er].
We borrowed
my parents-in-law’s dad car, in a repeat of last winter’s arrangement. This would work out rather cheaper than renting a vehicle, and was certainly going to be a
lot more comfortable when travelling long distances with luggage for a month.
Many thanks to the owners of the vehicle; we promised to get it serviced every
5000 miles.
I’d heard
so much about the US-129 in Tennessee; the
so-called “Tail of the Dragon” at Deal's Gap that I
insisted that we go there first from North Carolina
on our way to Washington DC. A somewhat circuitous route, but through
some spectacular scenery in the Great Smoky Mountains.
Road signs advertising 50 miles of hilly and bendy roads, unsuitable for long
or heavy vehicles were extremely promising. We saw a few motorcycles and even a
couple of nutters on pedal cycles. Certainly this area seems a great place to
visit on a motorbike and to grind your footpegs to swarf. There were numerous places advertising motorbikes
for rent. Excellent scenery and many miles of fun, bendy roads virtually devoid of traffic
seem to make the region a popular holiday destination.
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| Great Smoky Mountains |
Having
stopped for sandwiches, sightseeing and to stretch our legs, we were soon
joined by a biker gang who were, inevitably, off to ride the Dragon. We chatted, and then as they set
off I followed in the car and ended up at a dead end at the Fontana Dam.
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| Stopped for pictures |
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| Spillway |
The
bikers stuck plastic covers over their shiny steeds and disappeared into the
visitors' centre, and we headed west. We’d only just arrived at Deal's Gap and bought the T-shirt when the heavens
opened. The place consisted of bike parking, a couple of souvenir shops, and rather
a lot of very damp motorcycles.
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| Tail of the Dragon |
 |
| Cloudburst |
 |
| Gassing up the tourers. In the rain |
After a bit of sightseeing and a couple of
photos, and after the rain had eased off, we set off up Wheelie Hill and over
the border from North Carolina into Tennessee and the next eleven miles and 318
curves, for which a ponderous limousine is not best suited. However, of the few vehicles
we encountered, I was able to keep up until I stopped to take photos, and I didn’t develop a tail of irate
thrashers desperate to pass.
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| Full PPE. At least it'll dry quickly |
 |
| Taking it easy |
There are a few folk who seem to make a living
taking photos of everyone who drives or rides along this section of the US-129.
I have no idea how long the thumbnails remain on their websites, but here are
the links to a couple of them:
On a dry day, and speeding up the video, the whole route looks something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uqPGYfNACI
Eventually
the rain stopped, but there were only a few bikes about. Overhanging trees keep the
pavement from drying, and wet roads are not much fun on a bike.
 |
| Dry at last |
By the time the
afternoon sun had dried the roads, we were off the twisties and on our way to Knoxville and then, eventually, Virginia and Washington DC over 700 miles from where we'd started that morning.
A few days
in Virginia and the Capitol later, and Beloved Wife had assembled almost all of
the stamped and sealed documentation necessary to prove to UAE authorities that
she and I are in fact legally married. We left the paperwork at the UAE embassy
in Washington (they needed five days to rubber-stamp the package), and set off south west towards Nashville
and Memphis.
I had the
brilliant idea of taking the Skyline
Drive through the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, on the trail
of the Lonesome Pine. Good luck with that: there ain’t no such thing as a
lonesome pine in Virginia.
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| Skyline view from Skyline Drive |
It costs
$15 to get the car into the Skyline
Drive National
Park. Motorcycles cost $10. The place is a nature reserve, so we were
on the lookout for wildlife as well as amazing views. And the roads were
interestingly twisty. But there’s no real incentive to go fast, notwithstanding
the blanket 35mph speed limit.
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| Roadside deer |
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| In the Skyline sky |
The Drive is about 100 miles long once the bends
are taken into account (it only scales 70 miles or so on the map) and includes numerous
scenic overlooks where Clarissa the GPS insisted on directing us. I was mildly
surprised at that small number of motorbikes. If I lived in the area I’d have a
season ticket.
Having made
frequent stops for photos, food and comfort, we didn’t make much headway that
day, stopping the night in the el cheapo Red Roof Inn at Roanoke, a motel whose facilities included an
indoor pool (bonus!) and breakfast.
The
following day we made up for lost time by hitting the interstate and heading
for Memphis.
]}:-{>
3 comments:
Looks awesome. We have the Blueridge Parkway on our tour list for next year, but we want to do it in the fall as this is when it is rumoured to be the most spectacular, and, oh yes, we will be doing it on a Harley :-)
Ahhhh, I can barely wait & reading this, your first post, is making me all the more impatient!
Jayne and Hubs--Blueridge Parkway is awesome in the fall. Full color will vary as the route is north-south and also dependent on temperatures and rain that year. tmil
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