I know it's was my sister's wedding. And I know the entire family flew down to Georgia.
But I simply chalked that up to their a) not owning MINI Coopers and b) not having heard about Tail of the Dragon.
Augusta is a rather sedate southern town that I found charming. Quite. Friendly. Pretty. And there was a breeze. More on page two. Tail of the Dragon, on the other hand, was wild. Dangerous. Tail of the Dragon is Deals Gap on US 129, which runs from the base of the Great Smokie Mountains in Tennessee east into North Carolina, by Fontana dam. It's claim to fame it 318 turns in 11 miles. Certainly seemed like a worthwhile diversion to me....
So Josh and I pile into the car about 3:30 PM on a Thursday. I figure, how much out of the way could Tenn. be? Ok, with hindsight, 11 hours is out of the way. We drove south and hit Shenandoah National Park in the evening. I had never been on the road, but I figured I didn't have to put $10 in the automated teller machine at the gate. It would have been worth the saw buck. The road was PITCH BLACK. And the twisties were WONDERFUL. Not so bad that you'd go driving off into the valley at 80 mph, and you could see cars coming because of headlights, but it was a fast, windy road. |
