Day 1: Cherohala Skyway

By Gaz under Bikes & Cars, Travel

So, that’s it for our trip to Tennessee. Two weeks gone in a flash. For some reason we booked a condo in Orlando from tonight, but even with the best will in the world it is going to take us 3 days to ride back to Florida.

Luckily we had packed everything last night since we were supposed to check out by 10am, and I didn’t wake up until 9:12am. D’oh! I guess I should have hit “snooze” instead of “shut up, I’m still tired” on my alarm at 7am. With some running around, brushing of teeth while getting dressed, and skipping inessentials like breakfast, we managed to make it out by a hair…

The last couple of times we’ve ridden into the mountains this week, it’s almost induced hypothermia. Thankfully, the weather has held out for us today. Even though we needed a full complement of jackets and gloves, it was actually pretty warm in the sun.

As soon as we pulled out of the resort, first stop: Gatlinburg Mountain Grill, for a hearty ham and eggs late breakfast to see us on our way through the days riding. We were fed, watered and finally saddled up and on our way proper before 11am.

The first part of the route through the Smoky Mountains National Park and into North Carolina was all the better for being in daylight, with brooks and creeks at the roadside peppered with an occasional waterfall from the rock formations. The roads actually weren’t quite so scary now that the ice had melted, except in an occasional tunnel or a deep valley (that made my butt clench heart skip a beat a couple of times today!). Cherokee and Bryson City, however, we had seen before when we rode back from Deal’s Gap last week (March 3rd, timewarp post forthcoming ~Al).

We crossed back into Tennessee and started the gorgeous ride along Cherohala Skyway around 2pm. Unfortunately, we kept stopping to take a zillion photos of the panoramic scenery along the way, so we didn’t reach the first pit-stop at the other side for almost another 2 hours!

I don’t know where Tave has gone in this picture… but perhaps 4 hours without a toilet break was torturing her unnecessarily

We’d secretly hoped that we might make it into Georgia today, but we had been told not to miss the Cherohala Skyway by: the staff of Gatlinburg Harley (a weird dealership — it has no bikes!!); barstaff at the Hard Rock Cafe; ShawnKing; not to mention various bikers we’d run in to through the week, and we certainly weren’t disappointed. 7 hours and 168 miles later, we decided to call it a day at the first hotel we reached on I-75.

We can makeup the shortfall on mileage tomorrow when we hit the interstate. Here’s hoping we can miss the traffic through Atlanta.

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