The "Wild Goats" made the ride through the Smokies without any problems, bad weather sent us packing towards home a couple days early so we missed the Blue Ridge Parkway section that we had planned but over all it was one great ride with lots of beautiful scenery and more curves than a cootchie show.

  Alton, Mano, Rayzer and I left out Monday morning and met Bruiser in Camden, TN. We headed up Hwy.70 to Waverly and hit 13 South to 230 East and over to near Columbia, then 99 to 270 and 41-A through Shelbyville. A few miles out we decided to make a detour and go through Lynchburg and check out some of the scenery in the old downtown square, looking like rain we left and headed back to our planned route where we were welcomed by a thunderstorm a few miles out, we rode that one out and got on Hwy 130 down to Tullahoma and over to Winchester where we picked up 41-A again to Monteagle to spend our first night.

  The next day started out with a trip down Monteagle Mountain on old highway 41-A towards Nashville, this is a 6 or 7 mile run through lots of curves and switch-backs and well worth the time to run it. At the bottom of the mountain we turned around and went back up and stayed on old 41-A to Rankin Cove, there we got on 27 over to Signal Mountain near Chattanooga, we by-passed the city and stayed on backroads and luckily found some of the best part of the ride to be Mowbray Pike, Sawyer Road and Roberts Hill Road near Soddy Daisy, these two-lane residential roads winds around the mountain like a roller coaster. Heading north we got back on 27 up to 60 South and crossed the Chickamauga River down to 312 through Cleveland and picked up 74 East to Lake Ocoee, this is where the 1996 Whitewater Olympics was held. Farther south and east we came to Ducktown as our destination for the second day but no motel rooms were available so we headed 15 miles farther south to Blue Ridge, GA and spent the night.

                                                                                                                                                                                        continued at bottom of photos,

This says it all: "We Had a Great Time!"	Taking a ButtBreak near the Chickamauga
The rain gear came in VERY handy	Coming down Monteagle Mountain
Coming down Monteagle Mountain	ButtBreak at the Tail of the Dragon overlook
Ten Commandments at the Field of the Woods	Couple of happy critters
Rayzer says "It's too hot for these!"	Clean-up time after the rain, Al likes his ride to shine
Larry, "Let's go again next week!"	Looking for some shade on a hot afternoon.

Clowning on the walk bridge at the Ocoee River

Bruiser and Alton, wonder who's getting wet first?

"Tree of Shame" at the Dragon, luckily none of our bikes parts are here.

  Leaving out on our third day we headed up Hwy. 5 from Georgia and back on 68 North and made another detour onto 123 to see the "Fields of the Woods", a large Ten Commandments created on the side of a hill in huge concrete letters, the site was created in the early 1920's as a religious center for the Church of God and has grown to cover several acres with lots of large monuments.  Moving on from there we got back on 68 and headed up to 165 East this turns into 143 East in North Carolina, this is known as the Cherohala Skyway and up over some high mountain areas, the altimeter on the GPS registered 5,395 feet at the highest point. This is a nice ride and the temperature drops several degrees when you reach the summit, coming down the east side of the mountain we came into the small town of Robbinsville on Santeetlah Lake where we got on Hwy 129 North. This goes up to Deal's Gap which is commonly known as "The Tail of the Dragon" as it comes around the bottom edge of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We had planned to run it west then turn around a go back through it and head for the Blue Ridge Parkway but the weather was changing and we decided to keep heading west to get us closer towards home. We made it over to Pikeville, TN on the last night of our trip but had a great ride getting there, this little town sits in a valley between two great mountain roads so you get a great ride coming in and going out.

  Thursday morning we left out headed for home and took Hwy 30 from Pikeville past Fall Creek Falls, (where we have been several times so we didn't tour the park on this trip). We used the GPS to re-route our return trip several times to avoid most roads we've traveled before and to check out some new scenery, ending up back a Shelbyville, we made most of the rest of the return trip on the same roads we took going down. Even though we missed two days because of weather, it was still a great ride, the Lord was good to us and no one was damaged from the rain.

  GPS stats:
        Odometer = 951.2 total trip miles
        Average Speed = 34.2 mph
        Max Speed = 66.9 mph
        Max Altimeter = 5,395 ft
        Download GPS Routes

  Until the next time, rubber side down and watch for the idiots with cellphones stuck to their head, 'cause they sure ain't watching for you!

                                                                                                                                                                      Larry....

 

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