| on Thanksgiving weekend - what a wild ride! Much thanks to Ballistic for talking me into going out of my way and for the following load of ear-to-ear grins as I recalled it on the rest of my drive back home. ;-) I spent Thanksgiving in Chattanooga with my dad and his girlfriend. Met up with Ballistic, "Opie" and g/f while there, shared stories, mutually admired Zs (B, sorry yours was under the weather!). Cool people. Witnessed some parking lot rage as an SUV appeared to purposely back into an innocent Altima parked in the lot there. :-/ Sunday morning I left bright and ... well, no, I'm not a morning person! Dropped by the local WallyWorld, my least favorite store, but they have CB radios, and I took B's recommendation to pick one up and was later glad I did as the truckers kept me informed and in stitches travelling back in holiday traffic on the highway. Left there around 10:20 and finally got on my way. Mileage: 97226. I took the exit for Cleveland, TN off I-75, which took me down Hwy 74, along the Ocoee River - nice and scenic. Ocoee Dam #1:
 
A little farther down:
 At Ducktown I took Highway 68 (mileage: 97283), which was just beautiful. At Tellico Plains I followed B's advice and caught the Cherohala Skyway (mileage: 97316, time: 12:58), highways 165 & 143, and that's where the fun began - 
This highway runs across the tops of the mountains, and you can see for miles, it seems - go around a curve, look way down and out to the left, make the next curve, see down and out to the right, and so on for the length of the highway. It had some nice curves to boot. It's the red road on this map on my hood: 
Beautiful views:
 
A little bit of snow - as you may have noticed on the map, the road gets to over 5,000 feet in elevation:
 
Oh no!
 
Friggin' Grandma and Grandpa with handicapped tags ridin' the brakes and not pulling aside to let sportscars pass! *grumble*
 
Sweeeeet...
 
For those who don't know, Highway 129, a.k.a. the Tail of the Dragon, is 318 curves in 11 miles, and many of them are switchbacks. I've read other people's rave reviews of it but was like, "Whatever; it's a curvy road". Not so: it is THE curvy road! Since I drove it I've been wishing in vain for anything remotely like it up here. 
From that point on, I didn't take many pictures at all. I learned my lesson about stopping to do so on the Cherohala Skyway, when all the slow people you've passed at the rare broken-yellow-line spots have the opportunity to pass YOU as you take pictures of the pretty scenery. So, really, I need to do the circuit twice in one day: once to ooh and ahh and then again for the thrill of it. And then again for the thrill of it. And then again... ;-) I'm really glad I've experienced my car on a track so that I had some idea of what it was capable of. I was also glad I upgraded to bigger brakes since I'd heard of people experiencing brake fade on this road, but I didn't feel any. The brakes were great, "Sport" setting on the suspension was great, and I had an unbelievable time barrelling around those curves, revelling in the forces of gravity. Lots of vehicles were out playing; it was a BEAUTIFUL day for it. The big cruiser motorcycles were respectful; the crotch rockets weren't, but I could hardly blame them as they could go so much faster. I wonder how many have met their doom showing off on those curves. They were doing the racer thing with one knee to the asphalt and the other foot in the air. I let them pass whenever they came up on me, then watched as they crossed the double yellow line to blast by the vehicle in front of me on the next switchback. Insane. Eventually I got stuck behind a slow-moving SUV who didn't feel like letting me by, and after grumbling about it for a few minutes, I realized there was no one behind me, so I just stopped dead in the road the next time I found a spot where I could see far enough behind me to know if someone was coming up. Figured I'd grow some space between me and him. That worked well as I got in a few nice runs, catching up to him then stopping again. On one of those stops I was able to get a few shots which I stitched together into this: 
The Dragon is pretty much 11 miles of that - banked curves, changing elevation, scenic views. BREATHTAKING. 
Here I am, sadly finished with the curves and envying every single vehicle I see heading in the other direction (mileage: 97397, time: 2:57):
 Looking back toward the Dragon:
 Where I stopped for t-shirts (mileage: 97410):
 
I then proceeded to get lost trying to get back on course. Finally reached the southern border of VA at 7:22 pm, 97569 miles on the odo. Luckily memories of my sidetrip and truckers telling stories about she-males kept me wide awake until I was an hour from home, when my eyelids suddenly gained weight. I discovered that shouting along with Korn and Linkin Park at the top of my lungs wakes me up quite well! Reached home with 97947 miles on the odo at almost 1:00 am. Good thing I like to drive! I highly recommend those roads to any driving enthusiast, with one request: if you're there to sight-see, PLEASE let the fast cars go by!!! Oh, and Killboy was shooting pics on one curve of the Dragon, which you can then buy off his site later in the week. Now waiting for my CD to arrive in the mail... =) So, who's going to ZDayZ with me this year??? 8)
"I was previously a aviation mechanic and avionic technician and this car is harder to work on than Aircraft." - Hocuz77 03:04:56 02/28/06
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Caught myself a Dragon (Long, lots of pics!) - 
