Day 5 Wednesday September 10, 2008
Rain was forecast again today and it was overcast and threatening so we suited up in our rain gear and entered the Parkway at about the 382MM at 8:20 am and headed toward Cherokee, NC. As we climbed in elevation, we ran out on top of the ground fog and the sun was shining so after about 40 minutes we stopped at an overlook near Mt. Pisgah to get out of the rain gear.
This leg between Asheville and US 441 was without a doubt the most spectacular we had seen so far. The mountains were more rugged than we had seen and the vistas were beautiful. We passed the highest point on the Parkway about the 435MM at 6,053' above sea level. There was some lingering fog in spots which slowed us down and numerous tunnels, somewhere around 20 when I lost count. The tunnels were worse than the fog, going from bright sunlight to very dark and most cases straight into a turn once the lights went out was disorienting to me. I'm glad that they had put in reflectors in all the tunnels marking the center line and walls. Still very little traffic once we got away from Asheville.
We completed 435 miles (487 miles total - the northernmost 50 that we missed) of the Parkway portion of the trip when we turned onto US 441 near the Oconaluftee Visitor Center just outside the Great Smokey Mountain Nat'l Park and entered an entirely new phase of the trip, one with 35mph tourist traffic not quite bumper to bumper over Newfound Gap into Gatlinburg, TN for lunch. I had not been to Gatlinburg in over 20 years and found it to be just as Ticky Tacky Touristy as I remembered.
After lunch we headed off down the Little River Road towards Cades Cove intending to do the 11 mile loop. Just after we passed the turn towards Townsend, TN it started raining again and we stopped to suit up. We arrived at the start of the Cades Cove Loop with it raining hard, decided to skip the loop and headed back to the Townsend turn off and exited the park where it stopped raining. We fueled at Townsend and followed US 321 into Maryville, TN where we spent the night at the Jameson Inn, the best hotel we used so far and no more expensive. This completes our trip except for getting back home to St. Louis.
Day 6 Thursday September 11, 2008
Today we hit the road at 8 am with Art leaving us to head east to visit family in NC before heading back to Charlottesville. Ken will ride with us for a while then split off to head north for Frankfort, KY and Bob, Bill and I will go NE toward Scottsville, KY. We headed west on US 321 out of Maryville toward Oak Ridge, TN and followed a winding route NW through all the ridges and mountains that run generally NE so we had to pick our way through and across them. Our route included US 95, TN 327, US 27 to Warburg, TN where we fueled and split off from Ken who continued on 27 to Frankfort. The rest of us picked up TN 62, 84, 52 to Celina, TN where we had lunch. 42 years ago my sweetie and I eloped to Celina to get married as she at 18 was under age in KY to get married without parental permission which was not forthcoming. I took some pictures of the little courthouse on the square and called my then sweetie and now wife of 42 years and told her where I was, which she appreciated.
After lunch we hit KY 100 into Scottsville, KY where we stopped to get some dinner and breakfast things as we were going to stay at a cabin on Barren River Lake with no restaurants around. We continued up US 31E and KY 252 to the cabin for the night.
Day 7 Friday September 12, 2008
We left Barren River Lake at 8:20 with Bill going north up 31E toward Cincinnati and Bob and I going KY 252, 1533, 234, US 231, 70, and KY 109 to cross the Ohio at Shawneetown, IL where we had lunch.
We continued on IL 13 to IL 3 across Illinois to I 255 across the Mississippi where Bob and I split to our respective homes.
The trip was a lot of fun and good riding, altogether I did 1,994 miles.
The last day home seemed the longest. We put in 8.5 hours on Friday and as on our other trips it seemed to take forever that last day getting home. We are
talking about our next trip probably next summer.
