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We (brother - cousin - myself) decided to take a trip over labor day weekend to the smokies and other areas for some sight seeing and just riding.
What started off as a simple vacation ended up riding 1875 miles in just over 5 days riding covering 6 states. Some of our highlights were my brother and I decided to ride the train in bryson city, nc.......very cool and takes 4 1/2 hours round trip over the 44 miles. You want to make sure to bring along your camera for this one.......great views from fontana lake tressel bridge.
From the train we decided to meet up with our cousin at deal's gap (aka: the dragon) since he came down a day later than we did. Was a decent ride through the gap and across the foothills back to the hotel in pigeon forge. The next day we decided to make the trek back across the mountain and hit the gap again then off to robbinsville for lunch. After lunch we decided that the weather was about to change so we ran a different route over to maggie valley, nc. We got there in time to tour "wheels through time" again (yes I said again as this was our 4 or 5 time there). As always saw a bunch of new stuff that Dale has recently gotten in.....the indian racing jersey from the show american pickers was on display along side the bike.
While we were at the train station we came across a brochure for luray caverns in VA. It sounded like a cool place to check out even though it was almost 7 hours away via interstate from maggie valley, nc where we were staying the night. Oh yeah if you happen to stop in maggie valley for the night the comfort inn is a great place to stop and will give you coupons for the local resturant "snappys". Great place to grab some grub......I gurantee you won't go away from there hungry and it won't break the bank either.
The caverns are pretty cool as well as the old car and carriage museum that comes with your ticket price. We spent roughly 4 hours there and probably could have spent the better share of the day but we had other places we wanted to hit before we called it a night. So off to Fayetteville, WV and the new river gorge bridge.....another 6 hour ride from the caverns. Just our lulck about 5 miles from the bridge it started to rain so we get out the rain gear and keep on rolling. We get to the visitors center and take the walk down to see the bridge just in time for a few quick shots before the fog rolled in so thick you could barely see the headlights from the cars coming across the bridge. Oh well our hotel was only a few miles down the road so we figured we could come back in the morning and shoot a few pictures.
Once again our luck wasn't so good the weatherman rolled "snakeyes" and it was raining and foggy when we woke up in the morning to leave. So we decided that we weren't going to be able to see anything anyway we decided to gear up and head out in the rain for our ride home to Ohio. Well let me tell you this much riding in the rain on interstate really sucks and when you leave in the morning in the rain it's that much worse. Our luck finally turned around by the time we were about 2 hours from home at it quit raining. Did I mention that when we left the hotel in WV it was in the upper 70's and by the time we hit ohio it was in the low 60's and we were wet from the earlier ride.......yes that part of the trip wasn't that much fun.
All in all it was a good time and we are looking forward to making the trek back to WV for a long weekend ride when the weather cooperates a little better.
As required here's a few pics from the trip:
Foothills parkway:
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Smoky Mountain Railroad & Toy Museum:
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Luray, Va Caverns:
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Car & Carriage museum:
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New River Gorge:
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I made a slide show of the pictures from "wheels through time" and upped it to youtube......sorry there might be a few duplicate pics as I just put all the pics into the slideshow creator software and upped it.
http://youtu.be/N6fReegloaA
Sorry for the long post,
Dragon Slayer 129
What started off as a simple vacation ended up riding 1875 miles in just over 5 days riding covering 6 states. Some of our highlights were my brother and I decided to ride the train in bryson city, nc.......very cool and takes 4 1/2 hours round trip over the 44 miles. You want to make sure to bring along your camera for this one.......great views from fontana lake tressel bridge.
From the train we decided to meet up with our cousin at deal's gap (aka: the dragon) since he came down a day later than we did. Was a decent ride through the gap and across the foothills back to the hotel in pigeon forge. The next day we decided to make the trek back across the mountain and hit the gap again then off to robbinsville for lunch. After lunch we decided that the weather was about to change so we ran a different route over to maggie valley, nc. We got there in time to tour "wheels through time" again (yes I said again as this was our 4 or 5 time there). As always saw a bunch of new stuff that Dale has recently gotten in.....the indian racing jersey from the show american pickers was on display along side the bike.
While we were at the train station we came across a brochure for luray caverns in VA. It sounded like a cool place to check out even though it was almost 7 hours away via interstate from maggie valley, nc where we were staying the night. Oh yeah if you happen to stop in maggie valley for the night the comfort inn is a great place to stop and will give you coupons for the local resturant "snappys". Great place to grab some grub......I gurantee you won't go away from there hungry and it won't break the bank either.
The caverns are pretty cool as well as the old car and carriage museum that comes with your ticket price. We spent roughly 4 hours there and probably could have spent the better share of the day but we had other places we wanted to hit before we called it a night. So off to Fayetteville, WV and the new river gorge bridge.....another 6 hour ride from the caverns. Just our lulck about 5 miles from the bridge it started to rain so we get out the rain gear and keep on rolling. We get to the visitors center and take the walk down to see the bridge just in time for a few quick shots before the fog rolled in so thick you could barely see the headlights from the cars coming across the bridge. Oh well our hotel was only a few miles down the road so we figured we could come back in the morning and shoot a few pictures.
Once again our luck wasn't so good the weatherman rolled "snakeyes" and it was raining and foggy when we woke up in the morning to leave. So we decided that we weren't going to be able to see anything anyway we decided to gear up and head out in the rain for our ride home to Ohio. Well let me tell you this much riding in the rain on interstate really sucks and when you leave in the morning in the rain it's that much worse. Our luck finally turned around by the time we were about 2 hours from home at it quit raining. Did I mention that when we left the hotel in WV it was in the upper 70's and by the time we hit ohio it was in the low 60's and we were wet from the earlier ride.......yes that part of the trip wasn't that much fun.
All in all it was a good time and we are looking forward to making the trek back to WV for a long weekend ride when the weather cooperates a little better.
As required here's a few pics from the trip:
Foothills parkway:
Smoky Mountain Railroad & Toy Museum:
Luray, Va Caverns:
Car & Carriage museum:
New River Gorge:
I made a slide show of the pictures from "wheels through time" and upped it to youtube......sorry there might be a few duplicate pics as I just put all the pics into the slideshow creator software and upped it.
http://youtu.be/N6fReegloaA
Sorry for the long post,
Dragon Slayer 129
