4500 Mile Ride for Charity - Deal's Gap, NC to The South

When we left off the story, I was at Deal's Gap Motorcycle Resort near Tapoca, NC after riding "The Dragon" before noon that morning. "The Dragon" is a stretch of US 129 that includes 318 turns in 11 miles. It is the most popular motorcycle ride in America, and was recommended to me by Pappy and Slick, who's blog and Twitter messages led me to Deal's Gap.


Thanks Pappy, it was a neat ride. I personally enjoyed the Cherohala Skyway more, but the Dragon was certainly a notch for the front forks. Ok, I didn't notch the forks, but I did adorn Pandora's front fender with the military service respect sticker that was provided by Deals Gap for all who served in the military. The girl at the counter (a Marine brat :) wanted some proof that I was a Marine...a tattoo in a location she might care to see it? A military ID? How about a loud gutteral OORAH?

As I mentioned before, after riding the Dragon, I settled into the Deals Gap resort and camped (in my tent that looked strangely like a dragon :) through the day. All of my geek equipment needed recharging, as did I after a few days riding through the mountains. I spent the day taking pics, checking out motorcycles, cleaning myself up and generally relaxing. It was a nice day and I listened to motors scream up the hill over my tent most of the day.

The next morning I packed up early and headed for the Cherohala Skyway. I had no idea just how beautiful the Cherohala would be. Climbing up to over 5300 feet in the Great Smokey Mountains, the Cherohala Skyway is the number 2 most popular motorcycle ride in the States. As Cherokee legend goes, the Great Smokey Mountains used to be a large area of flat, spongey land unfit for inhabiting. The Great Buzzard saw this and swooped down, raking the land with its massive claws, thus creating the Smokies and making the land perfect for habitation.

The Cherohala is over 50 miles long, and you spend the majority of that time over 4000 ft elevation, riding along the top, taking in incredible vistas, wild pure air, interesting flower and fauna and other biker enthusiasts having a ball. I also happened to meet a Buddahist teacher/student who was seated at a mountain rest stop studying the repeating archetypes present in biology. I had stopped to take a pic of this fire-looking flower when we met. We talked for over 2 hours about "everything". I now have a new penpal in NC. Interesting people and things happen when you let them.

I completed my enjoyable passage of the Cherohala Skyway by around 3:30 or 4pm. I stopped at a quaint little restaurant at the bottom of the trail to eat some dinner before continuing towards the interestate to make some time heading south. I was rapidly running out of money again, and needed to make tracks towards home. I was still considering a brief visit to Montomery, AL to look for "Seven Bridges Road", but realized later in AL that this small detour would likely break my budget (which was already destroyed :) After deciding that Seven Bridges Road was out, I re-analyzed my route to home, and decided to cut across the uppoer portions of the southern states of MS, AL and LA on my way to TX. I had never seen this portion of these states, having always traveled from and to TX on Interestate 10 across the bottom of the US. My plan was to take I-20 over to I-45 south near Dallas. That would get me home quickly. I left the Cherohala with the expansive vistas I'd seen stretching across my mind.