Cherohala Skyway & Tail of the Dragon Drives

We started out today by moving the Bus from site 4 to site 3………. since we came in two days early, and site 3 was not available over the weekend.

Once that was done, we headed out to see some scenery…… The Cherohala Skyway, which is one of the drives under the listing of “America’s Byways”.  On the end of it is a section of highway known as “The Tail of the Dragon”.  It’s claim is of “318 curves in 11 miles”.

The following are typical photos to describe the Cherohala Skyway drive:

Even the pullouts where scenic and well designed:

As we got to the highest elevations along the Cherohala Skyway drive (around 5400 ft), we found some ice and snow!  Here are some of those photos:

We also saw a couple of dams, and several waterfalls.  Here is a small collection of them:

The above two photos are from the discharge side of the dam.  The following is the upstream side of the dam, and you can see the gates:

Here is the nicest small waterfall that we saw, as well as the second dam:

The “Tail of the Dragon” drive was especially nice.  The first two pictures are of a tree, dubbed the “Tree of Shame”, and is decorated with motorcycle parts and gear supposedly from accidents on the “Tail of the Dragon” highway.  It is in the parking lot of the Deals Gap store which has priority parking for Bikes!!

The following are photos from our drive on the “Tail of the Dragon” highway.  They include the ‘curves’ on the highway, which were hard to depict, and some of the bikes that we observed leaning way over to make the curves:

 

Today, we drove 135 miles on these roads, and it took about seven hours.  It was one of the best day trips that we have taken outside of Alaska.

When we got back to the campground, many more Tiffins had arrived and set up.  More on that and pictures tomorrow.

The Hearne’s Visit to the Bus

Linda and George, Patsy’s cousin and her husband, drove up from Dalton, GA to the KOA campground here in Tellico Plains, TN on Sunday.  We had planned on grilling some burgers and shrimp, but it was cold and breezy, so Patsy made a pot of chili with some rice.  Linda brought some chips & homemade salsa, and an apple tart with ice cream.

The meal was very good, and after visiting in the Bus for a while, we went on a drive with Linda driving her STS.  To encourage her to make it a fun drive, I gave here a #88 Dale Earnhardt Jr. ball camp.  She flipped it on backwards, and off we went!!

After the exciting ride, we went back to the Bus for the Apple Tart and ice cream before they left to return to Dalton.  Here is the picture that Patsy took before they left!!

We had a very nice visit, and were glad that they drove up for the day.

Tellico Plains and the KOA

We drove to Dayton, TN on Friday and spent the night on a Wal-Mart parking lot.  We fueled up at Wal-Mart's gas station, and shopped at the store for a weeks supply since Tellico Plains, TN is a small town.  On Friday night, we ate at a Mexican food restaurant called “Ayala’s”, and we shared a fajita plate for two.  It was really good.

This morning, we drove to the Walgreen’s in Athens, TN to pick up some photos that I had sent in via the internet, and then on to Tellico Plains.  We arrived about 1:30pm, got the Bus set up at a site, and then took a drive around town.

Here is the Bus on our site for the weekend.  We have to move to our permanent site on Monday.  We had only previously reserved for Mon – Fri, and our regular site was not available for Sat & Sun.  Our regular site is #4, and we are assigned #3 for the rally.

As we left the campground to drive around, a Tiffin Zephyr was registering at the office:

Just outside the campground, we saw a couple of interesting sights….. an old truck for sale and a unique topiary used as a mailbox:

If anybody is interested, the truck was for sale for $6800, and appeared to need a lot of work!

We eventually saw another topiary at the local library……. Patsy said it was an “inch worm”:

The area’s visitor center and a museum were located next to the library;

 

As were were driving in the area, we saw a bridge over a river.  It turned out to be the entrance to a gated community along the other side of the river,,,,,,,, and it had a lock gate on it.

The following is the only picture of the homes across the bridge because of the traffic on the narrow highway along the river:

The KOA advertisement notes that it is built near an apple orchard.  Here is a picture of the home on the orchard, and a part of the orchard:

In our Fall Creek Falls SP posting, we mentioned a couple who offered us a ride after our ‘trail adventure’.  The guy asked us where we were headed, and we told him Tellico Plains.  He told us the the best place to eat was to get a foot-long hot dog at the “Tellico Beach Drive In”, and on our drive, we saw it.  It was on the river road, and the beach was a little patch of sand along the river:

We stopped and got a couple of foot-longs to take back to the Bus.  They came with mustard, chili, and slaw.  We opted to leave the slaw off!!

On Sunday, Patsy’s cousin, Linda Hearne and her husband, George, are driving up from Chattanooga (about 70 miles away) to visit.  We were planning on grilling something, but we may just make a big pot of Texas chili with some cornbread instead.  We will probably drive along the “Cherohala Skyway”, a National Scenic Byway