Maggie Valley NC 3042 miles

Where do I even begin today? Got a bit of a late start because we wanted to tweak the shift lever on dirty gurl. It had been hitting me under the thigh and popping into neutral at the most inopportune times. Lots of near accidents for me and I got tired of the adventures. Asked Barry from 2 wheel inn if he knew of any welders in town. He called his buddy dave from boat and automotive repair. Dave said he would fix me up so off we went to his shop. We hung out while he finished an oil change. When he was done he came out to see what we had. We told him what we were looking for and he had us pull in to the shop. Didn't even have to take the shift lever off. He put a torch blanket over the tank and cylinder,lit the torch and started heating the lever. When it was red hot we bent it forward and up. Let it cool and then tried it out. Still needed some tweaking so we heated her up again and bent some more. Came out perfect. Thanks dave. We enjoyed meeting you and appreciate your willingness to help. Had breakfast at a local place called PA AND NANNA's. PA and NANNA's were both there so that was fun. Had a killer egg and bacon sandwich on Texas toast. Their little grand daughter who looked to be about 8 was practicing taking orders. It was pretty cute. Had gotten directions for the day from barry's wife at 2 wheel inn. Put them in my red neck gps holder and read my arm all day. Lots of turns on our route. Today's ride was a number of different things to me. Here are a few: exhilarating,exciting,breathtaking,challenging,rewarding,terrifying,adventuresome,long,exhausting. Well you get the idea. We took the back roads to our main destination-tail of the dragon. Along the way we stopped at the Fontana dam. They tell me this is the second biggest dam in the world behind Hoover dam. It is relatively unknown. You can walk right out on the dam or talk with the nice couple in the info area. Glad we stopped. had fun showing Ken,the fellow at the desk, the bikes. Also gave him a poker chip. I am sure he was on the web site before we drove away. Right ken? We headed on down the road to tackle the dragon. There were a lot of bikes at deal's gap which is the start of the tail. This road is like no other. There are upwards of 385 curves in 11 miles! All manner of vehicles are on the road from late model bikes,cars,trucks,vintage bikes:),and cafe racers. Trying to all coexist is difficult at best. To give you an idea of how this works you are advised on the web site to travel in the right portion of your lane to allow faster bikes to pass. And pass they do! Doesn't matter where you are a cafe bike will come roaring up behind you and pass however they can- right or left side(both happened to us today). Before you can blink an eye they are gone around the next curve. To a northern boy on vintage Indian this damn near makes you turd your pants. I am in to riding safely and this defies all things normal for me. It was very disconcerting to say the least. When we got done with that 11 miles I was exhausted. Little did I know the day was not over by a long shot. As an aside I have a sticker on my front fender now that says"I FREAKIN' rode the dragon". we headed up and over the mountain to a town called Townsend. Time for fuel and lunch. Got the low down on the black bear cafe and had to stop. The special was spaghetti and meat sauce. Make it two. Excellent meal and more than either of us could eat. Back in the saddle for the final push to home for the night. Thought we had it all dialed in but we took a right through something called " the scenic loop" when we should have taken a left and headed to Cherokee. Now let me tell you about the scenic loop. It is one lane one way. This means you keep going forward. Oh oh. Oops! First of all very slow,secondly the road goes from asphalt to pitted,bumpy gravel. Oh boy,my favorite! So here we are wondering WTF when all of a sudden we come over a little rise and there is a damn creek running over the road-on purpose, like you are supposed to enjoy this shit. We both make it through that unscathed and keep heading up the gravel path. All of a sudden the jeep in front of us(notice I said JEEP) stops dead. We are trying to figure this one out when out of the woods comes a bear cub. Holy crap! Is this animal kingdom? We're not done yet. In about 30 seconds mama bear and 2 more cubs come trotting across the road. Very cool! Sometimes getting lost can lead to the best adventures. We finally got turned around and headed toward Cherokee. Too bad it was 50 miles up and over the mountain- again. I was exhausted by then but we had to go since we were expected in Maggie valley at the kick start classic. Reveryone met at the wheels through time museum. If you have never seen the museum it is well worth the trip. It has all things with wheels that are old and cool. The great thing is that every piece in the museum runs! They will actually start it for you if you ask nice. The ride is hosted by buzz kanter of American iron magazine. Thanks buzz for including us in your ride. One hell of a day. Kiwi has some great pics he will be posting. Enjoy! I am going to bed since tomorrow we take on 250 miles of the blue ridge highway.