Day twelve

Like I said on the Day 11 post, I stayed at the Cherohala Motorcycle Resort. Here's the cabin I stayed in. There are several other cabins there, as well as a bike wash station. The clubhouse/ office/ store has drinks, ice cream, TV and (most importantly) coffee in the morning. The owners are down to earth, very nice and they ride. I can't recommend the resort and campground enough.
There's a large covered pavilion as well as a fire pit in the field behind the cabins. Later in the night, I was in bed and heard that Harley in the picture pull in. The rider slept on a bedroll under the pavilion. That's an old Hard-tail and the rider told me that he was still 6 hours from home. Now THAT'S a rider!

So I left the resort and headed over to the Cherohala Skyway. The first few miles were kind of scary. The sun was coming up, and I couldn't see around the corners. So I pulled off in a scenic turn off and waited a bit until the sun was a little higher. I had a bottle of water and just enjoyed the view.

The Cherohala Skyway is one of the most scenic roads I've ridden on. If you've never taken it, I recommend adding it to YOUR Bucket List.

After the Skyway, I headed north on 129...AKA the Tail of The Dragon. I've heard that the resort wasn't the best in the world, but from what I saw, it was kind of nice. I ate lunch at the restaurant there, and then headed north on the Dragon. I had meant to visit the Tree of Shame, but totally forgot about it. Oh well, next time.

Within the first quarter mile, I came upon some chalk writ ting on the pavement that said, "OIL." And as I came around the next curve, there was oil covered with kitty litter across both lanes. I'm guessing that there was an accident there recently.

The traffic was light on the Dragon today. I did come upon one bike that was tooling along at about 20 mph and he waved me by, but other than that, I didn't see anyone in front of me until I got to the end. There was one bike behind me for the last couple of miles, but he wasn't in any hurry to pass me. Patricia seems to think that I was doing 40-60 mph on the Dragon. I don't know where she got that idea from. I never got above 3rd gear, and was in 2nd most of the way.

After it's said and done, I'm now authorized to bear the mark of the dragon.

OK, now for the bad news. If you look at today's track at the top of the page, you can see where I made an abrupt turn to the east. I was headed north to catch Kentucky and West Virginia when I heard the latest weather forecast. I made my decision to go to Virginia to my friends house and wait out the storms.

Hanna is forecast to hit Virginia Saturday with rain starting Friday afternoon. I'll spend the weekend in Virginia and head home Sunday morning. That way, Hanna will be long gone, Ike won't be there yet, and Gustav will have passed Michigan. I understand that the west side of Michigan is getting hammered with Gustav rain. I've already ridden for two days in that storm, I don't need another one.

Mileage for today: 341
Mileage for the trip: 6,193