Orlando > Skyline Drive > Blue Ridge Parkway > Tail of the Dragon > FL
Fri Sept 4, 2015 two buds and I rode to Sanford FL where Amtrak's Auto Train departs for Lorton VA. The Auto Train is an overnight train trip that takes you and your motorcycle for $302 each (cars $60 more I think). It departs at 4 pm and arrives at 9 am the next morning. Dinner and breakfast included. Our train was an hour late leaving, but still made it on time somehow. I assume some kind of magic was performed while I slept.
You can choose a chair, a 2-person cabin, or a larger fancier cabin. 1 bud decided to sleep in a chair, while the other and I shared a cabin. The cabin is teeny tiny only 1 person can stand in it and nowhere to even walk around; the other must stay seated or wait outside the room if one wants to stand up. And when both are seated your knees are almost touching. When it's bed time you pull down the bunk's bed, and then climb 2 stairs to get up there, and then secure a net from the edge of the bed to the ceiling, so you don't fall out while bounding down the tracks during the night. The amount of room left once there are 2 beds is so small you have hardly any room for any stuff. I had to put my luggage on the bed with me. We hung some things from a hook on the wall using bungees I brought along. It wasn't as bad as I'm making it sound, but don't expect to bring much with you! Found a pic ... this is all there is!
No pics, but the next car in front of ours had quite a few dining tables, which were spacious like a normal 4-person dining table should be, so we spent a lot of our awake time there. Also, the view out the train window was not as interesting as I thought it'd be. Pretty boring actually. Not sure what I was expecting. Bigfoot?
When the train stopped in Lorton at 9 am the next morning, we unloaded our bikes & rode 70 mi to Front Royal VA which is the N end of Skyline Drive, a limited access, slow speed (35 mph) scenic road through the lower Great Smoky Mountains of VA, similar to the Blue Ridge Parkway but shorter mountains / lower elevations. Our bikes at the first scenic overlook we decided to stop at on Skyline Drive:
Overlook #2 somewhere on Skyline Dr. A nice Harley dude offered to snap our pic:
Then we rode the entire 109-mi Skyline Dr to Waynesboro, VA and stayed at a "Quality" Inn ;) there.
The S end of Skyline Dr runs right into the N end of the 469-mi also limited access, also slow speed (45 mph) scenic Blue Ridge Parkway, so the next morning Sun Sept 6 we began riding the BRP, headed for the very southern end of it in Cherokee NC. Here's our first scenic overlook on the BRP:
Sun nite we stayed the night in this little 5-bed bunkhouse (at center) at Willville Motorcycle Campground in the little town of Meadows of Dan on the BRP. Spartan room but clean, and friendly folks. This seemingly little cabin has five single beds! Man & his daughter there on the porch next to us, with their bike parked under the shelter:
Poor bikes had to sleep outside:
Willville's nice big pavilion with picnic tables & fireplace, and to the right in the background is the campfire area, with quite a few bikers staying in tents:
Part of Willville's camping area (a little stream behind me here):
Mon morn breakfast at the Mabry Mill restaurant right on the BRP close to Willville:
Mon after breakfast we crossed from VA into NC on the BRP and ate lunch at the Switzerland Cafe in Little Switzerland NC (bike at left wasn't with us):
Mon mid afternoon we stopped at the Mt Mitchell overlook:
Somewhere along the BRP:
Another BRP scenic overlook, no idea which one. Yawn, ho-hum, another fantastic view of miles of mountains & valleys:
Mon nite, we had the two 2-bed cabins at left at the Blue Ridge Motorcycle Campground. Also spartan-but-clean rooms ... just fine for sleeping and then resuming the ride:
Tues noon stopped at the highest pt on the BRP, over a mile above sea level:
Tues, another overlook, starting to rain for the first time:
By Tues afternoon we had completed the entire BRP ... which was my main goal ... and then headed for Deal's Gap, which is where the Tail of the Dragon starts. There's a single gas station with 14 motel rooms and a restaurant. We got room number lucky 13. Another nice, clean place, although no cell coverage! We stayed here 2 nights:
Ridin' the Dragon:
And again ... we rode it a bunch!
Zoom I like ... sorry!
At the north end of the Dragon is a scenic overlook where many of the tired racers, I mean riders, stop to rest & talk:
Cheoah Dam is nearby. Stopping on a bridge? Sure, why not:
... and the Fontana Dam, which is surprisingly dilapidated; lots of cracks and shifted concrete = scary! This thing is way, way bigger than it looks here ... it's a looooong way down to that water:
After Deal's Gap, we stayed in Maggie Valley NC for our last nite. And after racing, I mean riding, the Dragon, I was checking my bike over and found that I had worn thru the rubber to the belt on the rear tire. And my front tire also getting very smooth and weird shaped, so my fun in any more curves was over until we could ride (delicately) over to Greenville SC to get new ones installed ... but since we headed home after that I didn't get to enjoy them in any curves. Next time :)
After new tires, we rode straight thru from Greenville back to FL and got home at midnight Fri Sep 11 ... about 8 days total, and exactly 2,020 miles.
Here's a 2.5-min video the FJR rider put together:
* Last updated by: extrapolator on 8/11/2021 @ 3:56 PM *
So it'll be a little bit of a surprise.
