Burgman/Dragon Rally

This past weekend was really good. My friend Vince and I rode to
Vonore, TN to the Burgman/Dragon rally. The ride up was fairly
uneventful though it took us from 7am to 5pm to get there with no long
stops. We got some good country lanes and even a few gravel roads
that were not too bad. The meeting was at 7pm at the Countryside
Restaurant. They had good food reasonably priced. Vince went to his
hotel after that and I stayed with my friend Kathy in Knoxville.

Meetup for the big ride on Saturday was at the Grand Vista Hotel in
Vonore. Kathy came along in her Dodge. We left at 9am and rode all
round the Smoky mountains, especially the big-attraction routes of
SR-165 known as the Cherohala Skyway (a very scenic road with lots of
pull-offs for pictures) and the biggie (for me) US-129 aka "The
Dragon".

On the way home we ran up into Virginia, for no other reason than just
to say we've been there. We took US-421 off and on from Virginia into
Kentucky (then further on in toward Berea) and it is a great ride. At
one point on the way back, we found a great little side road that went
to gravel, then finally into a pay-lake. At the pay lake, the GPS
routed me out onto a dirt path. There was very little gravel, just
mainly brown creek-rock! I hit a good sized rut in the road and got
stuck. Vince helped me get the bike out and it was either this rut or
another like it that tore up my front fender. It is loose, but not
really broken. Some tabs are broken on the inside and should be an
easy fix. I didn't find this out until Midway, KY when we pulled off
to fuel.

Another thing is somewhere along 421, I saw a cool mountain spring
coming out the side of a hill. I stopped and got a drink. I also
filled the two plastic bottles I had with it to take home to the kids.
There were lots of cool sights seen this weekend, and good roads
(except for the dirt motorcross track we ended up on!).

Pictures here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/the1weasel/BurgmanDragonRally09?feat=directlink