After our complimentary breakfast at the hotel, mmm…cinnamon rolls, it was off for the drive to Robbinsville for our reconnaissance mission.
First stop was in Andrews, NC for a peek at our first possible fun thing to do, a corn maze. After spending about 15 minutes talking with the manager that runs the thing, Donna remains excited, while I am now convinced that it will be not be and might possibly be too much like work to find our way through. As an option for the folks in our group who may not be able to do the walking, the field covers 7 acres and the maze has a total of 3 miles of paths, there is an indoor flea market a mile or so down the street.
Next we drove the final 25 miles to Robbinsville to check for possible restaurants. We had heard from another Club member that there have been the addition of Mexican and Chinese places to dine. One in which we were interested in is apparently not open for lunch and the persons inside would not even come to the door to give a menu after a couple of knocks on the glass. We may still try them out when we are there.
After a quick tour of town we headed north for a dragon run. I decided to turn around about 5 miles from reaching the goal as I was number 6 in line of minivans, pickups and SUVs that I just knew would make the trip through the dragon agony. Besides there were plenty of e-ticket roads that we had already driven and would drive this weekend. Definitely need to hit the gap in the early AM before the normal folks get there.
Next up was a trip into the Joyce Kilmer Forrest for a look at possible non-car diversion #2. There was a short, rated easy hike in the woods with two distance options. After Donna and I walked 25 yards into the trail we knew that it would not be doable for more than 50% of our group. Way too steep, slippery, etc. Oh well, maybe it’ll rain and we will all stay inside and watch HBO on the telly that weekend.
Now hot and disappointed, with the cheap BBQ sandwich bought at the “Outback Trading Post” broiling in our bellies we headed the 90 miles back to Dahlonega. One good thing about the return trip was we detoured over to GA60 for 44 miles of new twisty pavement. The last 12 miles are almost as good as the gap. This road, nicknamed the Snake, is a favorite of Atlantians who own sport bikes or cars as it is only about an hour and a half away for them.
Purchased Today: $26.50 in gas
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1125.91
Started up, went down, went up, back down, back up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 204