Trip report

Lee Whitten talked Geoff Gowan and myself into going on a trip to Deals Gap to ride the twisty roads of NC/TN. "The Dragon" at Deals Gap is an 11 mile stretch of road between North Carolina and Tennessee which boasts 318 twists and turns. Yowzers!

Joe Caruso and Chris whatshislastname were going on a trip to Kentucky (or somewhere) around the same time, so we all got together and discussed the ride up. After some debate, we all agreed to head up together towards Atlanta on Friday, May 4th, with a departure time of 7:30am from Joe's house.


Friday Departure

[ The gang leaving Joe's ] Friday morning arrived, we were all ready to go. Well, four of the five of us. Lee decided she'd catch an extra 10 minutes of sleep and catch up to us on the road. So, Joe, Geoff, Chris and myself left Joe's place promptly at 7:40am without Lee. She caught up with us on our way to breakfast in Alachua ;-).

At breakfast we ran into a bunch of other bikers headed north for the weekend. It appears that waffle house is the meeting place...

The trip called for Lee, Geoff, and myself to ride up to Atlanta, then split off on I-285 and take Hwy 400 to our hotel in Cumming. Chris and Joe were going to stay with us until Atlanta then split off to head up towards Chattanooga.

We took I-75 north as a group, but ran into bumper to bumper traffic at about Georgia MM 212. We all got off at exit 216 to discuss what we were going to do next.

While at 216, we ran into a guy on a gold wing who had just come from the north. He informed us that the accident was about 2 miles up the road, but that there was also a large music festival in Atlanta (130+ bands, 250,000+ fans) and that we should avoid Atlanta like the plague.

After spending some time looking at maps to find an alternate route, Geoff, Lee, and I decided to hope on GA SR-155 and ride it up to I-20 and take I-20 to I-285 to continue on our trek. Joe and Chris figured out another route for them, and we said our goodbyes.

We started on SR-155, and as luck would have it, we got about 2 miles down the road when we found another traffic jam. We eventually made it to Cumming around 7pm and checking into the Comfort Inn Suites where we had a really nice room. $75 bought us 2 queens and a hide-away bed. Total mileage for the day was 376 miles.

Lee decided she wanted Barbeque for dinner, so we asked the lady at the front desk where we could find a good dinner. She steered us to a place down the road called "Pappy Red's" but with her thick Georgia Twang we thought she said "Peppy Red's" -- I thought to myself "hmm, mexican bbq, how odd"..


Saturday Ride

[ Dehlonega Gold Museum ] [ Geeks on Wheels in Deholonega ]

The next morning we took off on our way to Deals Gap (and beyond). The route to the gap we took was 400/19 North from Cumming, to US-19 in Dehlonega. From there we planned to take US-19 to US-129 the rest of the way up.

The pictures here are of the Dehlonega Gold Museum and Geoff and Lee posing in front of an Ice Cream parlor. Lee was upset the Ice Cream Parlor was closed (aww).. ;-).


[ In NC ] [ Rest stop in NC ] We continued on US-129, which is a really pretty road. Eventually we crossed into the North Carolina border.

Once we were in N.C., US-129 opened up into a beautiful highway. The picture of Lee and Geoff on the right is at a rest-stop where we took a break, unfortunately the cheap disposable camera failed to get the mountains in the background.


[ River at Rest Stop ] [ Overlook ] The picture on the right is of a river that ran behind the rest stop. There was this field with a house in the background, but of course the camera failed to take a really good picture. Next time I'm bringing my canon.

In Topton, N.C., US-129, 19, and 74 split. We continued on US-129 headed north west to Robbinsville. At this point US-129 starts winding up into the mountains, and the picture on the left is of an overlook. This area is probably a real pretty ride in September/October when Fall starts..


[ Everyone gets what they want, at Alice's restaurant ] [ Lake Santeetlah ] In Robbinsville we grabbed a quick lunch at Phillip's Restuarant. I knew Philip was an enterprising guy, working down at Health Professions and all, but I didn't know he also had a chain of restaurants in North Carolina. Lee surprised Geoff and myself by eating all of her food, plus some of Geoff's fries as well :-)!

After lunch we continued on to meet the dragon. The scenery here is really pretty, and we had to stop for a photo at Lake Santeetleh. Here's Lee and Geoff trying their best to smile with full leathers and helmets on.


[ Damn! ] [ DAMN!!! ] A lot of this area is built up with dams as part of the TVA public works stuff. This dam is just about 1 mile shy of the start of the dragon tail section of US-129.


[ DragonWorks ] [ TN! ] Well, I missed the photo with the sign saying "The next 11 miles is full of testosterone loaded turns", but I did grab this sign right at the start of the dragon works sign.

A few miles into the ride you're greeted by the "Welcome to Tennessee" sign. And yes, it is welcome.. No offense to N.C., but the Tennessee roads are in much better shape.


[ In the dragon ] There were a lot of bikers riding through the dragon. Many of them were quite cool, but there was one group of sport-bikers that were obviously overloaded with testosterone. On one of the turns a guy cut Lee off, considering there was a straight-away he could have safely passed her just 20' down the road, this was majorily uncool. One note, I noticed in the news that about 30 minutes after we were done running the dragon, a guy ran his bike into a tree and killed himself. Be careful on those roads, seriously.

Well, shortly after the jerk cut Lee off, we stopped to stretch our legs. I wanted to get a picture of someone riding through the curves, so I waited until the next rider came along. No, this isn't the jerk who cut us off.


[ Overlook ] [ Overlook ] Once you're through the dragon, there's an overlook to stop at. From the overlook you could see some lakes made by the TVA Dams, which is where I shot these two pictures.

At the overlook, there was a little table setup selling "Tail of the Dragon" paraphenalia. They would also take your picture for posterity's sake, but none of us intentionally got our photos taken. However, I did find a picture with Lee's bike in the background if you look closely enough on their web-site.


[ Geoff's Playpal ] [ River ] After the ride through the gap, we continued on US-129 until we found a little country store. At the store Geoff made a new friend.

We continued on US-129 to Tennessee SR-72. We continued on until US-411, which we then took to HWY-360. In Tellico Plains we jumped onto SR-68 headed south. The picture on the left was taken off SR-68 near Hiwassee River.

We stayed on SR-68 through Ducktown, a quacking good place, at least that's what the sign said. The state line for Georgia is in McCaysville where we gassed up. SR-68 turns into GA SR-5 at this point. We followed 5 until it merged with US-76 in Blue Ridge. Then we headed south on US-76 until we got to Elijay.

It was around 5:30-6:00pm by the time we got to Elijay, so we stopped for dinner at this Cajun restaurant. I can't vouch for Geoff's and Lee's dinner, but if you go to the cajun place in Elijay, don't get the shrimp gumbo.

After leaving Elijay, we decided to take the "quick way" back to Cumming. We took SR-52 to SR-183. Then we took SR-183 to SR-53 to Dawsonville. In Dawsonville we picked up SR-9 which took us all the way back to Cumming.

The route to Cumming from Elijay was quite fun, with some turns and hills thrown into it. After spending the day in the mountains, the route looked like a straightaway, and we opened it up a bit.

Once we were back in our hotel, we went out to a Mexican restaurant to have a few drinks in celebration of "Cinco de Mayo". A good time was had by all. Our mileage for the day was 313 miles, bringing us up to 689 for the trip.



Sunday - Headed home

[ Lee at the Hotel ] [ Geoff at the Hotel ] Lee decided that on our way home we'd go ahead and stop in downtown Atlanta at Einsteins Bagels and meet up with a friend of hers.

We took 400 into Atlanta. After breakfast we took 85 to I-75 home. The trip home took us a long time, lesson learned - don't start a long trip at 11:30am in the middle of summer in Georgia.

Total mileage for the ride home was 378 miles, which brought our trip to just at 1067 miles.

Below are some pictures at Einsteins of us and James (lee's friend). I think the picture of me with my Katana is probably the only photo of me in the roll. Oh well.

[ Einsteins ] [ Einsteins ] [ Us on the way home ] [ James and the Gang ]

ken@dcp.ufl.edu
5/9/2001