Halloweenie

[Bntoples]

Heading to the Phillips Motel in Robbinsville 10/31-11/2 for a Halloweenie-a costumed weekend of driving the twisties, eating some Fat Buddies BBQ & just generally having fun in the mountains.
Yes It's the same w/e as our meeting but..... Anyway, anybody want to tag along??
I'll be leaving Friday afternoon ~3:00 when I get off from work & trying to make the trip up with out stopping to sleep, it's ~ 6 hours from Smithfield. If I can make it fine, if not I'll stop at the Quality @ exit 55 on I-40 to sleep & then head up in the morning.
Plan is Cherohala Skyway Sat am & Wayoh Rd.-Fat Buddies Sat. evening.

Hope some of y'all can make it.

Ken

[tgull]

We just got back from a week-end up there at Deal's Gap! Fantastic! We got the dragon tamed and had a good time looking all around. The leaves changed colors ion the 3 days we were there. We did Dragon and Hellbender on Saturday and Cherohala Skyway on Sunday...ate at Ruby's in Robbinsville(seemed like only thing open on Sunday). Sweetwater's BBQ there is closing for good...we are ready for the Gap in July now! Tim & Gayenell

PS Go to http://www.Moonshinephoto.com
and check out cars on October 4 starting at photo number 297 of 963...we are in several series there and the lost one shows Tim's new tag great! We have photos on other sites but Oct 4 is not posted, yet!

[bladernr]

My wife and I will be headed that way on the 31st too. We're using up the rest of our timeshare for this year at Fontana. The plan so far is to drive the Cherohala, Wayah Road to Fat Buddies, and maybe the Dragon, and some other local roads we wanted to check out... BUT we also want to do some other things this time too, maybe some hiking, a day in Gatlinburg or Cherokee, who knows...

Maybe we'll run into you out there (not literally, I hope!)

Cheers
Jeff

[Bntoples]

Cool!! I presume you're going to be there for the rest of the week? I've done that as well, but I just drove around in the morning & relaxed the rest of the day. It was nice to just take it easy.... Of course Dawn was home.. One day I'll get around to riding The Great Smoky Mountains Railroad.

[bladernr]

Cool!! I presume you're going to be there for the rest of the week? I've done that as well, but I just drove around in the morning & relaxed the rest of the day. It was nice to just take it easy.... Of course Dawn was home.. One day I'll get around to riding The Great Smoky Mountains Railroad.

Well, depending on what your plans are, maybe we could all get get together and have a mini MATG or a mini club meet

The only thing we really have planned so far is one day to ride around the mountains to Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge and back, then an afternoon revisiting some waterfalls that were on Hal's waterfall tour, Wayah road loop, some Fat Buddies Q, and maybe a ride over to Tellico. We found a great place to eat over in Tellico this past July and would like to stop in there again. We also thought about leading a Cherohala drive next MATG and stopping there for lunch before looping back around to 129.

We're driving up on the 31st and staying until that following wednesday, so we have all day Sat - Tues to do stuiff, or to not do stuff, whatever happens to pop up.

Anyone else interested in a Halloweenie trip to the Dragon???

And even if we don't ride up together, I'll be in the 91 BRG, amateur radio plates and a big bug catching smile. My wife will be staring at me as though I grew a new arm or something

[Bntoples]

Ok, I won't be on the road until after 3pm Friday, I plan on driving straight thru & get to the Phillips Friday night, but depending on sleep I may not get there until Saturday morning. Would you like to run to Tellico Saturday afternoon & have dinner at the restaurant you tried?

[bladernr]

That would be cool. Last time we made a big loop of it...

EDIT: phpBB doesn't like me embedding iFrame google maps, so here's a link instead:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&saddr=M ... 59616&z=11

It starts where you turn off 129 toward the Cherohala, runs to Tellico, then back up the Cherohala about a mile to 360. 360 to the lake, around the lake, then on to 129, over the gap and the map route ends at Crossroads of Time, so from there, its back to Robbinsville, or down 28 to Fontana.

its a nice drive, if you like cruising through farmland and around the lakes and such. There's also a real neat waterfall we found off the Cherohala last time that we may stop at again. And 360 is not the only road you can take through the country either... there are quite a few that interconnect that we didn't see last time. I may look over them in the next few days and plot out a better route for my GPSr.

I think we had already planned on doing this route Saturday evening, so yeah, come on along. we can figure out when/where to meet in a few days and figure out a good time to do it. The whole trip, not counting stopping for food, takes anywhere from 2 - 3 hours, depending on things like traffic. We took a lot longer last time because we stopped at a lot of the overlooks on the Cherohala, drove to the waterfall we found and looked around there for a while, had dinner, and then took a leisurely drive back around Tellico Lake and onto the Dragon. We didnt make it back to the Crossroads until well after dark, but it was a good time, for sure.

I imagine that it'll be really nice, if a little chilly, on that weekend, but we're hoping the leaves will be well into changing by then. We went last fall a week or two later than this year and caught the peak leaf season almost by accident. I've got some great shots from that up on Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/justageek/ ... 008/01/08/

Cheers,

Jeff

[Bntoples]

Ok Great!! This sounds like a nice run & I'm looking forward to it. My cell is 919-738 5321. I probably won't hear it ring so leave me a voice mail.

I've also seen the cut off for the waterfall but have always been in a large group so I've never stopped. Maybe this time?

[bladernr]

I meant to reply to this sooner... but where / when would you like to meet up? I think the easiest thing to do would be to either just meet up on the first pullover on the Cherohala, or somewhere in Robbinsville. Either way you want to go works for me. If we meet up around 1 or so, there should be plenty of time to drive, stop by the waterfall, and catch dinner in Tellico.

I'm not positive how late they'll be open though. I really don't know if the places in Tellico keep seasonal hours like the places around the Gap do or not. When we found the place during MATG, we were the only people there throughout our meal, and we got there probably around 6ish or maybe a little later.

Anyway, let me know what you'd like to do. And since you showed me yours, I'll show you mine Cell that is... 919-444-3448

[tgull]

Hey! We have a friend who has opened a NEW Convenience Store at the intersection of HWY 143 (Cherohala Hwy) and 129 outside Robbinsville...It's called Skyway Convenience--the owner is Nina (pronounced with a LONG i) Yeargin. I think it's a Chevron Station...they were putting on final touches and parking lot when we were there in early October. You could meet there If you stop in see if she is there and tell her Gayenell & Tim Gull sent you--she will get a kick out of that. G & T

PS We are going to try to get some "special" goodies from her place(maybe like a free drink or something) to give to TMR members before we go to Deal's Gap in July 2009!

[Bntoples]

Yeah, that's where the 3 NCHP troopers was sitting when we ran the Skyway & ended up partying with us at the Phillips last July. 3 Really cool dudes.

So Jeff we can meet @ 1pm Sat. at the new store? Sounds good.

Ken.

[bladernr]

Yeah, that's where the 3 NCHP troopers was sitting when we ran the Skyway & ended up partying with us at the Phillips last July. 3 Really cool dudes.

So Jeff we can meet @ 1pm Sat. at the new store? Sounds good.

Ken.

Sure thing, Ken. That works for me. We'll be there at 1 in the little BRG and The Weather Channel is predicting temps around 70 all weekend, and no clouds!

[Bntoples]

[bladernr]

Woo HOOOOO!!! It's BEAUTIFUL out here at Fontana!!!! The weather is perfect, the leaves are gorgeous and it'll be a great time to ride around topless!

The Crossfire group is here this weekend, but no Porsche group like last fall. Not too many people at all. We may even get a cop free ride on the Dragon while we are out here.

[bladernr]

Well, for all you who stayed east for the weekend, I hope y'all had a good time at the party. Ken, my wife and I had a great time (I did at least, and I'm pretty sure Mr. BnTopless did too) out in the Gap area. We spend a great afternoon driving the Cherohala all the way to Tellico. We had a great dinner there at a little place my wife and I found during MATG in July and then we made our way around the country to 411, then on to 74.

We spent some time at the overlook on the Dragon, and drove the rest of the way in the dark. I've driven the Dragon after dark a time or two, and it never ceases to amaze me, hardly any traffic, and absolutely no light at all, save for what comes from your headlights.

My wife and I are here through Wednesday, and having a ball. It's been gorgeous and we spent the day hiking today. Tomorrow we're headed around to the other side of the smokies to visit a little place we found on a Gatlinburg trip last fall, then hopefully we can make our way through to Cades Cove and via Parson's Branch road (if it's still open) to 129. Another fun day in the works!

[Bntoples]

Thanks for including me in your weekend, I did indeed have a Great time. The pizza really hit the spot.

Sunday morning I left for home ~9am, ran Wayoh to Franklin & Fat Buddies is closed on Sundays. So being the resourseful guy that I am I ran Elljay Rd. over to NC107 then down to NC281 eventually getting to Brevard & lunch at a Burger King. There is a dirt/gravel stretch of 281 so I turned off & got lost. Pulled out my trusty Tom Tom & got back on track. While in Brevard I had hoped to see a guy I grew up with but I was unannounced & he wasn't home so I left a message on his machine.
I continued on home via US64 which was a loooong mistake. Lots'a slow traffic & it took 30 minutes to get thru the one mile of Lake Lure but it sure was nice being seen...... By this time it was 2:30pm & I still had 5-1/2 hours to go to get home so I hot footed it back to I-40 & made it home by about 7:30pm.

So all in all a Great weekend.

[bladernr]

Glad you enjoyed it. I haven't logged into the forums since I posted that last post, so sorry for not replying sooner.

We did some hiking sunday and tuesday... Hiked to an old cemetery that's about a mile from Fontana Dam. After that, we hiked on down the gravel road and found an old abandoned homestead.

Of course, on the way in, we came across 4 bears. One climbed up the hill to the road, stepped out on the road just in time to turn to see me and my astonished look. he gave me a look of his own that clearly said "Oh CRAP!" and he turned and ran back down the hill. I went on up the road and saw him running off into the wood. About that time, I noticed the other 3. Two were up a tree, and peeked around the tree at me, got the same look the other one got, and the three of them took off after the first.

Then on the way back out to the car, we heard a weird noise and something that sounded like boulders rolling down the mountainside. Turned out to be 5 or 6 wild boar, running down one side of a ravine and back up the other side...

On monday, we went across the parkway (not the BRP, the one off of 129) over to Apple Valley Farms, then we went into Cades Cove in the smokies... you can't drive fast, but that was a really neat place to explore... there we saw all sorts of deer, and even saw a coyote trotting along the side of the road, paying no attention at all to all the cars and humans...

We took Parson's Branch road back to 129 from Cades Cove. THAT was an interesting drive... I know you don't like gravel roads in that pretty NC you've got, but hey, I've got a 91 with some dings, so I don't mind so much

We had a great week, loved staying at the cabin at Fontana, and i really wish I could have afforded to stay longer... but I had to come back to work, sadly...

[topdnfun]

We took Parson's Branch road back to 129 from Cades Cove. THAT was an interesting drive....

What were the fords through the streams like? I was under the impression that this road was not passable in a Miata. Take any pictures?

[bladernr]

Heh... good thing the stream was low

Actually, the fords are all concrete. They are smooth and easily sloped. As long as the water isnt too high there's no problem at all in a Miata. The road isn't rutted out either. I don't think they scrape it but maybe once every year or so, but so few people use it that it's still fairly smooth.

There was only one questionable spot, and that was the only steep uphill stretch, and it was OK too, just a little challenging if you're not used to driving a manual transmission up a steep gravel road, BUT, take it slow and everything is OK.

Honestly, from the looks of things, I don't think the stream crossings would be that bad even with the water up a bit. When we went, the water was just barely over the concrete, so it was more like just driving through any puddle you'd find 'round the triangle after a good storm, and a couple were even dry completely.

I only have one picture, because we took the road in the dark. I'm insane, but I also have some ... experience in taking small passenger cars places they probably shouldn't be. My mom never did find out about the time I took her old Nissan offroad through a mud field (never once got stuck), and I took a small rental over a mountain logging road once too...

I would NOT encourage anyone else to do it, BUT, if you like doing things like that, don't mind taking your time, and know how to drive a vehicle on gravel (especially very loose gravel), you'll be fine. It's beautiful through there, probably the most beautiful place I've ever driven a vehicle, especially in the twilight and then the dark of night.

It took us about an hour to navigate the whole road, even though it's only runs about 10 miles or so from Cades Cove, mostly because we were doing it in the dark for the most part, and partly because we had the top down and were enjoying being in a convertible in the middle of a giant old-growth forest with no other vehicles or people around for miles.

But again, I am insane, so I do things like that from time to time