The next trip up for me was out to NC for the 2017 Tiger Ride In, at the Blue Ridge Parkway Motorcycle campground. I took a week off for this trip, I had never ridden a motorcycle east of NM, so this was a great reason to do it. I took 3 days to ride over there. I could have taken another day, but I really wanted to ride as many roads over there as I could. Who could blame me? The Dragon is famous for its curves. I wanted to see for myself if it was exactly what everyone raves about.
I stopped off in Lubbock to see Daryl and LaDonna, I’ve been missing them since they left Abq. I even got Daryl to ride with me for a bit the next day. He let me try out his Goldwing. Wow, what a heavy bike, but it was comfy.
I stopped off to see Paris on the way, since it was just a short detour. It wasn’t easy to find the Eiffel tower. GPS is a blessing and a curse, it never routes you in a really logical manner, and the TomTom often takes me in circles before getting me to where I want to be.
The Tower is located right next to a Veteran’s Memorial. One of the prettiest I’ve seen.
Next up was Hot Springs National Park. I wanted to make sure I hit any parks that were close to my route. On the way there I was a surprised by the amount of water in all the rivers and lakes. They all looked close to over following their banks. It might just be that it’s been so long since I’ve been around places that get more than 10 inches of rain a year, but still…
Hot Springs National Park, it was hard to tell what was city and what was park. There was a number of bath houses on the main street, that make up most of the park. There was also a nice drive up on to the hill over looking the city. (They called it a mountain… but it was just a hill to me.)
The bath houses were interesting.
Once I left there, it was across Arkansas to Mississippi to jump onto the Nachez Trace Parkway. It was scenic as well as steeped in culture. There was a number of Indian mounds along the parkway to visit.
Next up Tennessee with all of those amazing curve filled roads. Like the Tail of the Dragon.
Nantahala National Forest picture on my way to Deal’s Gap
I picked up a newish rider on the way up, he wasn’t really dressed for the weather and he was really nervous about all the corners. When I stopped for the above picture and started talking to him, he asked if he could continue to follow me. Said, it made riding the corners less frighting.
With the rain picking up again, I slowed down some more, also figured that he wouldn’t have to struggle as much to keep up. When we got to Deal’s Gap, I pointed him at some frog toggs, I suggested he might want those if he was going to ride all day. It would help him stay drier and warmer. He thanked me again later for that suggestion at the end of the Dragon where we parted ways after a few more pictures.
Was a very nice guy.
Found a dirt road that ran to the backside of the above dam.
I decided to stop and stay the night at a Lodge that I had passed on the way up to Deal’s Gap… What shame I had to ride part of that road again.
The Tapoco Lodge was really nice too.
Next day it was off to the Ride In with a fellow Tiger Rider:
I talked him into a round about way to the campground, that would take us through the Smokey Mountains National Park. Just because, it was a park and I’d never been there before. It was an even wetter day than the day before… He was a great sport about it. Even if we were so wet when we got there that we had to put our riding gear into a dryer to get it dry enough to wear the next day. Yes. It was my idea, that a bunch of the other Tiger Riders jumped all over, after I said I was going to do it, they even beat me to the 4 dryers and I had to wait an hour+ to dry my gear. lol.
The park was stunning, but it was raining so hard, it wasn’t worth stopping for pictures. You couldn’t really see anything, with all the low clouds.
We did have some fun on the Foothills Parkway, when we came across a guy on an R1 who had lowsided coming out of a turn. Lucky for him there was more shoulder on this road than the Dragon. I let them use my InReach to send a msg to their buddy, to come and pick them up, since there wasn’t any cell service.