Dragon and Cherohala Skyway

Sunrise from our room this morning. Too bad the power lines were in the way.

Water level extremely low on the lakes around here. This is Fontana Lake

Fog on Fontana Lake

Tree of Shame (This is where you leave your parts of your bike after you crash on the Dragon)

The bike that didn't survive the crash this morning.

Top of the Cherohala Skyway over 5,000 ft.

Covered Bridge at the end of the Cherohala Skyway

Coming down off the Cumberland Plateau, between Crossville and SpartaWe left Cherokee this morning. Ran into fog pretty quick and it was chilly with the top down. Didn't take long though and it cleared off. We went back up to ride the dragon again. When we got to the start to buy our "Survived the Dragon" T-shirt, there was a guy there that had just wrecked on his bike. They had hauled it back to the store. They said he dislocated his shoulder but popped it back in, but his bike didn't survive that good. We road the 11 miles and 318 curves up and back. Whew! lots of curves. The lakes are very dry up there as you can see in the pics. Then we drove the Cherohala Skyway. It is 50 miles long and a lot like the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was a very nice curvy drive. After that we drove through Sweetwater on Hwy 68. We didn't get on the interstate all the way home until we reached Lebanon, and that was only for about 6 miles.

Blue Ridge Parkway

Bridal Veil Falls (Since it has been very dry here, not much waterfall, but you can drive your car under them) We didn't of course for obvious reasons. :)

Mountain View from Blue Ridge Parkway

This pic is hazy, but the trees are starting to turn. They will be pretty next weekend.

Blue Ridge Parkway

We finally found gas about 40 miles away from where we were this morning. We were getting kind of worried. Buddy had called several places before we finally found some. Then after that every time we saw a station with gas after we had driven awhile we would stop and top off. We drove more twisty turny roads. The video just don't give the roads justice and I had to make Buddy slow down a few times. I know he would love to be on those roads by himself, so he could let the pony slide through the turns. We are now in Cherokee, NC. I'm getting ready to go out and sit on the patio and read awhile so my head will stop spinning. We will be back at it again tomorrow on the way home. We are driving the Cherohala Skyway, another 50 miles of twisty turns. http://www.cherohala.com/

Tail of the Dragon & Helen, GA

This was the guy in the lounge dancing with his beer hat on. He was funny. Sorry the pic didn't turn out good.

Helen, GA

We survived the Tail of the Dragon. Whew, quite a road. 318 curves in 11 miles. I didn't really get to see much of it, because I was either taking pics or videoing the whole time. Buddy sure had fun other than he couldn't go as fast as he wanted to. The speed limit is 30 mph. and most of the time that is all you can do and stay in the turns. I accidentally deleted a video on my digital camera of a cop coming toward us. He turned his lights on and turned around behind us, Buddy thought he had been had, and the fines are stiff on that stretch of road. But he evidently wasn't after us. There weren't many motorcycles on the road yet, I guess since it had rained the night before and they were waiting on the roads to dry out. The roads on to Helen, GA were just about as curvy. We got here around 2:30 and walked around. They are in the middle of Oktoberfest and it is quite lively around here. We ate at Paul's Steakhouse. Delicious prime rib and I could only eat half of mine. They need to serve women's size portions. I sure hated to waste it. After we got through eating we were walking past the lounge area and there was this older gentleman dancing. I thought he was so funny with his big beer mug hat on. He was having a grand ole time, just had to take a pic of his hat. This morning we are off to ride some more curvy roads and end up in Cherokee, NC. That is if we can find gas. There is none here in Helen.

Quick Weekend Trip

This is my fish pond. I was just trying to see if I could figure out how to download a video from my camera. Through our travel from last month we accumulated enough Choice Hotels Points to get 2 free nights. We are going to take a quick weekend trip to drive "The Tail of the Dragon" It is a circle tour of 120 miles of twisty turn roads. One section of it has 318 curves within 11 miles. It is on the other side of the mountain from Gatlinburg. Buddy should have fun driving the road, I'll just be hanging on. http://tailofthedragon.com/ We are also going to Helen, Ga. http://www.helenga.org/ This is a really neat little town that we have been to before. All the hotels, restaurants and stores are constructed like buildings you would see in Germany. So if I survive the dragon, I'll send some pics. :)

My sweet boys

Not sure this is how pool tables were meant to be used, but it works at Grandma's

All smiles Nolen

Mischievous Mr. Mitchell

Sweet little Trevor



We had our usual Thursday night family get together. This week we had French Onion soup, Chicken noodle soup. Then it was fix your own sub sandwich. My mom made cherry cobbler, and apple cobbler. Nothing fancy just fun with the family. The boys had their play time. Uncle John and Kristin took Nolen and Mitchell to the bonus room, because they can get a little loud, which makes adult conversation kind of hard. Poor Trevor was feeling a little left out, he wanted to go too. He just can't quite hang with the bigger ones yet. Trevor had to go to the doctor this week, but seems much better. Mitchell was running a fever yesterday, so not sure what is going on there. So, until next week, that's about all from Grandma's Hill.

Back in the routine

John, Kristin, Mitchell, Me, Buddy, Nolen, Craig, Jamie, and Trevor

Buddy and his boys


We've been back a couple of days now and are getting back into the routine of some sort of normalcy. Which means not eating out. Whew, I never eat out and when you have to for 10 days straight, just makes you glad to be home. Not only did we eat out, we ate bad. (unhealthy) Sure ran across some very good food though.



Thursday nights are "Family Night" at my house. All the kids, my mom and dad and Jeremy come to eat. We have now added a new member of the Thursday night gang, Shannah. There is kind of a running joke about Buddy always wearing a grey t-shirt of some sort. With me it is usually something black. Well he had 2 Mackinac Island GREY shirts and they both had stains on them. So when we went back over this year, I was determined to buy him another. At first I didn't think we were going to find it but finally ran across some. So I decided we needed to get the whole gang grey ones just like his as a joke. We found one for everyone but me and Jamie. Of course I picked black for me. So just had to take a pic of all of us in our shirts. Hard to get a good group pic, but this was the best we could do as the boys were ready to get in the water and swim.

Home Again

We made it home. Glad to be back in a way, but I sure love to travel. I can't wait to see my boys. That is the hardest part of being away. We had a really great time, and I'm already looking forward to planning our trip for next year. We kind of veered off course a bit but it sure was for the better. We have no clue where next years trip will be, but I think we have pretty much covered all of the Michigan coast. And if you have never been there it is absolutely gorgeous. We really liked it in Maine. So may do the Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont area, but that's a long way off. The funny thing about this trip and last years was the miles we traveled. I kept up with mileage every day and last year we went 2,743 miles and this year it was 2,740. I thought that was so odd. I had no clue it was that close until I got home and looked at last years journal. The worse part about this trip was I have no video. It has been acting up all summer, but it was working when we left and the first day. Then after that I didn't try it again for 3 days. I tried charging up the battery and it worked for just a little while then quit. Oh well, I have tons of pics. I would have loved to have the video though when the ships were going by Saturday and at the Ford Museum on Sunday. So until next year that is all of the traveling for us. I am going to try to keep the blog going but will only be maybe once a week or so.

Day 10

F. D. Roosevelt's car

Eisenhower & Truman's car

The car Kennedy was shot in

Check out the price of burgers, Kiddo's

Today was our last big day. We are heading home. Today we went to the Henry Ford Museum. We were reluctant to go because we didn't think it would be that interesting. Boy, were we wrong. It was raining this morning so we just bought tickets to the museum part and the IMAX Nascar 3-D. We toured inside the museum and it was very interesting and didn't get to see nearly all of it. Then went and watched the movie. By then the weather had cleared and we went back to the counter and the lady was gracious enough to let us have the discount on the tickets for the outside village part also. Way too much to tell about on here but it was like a whole town. Ford had paid to have these buildings moved from all over the country to reconstruct a village. Everything was set like in the early 1900's. We were lucky enough to catch it on the weekend that they were doing their annual Old Car Festival. There were cars from all over, and lots of them. They were driving them through the streets or just sitting on the side. Buddy had the camera today, so I had to go through 150 pics to find some to but on today's blog. You know how men are with their cars, but it was a very fascinating place and would love to come back, when we have more time. Tomorrow all I have to do is plug the GPS in and say "Go Home" :( So sad. They pony will get to rest for a while. I may try to keep my blog going after this, so if you want to keep up you may not have to wait til next years vacation to see more pics.

Day 9

Port Austin Reef Lighthouse (2 1/2 miles away)

Just a beautiful day

Pointe Aue Barques Lighthouse

Harbor Beach Lighthouse

White Rock Lighthouse (now personal residence)

Port Saniliac Lighthouse (personal residence)

Port Sanilac Lighthouse

Frighter ship leaving port

Fort Gratiot Lighthouse

Huron Lightship

Bluewater Bridge (USA on left side Canada on right)

Freighter ship

Freighter ship in background and a Navy Boat tour boat in the front view

Peche Island Lighthouse














Whew, what a day. We thought we were only going to get to see 3 possibly 4 lighthouses. We ran across so many surprises. The weather was absolutely gorgeous today. A little cool this morning but crisp blue skies after that. We left around 8:00 this morning, stopped and washed the pony. We started out going north in the thumb of Mich. on 25. It runs right along the coast and there were several pull off spots with great views. Along the way we saw a freighter out in the ocean. When we got to the thumb there was a reef light that we walked out as close as we could get to. Then we saw Point Aux Barques Light which had a nice museum. The ladies there told us about a couple of other lights that we could see on the way. One was a private residence. When we got to Fort Gratiot Lighthouse, we were lucky enough to see another freighter leaving port. From there it was a short distance down the road to see the Huron Lightship. We had a very good tour of it and while on it we got to see a freighter ship coming down the river. These freighters are anywhere from 600 to 1000 ft. long. They are huge. As we were leaving and riding down the coast we looked over and saw another one, and got lucky enough to see them passing on the river. Then saw another lighthouse and went and found our place to stay the night. We have logged 2,133 miles so far. The pony is about whooped. Be sure and double click on the pics to enlarge them, because you just don't get the same effect as in the little pics.