A Tale Of The Tail Of The Dragon

[JerryHofschneider]

Random puffs of fog appear in patches on the slopes of the impossibly green mountains, drifting out of the trees and getting captured by unseen breezes that blow them into oblivion. They appear, they puff and they drift on the wind only to reappear upslope, giving delightful animation to the static scenery of tree and stone...

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[AZhitman]

Welcome back, Jerry!

Hope you don't mind, but you're back on the homepage. We've missed you, brother!

[PapaSmurf2k3]

Nice. Makes me sad I'm missing it.

[float_6969]

Sucks I'm missing this. I really wanted to go this year. The S14 is drivable, but still WWAAYYY too many bugs to work out for a trip like that. I'm thinking by next year I'll have it all sorted out.

[PapaSmurf2k3]

Jerry's G looks amazing too.

[elwesso]

It was a great time, you all missed out. The weather was PERFECT, and the route we took was fantastic, hardly any other cars on the roads we took!

[BusyBadger]

Glad the weather was do good for y'all. The local forecast where I am combined with Hurricane Hermine made me think it was going to be pretty rough driving down there.

I was with y'all in spirit and took a trip up US 421 on Saturday afternoon.

[AZhitman]

I'm exhausted. I ran the Dragon 4x, but the real highlight was the Blue Ridge Parkway and the road from Cherokee to Sassafras Mountain.

[float_6969]

Blue Ridge Parkway is beautiful! Is the speed limit still 55 though?

[AZhitman]

It varies throughout. Honestly, there were segments that would be a challenge to navigate at the speed limit, even in a modern sedan.

[JerryHofschneider]

A few years ago, after losing a couple tanks of gas worth at the Cherokee Casino, I drove up on the Blue Ridge on my way to Asheville, happily ignoring the ridiculously minimalist speed limit. Suddenly I was passed by three monster bikes, riders who were not just ignoring the speed limit signs but arrogantly defying them by gunning their Harleys to twice the posted limit. They flew past me in a blur and vanished around a curve. I knew that stretch of road well and thought that they were fools.

A few miles later, I came to the first of the tunnels.
Imprinted against the stone wall of the tunnel entrance and looking like the remains of a huge windshield-spattered bug, one of the Harley drivers had turned himself into a statistic, a fatality.
It looked like he had not anticipated a rockwall tunnel and had come around a curve and ridden full-out into the stone. A half-dozen cars that he must have zoomed by were halted on the road, two of the bikes that had recently passed me were on the roadside and Harley parts were scattered across the tarmac.

I've driven the Blue Ridge--and a lot of roads like it--many times, and it was the first time I'd seen such a gruesome sight. The incident taught me a lesson that I have never forgotten (but sometimes ignored)-- If you don't know the road, don't push the speed beyond your skills.