Day 10. Smoky Mountains. Tail of the Dragon is closed, but lots of alternatives.

This could have been the perfect day, but the start was not right.
For a perfect day you need 53º F , blue sky and sun to start with. We started with only 52º F.
The rest was OK.

We rode on our own this morning, so we could make pictures and stops whenever we felt the need for doing that.
Egbert programmed his ZUMO, I did it on my 2820 and Marc put the route in his GW1800 NAVI.

Deals Gap, where the Tail of the Dragon starts showed a sign the road was closed.

Business is dramatically going down in this area. The impact of this 11 mile long road is tremendous.

We were told by Steve Kirkendoll, the man on the pic with Marc, that Dolly Parton called the governor to get the Tail open ASAP.

Instead of September it should open coming Wednesday. Dolly's business went down a lot. Her hotels have 75% unbooked rooms.

Steve retired last Thursday. His wife told him she did not want to see him after breakfast next day. Go ride!! Steve made many videos and shot pictures at Tail of the Dragon.

Check his website Steve's website

At Deal's Gap you wll find the Tree of Life, filled with broken parts found along the Tail.

We had the ultimate ride today. Excellent roads, curves, temperature and almost no traffic.

Here are some impressions we took with our cameras.

No words needed for explanation.

All pictures are made in:

by Egbert, me and:

Marc talks to all officers in uniform.

License plate of the police car:

We ended the day with a nice ride from Franklin to Robbinsville, took a shower and walked to all restaurants in this village to find food.

The only one that served food was the Mexican one we ate yesterday.

There was enough on the menu to chose from, so he got the business.

Tracklog:

Statistics:

Temp. low: 52º F

Temp. high: 79º F

Distance: 148 big (s)miles