Stinging Bees, Angry Trees, and Cherokees

[Nice Goat]

(Photo credits: @KevinB , Killboy's junior employee, and myself)

Last month, Kevin and I went up to TN/NC to ride some dirt roads.  It was raining Friday, so we took the cage to check out Deal's Gap and the new section of Foothills Parkway.  We had dinner in a smoke-infused dive bar in Marysville.

On Saturday, we rode our dual sports up North River Road past Whigg Meadow, then over 20 miles of the Cherohala Skyway in freezing rain, then down Little Snowbird Road, and up and over Porterfield Gap and the Dirt Dragon (officially, Forest Road 304).  Kevin got stung by a bee on Little Snowbird while I took pictures of a bilingual English-Cherokee road sign.  Two Cherokee girls in a black SUV stopped to see if we were okay while Kevin tried to get the bee out of his jacket.  After the Dirt Dragon, we stopped for lunch at the Red Brick Deli in Murphy, where we sat outside and had to endure some abuse from an angry old lonely woman at the next table who didn't want to share her napkin dispenser.

After lunch, we rode Joe Brown to McFarland, visited the ruins, then Smith Mountain and Kimsey Mountain.  We encountered high winds and rapidly worsening weather on Smith Mountain and Kimsey Mountain, where I had a branch fall on me while we were riding!  Nearly knocked me off the bike.  Any bigger and it would have.  Kevin and I were talking on the Sena communicators, and he said that it looked like the whole tree was angry by the way it was swaying back and forth.  We decided to head back to the campground, where we got cleaned up and went for pizza at The Bear's Den in Tellico (formerly Krambonz BBQ).  The pizza was most excellent.

Overall, it was a nice little weekend diversion.  I wish that it could have lasted longer.

[thinwater]

Captivating accurate title poet Nice Goat!  Great adventure!  I still haven't ridden up that way.

[Guidedawg]

Great perspective on things. Others might have written about what a horrible time they had with weather, ill-tempered folks, and things not going as planned.

Then again, others wouldn't also think it's fun to grab a dual sport and go riding around dirt roads a few states away.

Thank for the pics and write up!

[Nice Goat]

Captivating accurate title poet Nice Goat!  Great adventure!  I still haven't ridden up that way.

I'll be planning a group ride up there in the spring.  Maybe you can join us then!

[lazeebum]

Nice pictures and write up. You never know what you'll run into over there.

[Chitza]

Great report, Glenn. Can't wait for that spring ride!