On Tuesday, we look at the gloom and doom weather and elect
not to ride. Instead, we go for breakfast at the Riverfront Café in Townsend.
And then go for a DRIVE – to a Harley dealership in Virginia and then the
Harley outlet near Pigeon Forge.
On Wednesday, our plan is to take Little River Road to 441,
go through the Smokies into Cherokee, to 19 through Maggie Valley (this is the
area that we stayed at a gas station during the “ride of death” from Ashville)
then head over to do the Rattler, back up to 25/70 and home via 411. Again, the
weather is iffy, but who knows. And now Tony’s comfortable with his rain gear
set up and helmet. Little River Road is always a fun ride. And 441 has three
tunnels (I like tunnels – Al, not so much).
It’s been interesting this trip to see what’s open, what’s
not, who wears masks, who requires masks. Cherokee is a ghost town – and the
gas station required masks inside. The casino in Cherokee was open “by
invitation only” – whatever that means. We head over to Maggie Valley with
quite a bit of fog – and right before we get there, it starts raining (or it’s
pretty dense fog) and we pull over at a tshirt shop (with chickens) to gear up.
The stop was pretty uneven and Tony drove through a unicorn blanket to pick me
up. Of course, it stops right after we get going again.
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| Nice sky at the house |
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| Headed to Townsend and Little River Road |
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| With all of the rain, the Little River isn't so "little." |
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| New chaps, new vest, gearing up for chilly ride through the Smoky Mountains |
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| Yep, a sign for a big circle (but not a "city circle"). |
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| We saw plenty of turkeys on this trip. |
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| Sign in Cherokee |
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| Chickens! |
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| Chickens! |
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| Kinda foggy all day. |
Off we head to the Rattler (209), a ride Tony and I haven’t
done and Al and Eileen only did the other direction (
http://209therattler.com/map.html).
It started off a little rough, roadwise, but was a pretty nice ride. We just
wish it was as well marked as some other rides we’ve done. Since we don’t know
the road, we don’t know the curves. It had some up and down, some switchbacks,
some fields, some river. A little bit of everything (and another groundhog
sighting). We stopped in Hot Springs for lunch – a little hole in the wall next
to a Dollar General – for burgers. Pretty good. I couldn’t find them on the web
or TripAdvisor so don’t know the name. Then off to 25/70, passing Bobarosa
Saloon (this place was on Moonshiners! Into Newport to gas up. Figures that we
get one good shower on our way home, but pretty much dodged a lot of rain on
this ride as well.
We put a lot of signs up in the OC Lizard Lounge and they
have them at good prices at:
Ordered a few more this year – Foothills Parkway, Moonshiner
28, a Dragon Parking sign and the Smoky Loop sign.
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