Thursday, Oct. 11 The Road Less Traveled

My niece is getting married on Saturday in Georgia.  Since I am driving down I decided to make a long weekend and get a little camping done at the same time.  I left around 6:30 a.m. and following my Garmin headed down Rt 38 to I-71 and on into Kentucky.  The venue for the wedding is in northern Georgia at Wolf Mountain Vineyards in the city of Dahlonega.  It is rather in the middle of nowhere so I thought it might be nice to take the back roads to get there and chose a campground just beneath the Smokie Mountains in North Carolina.  My navigation Garmin led me to Knoxville and then onto Rt. 129.  It was not until I was well on my way that it dawned on me that this road, that appeared to be one that would not be taken by many was instead called the Tail of the Dragon and used by every biker as a "right of passage".  Rt. 129 contains 318 switchbacks which makes the mule ride to Kalaupapa look like a piece of cake.  At the top was an overlook that I stopped at and there were at least 40 bikers parked there as well.  I was told that a semi tractor trailer truck had tried to navigate the road and had tipped over and was blocking traffic.  So I spent time just hanging out and enjoying the view for about an hour.  Soon I was on my way and an hour later I found the Turkey Creek Campground.  It was a very nice, quiet campground complete with a campground dog that accompanied me on my hike to the lake.  We saw the Great Smokie Mountain Railway pass by and I think that I would like to ride it someday.  It is a narrow gauge passenger train that passes from Bryson City to Andrews going through the Nantahala Gorge.  I built a campfire, ate and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

Bikers at the overlook

My hiking companion, Huey.

The train

The caboose