Tail of the Dragon

Asheville, NC – Day 36: More Dragon Photos & Mountain Views

I started the day in Robinsville like I did yesterday afternoon by attempting to drive the full 11 miles one way on the Tail of the Dragon and back. And once again I ran into slugs that wouldn’t pull out so I could get by, so I made it maybe 4 of the miles before turning around and leaving. Also again, I managed to get my portrait taken by 2 of the photographers that haunt the road. One repeat and the granddaddy that started the souvenir photo business, Killboy. Here are probably the two I’ll get a digital copy of:

I spent the day and overnighted with my Fairy Godbrother1 David moved to Asheville from Aiken not long after Donna and I headed west. I can’t take full credit for it, but it was one of the small factors he considered.

He gave me a tour of the area he lives in to show me around and gawk at all the hurricane Helene damage. When he first moved into his place, he cleared about 80′ back from his home, in spite of the comments from his tree-loving neighbors. Well, that 3-year-old project paid dividends last September. Every one of those neighbors suffered some sort of tree fall damage; nothing major, but still a big nuisance for them. David was no prescient, just smart.

I would swear he was the evil witch from Hansel and Gretel as he took me to his favorite Indian (the subcontinent type, not the indigenous kind) restaurant for a lunch buffet in downtown. Then a few hours later he decided we should go get a salad at a spot that serves something called “a very good green salad.” Surprisingly, it was a very good green salad. The trick was he ordered a side of french fries. See what I mean?

Before we headed back to his house, we made a stop at Whole Foods for fixin’s for an omelet for breakfast…

Ed note: David didn’t have internet, so this post was written on Saturday, not Friday.

Robbinsville, NC – Day 35: Another Ranch & Twisty Road Overload


Greenville to Robbinsville can be just a 3-hour drive, but checking ‘Avoid Highways’ turns it into three and a half. I managed to increase that to 5 hours. While bombing around on a backroad, if I came upon a group of slow-moving vehicles, at the next possible chance I would turn onto a road that was heading in the general direction I wanted to go, east or north. Worked like a charm 3 out of 4 times, but even going in the wrong direction on a clear, swoopy road beats going slowly in the right direction.

The road to the beginning of Deals Gap, AKA The Tail of The Dragon, is fun in and of itself. When I got to the intersection at the start, no one was coming my way, so I blasted off. I told myself that I would go as far as I could until I came upon a slow-moving vehicle. There are dozens of spots where they have paved turnouts for slow movers, but some people refuse to use them because they might lose ten seconds of travel time. About the time I caught up with someone, they were catching someone even slower. The odds of one car turning out to let you by are small to begin with, but with two, forget it.

I had gone about 5 miles of the eleven, so I just whipped a U-turn and drove back to Robbinsville. At least I got a few of the famed turns in. Luckily I had also already been by two of the many photographers who park in a spot and snap photos of every car that passes by. They all have a website that you can visit and look for your car and hopefully buy one or more high-resolution images of you driving. I have purchased several of the previous 2 Miatas, and one time I drove the 2010 Hyundai Sonata through the Gap and I bought a photo or two of that car as well.

Here are today’s proofs from the 2 photographers that I passed:

76,000 Turns in a Couple Hundred Miles

This weekend is a scouting mission for the annual Masters Miata Club gap trip in November. Sort of a good thing too because our go to Friday lunch spot in Highlands, NC is no longer in business. It has been replaced by a fancier restaurant that is only open for dinner. We ended up at a place just the next block over, but it was more expensive and not as good. Afterwards we wandered around town checking other places and think we have found one that might work.

Today was checking out an alternate loop for Saturday’s drive. There is nothing really wrong with the loop, but we have driven it a bunch of times and it is time for something new. They have opened up a new section of the Foothills Parkway and we wanted to incorporate it into the drive. We still want to end up at the Tellico Grains Bakery for lunch because no matter how many times we have eaten there we will never tire of their wood fired pizza.

I had Google Mapped out a nice little loop that included just the older section of the parkway because I wasn’t sure how much of the new section we could do. We drove the newer section for the heck of it and it turns out it wasn’t as long as I thought, so we are now going to include in our loop. The rest of the new roads were actually kind of fun, including the slower sections that wound through some houses and small farms.

Tomorrow morning we get up early and head on home. Seeing as we will passing through Hendersonville, NC we will stop and get some bagels at Joey’s and see if we can get my sister and her husband to meet us there.

Somewhere along the mountainous roads on the way up Friday the CTBNL zipped past the 76,000 mile mark.