Our Dragon Trip

[Gingersdaddy_imp]

We had a great time on our trip to Black Mountain this year. My brother-in-Law rents the cottage and family comes in from all over to spend the week. My original plan was to take off on my own and ride the Dragon and come back to Black Mountain and just make it a day trip. When my wife found out my plan she said she wanted to go too, but she wanted to stay overnight. So I started planning and with input from you guys on the forum I wanted to include the Cherohala Skyway.
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Pack up ready to leave Hertford, NC.
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So we started out from Black Mountain, it was a little chilly at about 8:30am taking 40 west to 74 west with a stop off at Maggie Valley and the Wheels Through Time Museum. Me and Sarah, aka Cupcake.
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It’s a great place to learn about the history of American motorcycling. The museum has a few cars and other things that were interesting. While we were there, Dale’s son Matt fired up one of the old Indians and talked to a group of us about it. If you go, plan some extra time for this stop. We grabbed a quick lunch (fast food) and jumped back on 74 west and picked up 28 on into Deals Gap. Hit a rain storm on 74 when we left Maggie Valley that lasted about 25 minutes . We had our liners in our coats and my pants were dry from the heat off the engine by the time we turned on to 28.
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We stopped at one of the overlooks on 28 and met a couple that had traveled down from Wisconsin with another couple. Chatted for a while and stretched our legs and took a few pictures.
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We pulled into Deals Gap and a guy on a Harley Tike pulled in and parked beside us, a huge fellow from Iowa. He had just finished a run on the Dragon and said that it wasn’t that bad, he’d seen worst roads in Iowa. We traded cameras and he took some pictures for us and we of him at the tree of shame. We spent about an hour getting shirts and checking things out and then started our run of the Dragon. No police on the Dragon. We caught up to a couple of dressed Harleys who eventually pulled to the side and lets us go. The CB handled it like a dream, it was great!
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We stopped after we finished snapped a couple more pictures. From there we picked up 72 over to 33/411 down Madisonville, TN and took 68 towards Sweetwater to the Days Inn. We were pretty beat by then, pulled in the parking lot at 5pm. 232 miles so far. After we rested for a while, started looking for dinner and found a Cracker Barrel in Athens about 13 miles away.
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Stopped in Robbinsville and had lunch at Lynn’s Place, great food nice people! Topped the bike off with gas and headed off on 143 to 28 back to 74 and 40 east back to the Cottage to end the trip.
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On Thursday we jumped on the bike and headed over to fellow forum members house just south of Asheville, NC, Houtman (John). It was my first time seeing a 2014 CB in person. Awesome machine and John had his 2013 CB and a sharp looking CB1000. He’s a great guy, we had an awesome time and a great lunch.
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And Unfortunately, loading everything up Friday evening for our trip home Saturday, I dropped the CB while loading it on my trailer. Scraped the lower left engine cover, I went down on the gravel driveway, busting my left knee open and scraping an elbow. Really upset with myself for not pulling the trailer up a little further to level ground before loading. I clocked about 560miles on the trip.