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To the Dragon and Back

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voyagerrider

voyagerrider

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Sep 6, 2007
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Location
Burleson, TX
First Name
Marty
Last Name
Johnston
It is finally here we leave this afternoon for the Dragon. There will be 4 couples, 8 people 7 bikes. I am starting this thread and will try to post ride reports as we go along when internet access is available.
The players for this trip are Buck & Betty Brunson(buck&betty), Chuck & Barb Elton(not on the board, but came with to Marble Falls PR), Phillip & Charlotte White(also not on the board, she came to MF PR also). We are meeting at a place east of Dallas on I-20 this very afternoon. We are only going as far White Oak(Longview) today. Betty has a sister there that is fixing dinner for us and putting us up for the night. Then we super-slab it to Vicksburg, MS tomorrow. After that we are off the interstate and on back roads.
Hopely we will have something for you in a couple of days. Keep us in your prayers that we will have a safe trip.
Marty
 
Been there done that got a T-shirt. I did not get the Cherekowa parkway, which is afforded great views. The Dragon not so much, to busy setting up for the next corner and watching for oncoming! That slab ride back bite the big 'un. But the Appilacians are great.
 
Day 1 146 miles
I know that is not very many miles, but some of us had to work some today. So we meet at a place called Lindy’s on I-20 & Seagoville Rd. Here is a pic of the group that is going on this trip. From left to right they are as follows: Charlotte, Marty(voyagerrider), Chuck, Phillip, Barb, Betty, & Buck. Kathy was taking the pic.
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We had to make a small repair to Kathy’s bike one of the bolts holding the fairing came loose. I had to make a run to Home Depot on I-635 to get a replacement. But Charlotte & Phillip got lost trying to find us at the Lindy’s.

We made it to White Oak and Betty’s sisters house.
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Sarah had a great dinner of homemade chicken potpie & salad ready for us. We also had some great lemon pie and pound cake.
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Tomorrow we will be on the road to Vicksburg, Ms
Marty
 
Day 2 258 miles
We started off from White Oak without any problems until we got Haughton, LA. We were told there was bad accident on I-20 west of Monroe involving 2 18-wheelers and both east and west bound of the interstate was shutdown. We formed a plan to drop down south from the interstate at Ruston, LA. Well, guess where the accident was?? We were in backed up traffic for a couple of hours.
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They were running all traffic eastbound off the interstate a couple of miles west of Ruston. Turned out the accident was just west of Ruston and were able to get back on the interstate there.
We finally made it Mississippi a couple of hours later. We saw this great tourist info center just over the river with some great views of the bridges.
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The bikes
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the gang
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Kathy
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Charlotte & Phillip
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The guys
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The guys & gals
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Phillip checking out the cannon
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Our next destination is Tupelo, MS
Marty
 
DaveC said:
Been there done that got a T-shirt. I did not get the Cherekowa parkway, which is afforded great views. The Dragon not so much, to busy setting up for the next corner and watching for oncoming! That slab ride back bite the big 'un. But the Appilacians are great.
Click to expand...

So far so good! Keep the shiny side up.
 
Saw a bunch of cruisers on the Gap a few weeks back when i rode it. One almost hit me. Be careful!!!
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I also got a lot of stares and funny looks when I pulled up to the gas station on my bike and people saw my license plate....
 
I know I am behind on my reports I will try to get caught here in the next few days.

Day 3 277 miles

Before I get into this days report I need to throw out some stuff from the previous day.
While we detouring around the accident we encountered on I-20 I noticed my turn signals weren’t canceling. I looked and my speedometer wasn’t moving. I suspected a broken cable. When we got into Vicksburg I called a Kawasaki shop and of course they didn’t have one for my Voyager. I then called a guy on one of the Voyager forums that lives in Ripley, TN. He did not have a new, but he did have a used to send me. I had him send it to the address in North Carolina where we will be.

Anyway back to our story.
Before we rolled from Vicksburg we checked out the National Military Park. It took us several hours to ride the 16 mile loop inside the park, but it was well worth the time. Here are a few pics of our time there.
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The Cairo museum and display. This was one of the ironclad gunboats used on the Mississippi River.
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One of the views from a gun emplacement
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We made destination in Tupelo, MS.
Marty
 
Day 4 265 miles
We made our way from Tupelo, MS to Trenton, GA. It was a great ride. We didn’t see anything that we wanted to stop and take any pics. It still a very good ride with some great roads. I have a camera mount on the handle bars of my bike, but since it is on the throttle side and my cruise control won’t work so I can’t use it.
Any way we are moving along.
Marty
 
Day 5 238 miles
Today started being a really good day with some wonderful riding leaving Trenton, GA on 136 going east. We were starting up the mountain so we decided to put on rain gear on in La Fayette, GA. We stopped for this pic shortly after.
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The lovely ladies.
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We had our first mishap at Ellijay, GA. Kathy dropped her bike. We were turning a corner in town that was one of that was more then 90 degrees downhill. She said she was going to slow, and went to put a foot down. The ground was not there.
She was not hurt and the bike was only scratched on the fairing and the right saddle bag. Everyone helped her pick it up, and we stopped for lunch to regroup.
We stopped in Tellico Plains, TN to gas up before we started up on to the Cherohala Skyway and the final leg of trip to North Carolina. It was after that that we has our second mishap. Barbara dropped her bike. We made a wrong turn unto a gravel road and and she was try to stop in the really loose stuff. She was also OK and just got a couple of scratches on the fairing of her Harley. The higher in altitude we went on the Skyway the worse the weather got. With rain and fog. We did finally make to the Treetops rental house. We had no food at the house so we had to ride into Robbinsville for dinner and to go to the grocery store. It was at the restaurant that we had the third incident. Chuck dropped his bike. All of the ladies had elected to ride with guys going into town, and Barb was in the process of getting off when Chuck got off balance and down they went. No one was hurt, and there was no damage to the bike.
Anyway we made our destination, and no animal were harmed in this epic journey.
Marty
 
Folks say things come in threes - so 3 drops and you should be finished! :yawn:

Glad nobody was hurt - especially picking the bikes back up - this is where a group helps.

Keep up the reports. I'm waiting on the speedometer cable report. :popcorn:
 
Sorry to hear about the drops, but looks like you guys are having a fun trip.

Stay safe out there! :rider:
 
Day 6
I don’t know the mileage for how far we rode today. This was kind of a regrouping day. Kathy and Barb stayed at the house today and did some laundry. The rest of us rode back up the Cherohala Skyway to take a few pics because the weather was so sucky coming in on Saturday. Here are some of them.
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Here are some pics of where we are staying.
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The driveway up
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Kathy preferred to park down there.
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The deck with a spa
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Inside
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The place has 4 bedrooms and 2 baths. It has everything except food.
We then rode down into Robbinsville to buy some more groceries. BTW, I got the speedo cable, but my speedo still doesn’t work. It must be the drive unit on the front wheel. Remember my bike is a ’96 and still uses such things. I am not going to attempt to pull the front wheel off here. I will just have to live w/o cruise until I get back home.
We played Pictionary that evening.
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Men against the women. The men lost 1 game to 2. We will continue this all week.
Marty
 
Marty, glad ya'll got to enjoy the Skyway on a great day. Nothing better than being there on two wheels...keep having fun. Neal
 
Neat trip! Recently did a bunch of States, so some scenes were familiar. Still hope to go to the Skyway, and the Natchez Trace too. Avoided the Dragon, deliberately, as we found many fun roads with no traffic nearby.

Don't know about pictionary (sp?) but sounds interesting. Looks like a neat place to stay there. We stayed one night at one of the motorcycle camps, and I've been promoting them since, neat idea.:rider:
 
Day 7 138 miles
Today all of us rode the Cherohala Skyway all the way back to Tellico Plains, TN. We stopped at this place for an excellent lunch. Sorry, I forgot to take any pics of the food.
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We then rode north through Vonore all the way to US129 then turned south. This was taken at Tabcat Bridge which the start of the Dragon.
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At the Deals Gap store
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The Tree of Shame, which lucky for us we did not have to add anything.
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Me on Dragon Slayer
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Buck & Betty
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Phillip
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Chuck
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Barbara
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Charlotte
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Kathy did not want her picture taken again she said she had done that in ’06 when we were here. Everyone agreed that keeping to posted 30 mph speed limit is really hard to do. We only saw one LEO up near the head of the Dragon, and it being a Monday there were hardly any anyone on the road.Killboy was there so we are pretty sure we got our pictures taken. Of course we bought our Dragon shirts and stuff at the Deals Gap store before we headed back to the cabin.
Marty
 
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