Today’s ride on the Blue Ridge Parkway was quite the adventure. The scenery was beautiful as you will see in the photos. I apologize for the lack of video; however, I am still in the learning process with all this new gadgetry. I met numerous people along the way, some bikers and others who just wanted to know if I really rode my bike all the way from Maine. They all wished me luck on my journey along with safe travels. At some point I ran into construction which held me up for about an hour. As you can probably imagine, construction is a slow process on a two lane highway in the mountains. It began to rain soon after passing through the construction zone. I was happy the rain waited, even so, driving the Parkway in the rain whether on two wheels or four is quite the experience. In some areas, usually in the curves, the rain just washes across the highway like a small river. Not only was this a hair raising experience but also a learning experience for me as I had never ridden in that much rain, much less in such tight curves. Another factor being exits off the Parkway are few and far between. A few more miles and I would have been driving the “Dragon’s Tail” portion of the Parkway. The Tail of the Dragon is a very popular section of highway for all motorcyclist due to it extremely tight turns, 318 turns in an 11 mile section of road. That ride, I did not want to do in the rain! I finally found an exit onto Highway 215 which honestly should be called the “Little Tail of the Dragon”. Though I did not count, I think this highway must have had one less turn in the same 11 mile stretch. Thankfully, the rain had almost stopped. I had not seen a campground for sometime now and decided to head into Georgia and see what was available. Soon after reaching Georgia the rain and thunder began again. I decided to make camp at a Days Inn motel for the night.
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| Five thousand foot drop off and NO GUARDRAIL! |
