Alabama-Georgia-Tennessee (Tornado damage, yikes)

Today we rode through tornado ravaged northern Alabama and Georgia and then escaped the heat by heading back into the mountains of Tennessee. Another steamer so we held out for a while down low but then had to get some altitude to cool off. The destination being the twisty "Tail of the Dragon" road that straddles North Carolina and Tennessee. An added bonus was that before we get to the Dragon, we can also hit Cherohala Skyway on the way. No way we would make it all that way today and hit Alabama and Georgia, but we can setup nicely for it by landing in (or near) Tellico Plains.

We left a little earlier this morning from Kimall, TN to get more cooler air since the weather called for another scorcher. We headed back south into Alabama. Once south a bit, we let the GPS take the shortest route and once again we were treated with nicely paved back roads that are not on the way to anywhere. We have been getting nice "slice of life" pictures of how and where everyone lives this way and pop out at an "oasis" (gas, chain stores, etc) every 200 miles to get gas. Except for the heat, we kept commenting on how much like Vermont this looked. Again there were very few working farms but they were cutting a lot of grass (round bales) which keeps things tidy. Alabama and Tennessee were much poorer seeming than Georgia. One road sign I have to get in here that was pretty common in Kentucky was at what would here

be a stop sign. They add a little sign below the stop sign saying "Right Turn Keep Movin", and yes movin is spelled movin.

So Dave's bike "Millenium Falcon", must have had a server crash while it was downloading the gravitational maps and cross correlating them with the altimeter data load from today's projected trajectory. His gas gauge decided that it was empty after he filled it up. So back to using the odometer to figure out when he needs gas. My bike (the Massey-Furguson) blew the headlamp low beam this morning so all I have left is high beam. So I decide when to get gas and Dave drives ahead in the dark. Should work until we find a dealer. I tried the Massey dealer for a new bulb but they said it was too old...

We turned east at Scottsboro and rolled into Rainesville AL to see our first encounter with the aftermath of the tornadoes they have been experiencing. Sorta wakes you up to how serious these things are. Buildings turned to rubble and any kind of

signage destroyed. Trees uprooted everywhere. Our hearts go out to those folks who have to paw through the rubble, collect anything valuable and start over. Just amazing.

When we got to RingGold Ga, we saw a repeat of the same. So we are not sure if this is something that just happens from time to time down here, or this year has been a bad year. Scary stuff.

So we went east and north and entered the Chattahoochee National Forest. We followed the Ocoee chain of lakes which has tons of white water rafters, kayakers and tubers bumping and floating and many times swimming (on purpose or not) down this creek / river. We saw a sign that said this was the site 1996 Olympics kayaking competitions, and I can see why. We stopped in Copper Hill at a 50's diner for lunch. Life sized Elvis "in the building" which I posed with and thankfully the picture was too blurry to include here.

We headed north through the park on twisty sweepers and popped out some hours later at our destination Tellico Plains. Of course there was nothing there resembling a hotel so we went 20 miles north west to find something near the interstate.

A guy asked us tonight if we were heading for "the Dragon" and told us stories of bikes hanging from trees. So tomorrow we slay the dragon (if Dave doesn't run out of gas)....