Day 7 - Cherohala Skyway and beyond

We were up before dawn today, and anxious to get on the road. It was 58 degrees in downtown Robbinsville when we left at 7:08 AM, but with the expected elevation of the Skyway we were dressed for colder weather. The twisties started immediately upon leaving town as we turned onto 143 and wound around the southern fingers of Santeetlah Lake.  Being this early in the morning, we pretty much had the roads to ourselves so that made for a good start. Our only issue this morning was looking for appropriate signage for the Cherohala Skyway, with access to get the required photos of the signs, us and our bikes.

It took us an hour and a half to cover the 54 miles from Robbinsville to Tellico Plains, TN via the Cherohala, including the time we took taking photos at 3 different stops (one at the turn to 143 in Robbinsville, one at the NC/TN border on the skyway, and one at the end of the skyway in Tellico Plains) It was a sweet ride all told - despite the temps falling down to 52 at one point and we did note the rather large freshly paved repair from the section of the skyway that gave way during the early spring. We only had to pass one lone vehicle the entire route so we were free to run as we felt inclined. I have to say that the Cherohala Skyway is a definite bucket list road for any serious motorcyclist. It's got it all - sweepers, tight twisties, elevation changes and scenic views. I only wish we had the time to run it again today!

We gassed up in Tellico Plains, more for documentation purposes than need for fuel and headed out on some more pretty twisty roads that would take us out through Englewood, Athens and Decatur  TN (all of which made me keep thinking we were in Georgia!). Somewhere around there we picked up State Route 30 - which is also part of the "Trail of Tears". That turned out to be another really nice twisty road as it traversed over two mountains from from Dayton to Pikeville, to Spencer. From Spencer, we finally left the twisties as we turned north on 111 which we took to I-40 West and that on to and through Nashville where we caught I-24 N. Now we could have taken that all the way over to Paducah KY, but instead, Larry had routed us off I-24 at Clarksville (just south of Ft Campbell) and over to Dover where we turned onto The Woodlands Trace - another sweet riding road through "The Land Between the Lakes" park. Check it out at http://byways.org/explore/byways/2345.

The day started out cloudy, and though we glimpsed sunshine every now and then, we really never got out of overcast skies all day, which helped keep the temps in a very comfortable mid 70 range after noon. All in all it was a great riding day and we made it all the way up to Cape Girardeau MO and we changed one time zone.

Sorry for the lack of Pix today, but my GoPro photos were ruined by dead bugs on the lens :-(

Headed for St Joseph MO for tomorrow night.

Stats for the day:

491 miles in 11:02 elapsed, 9:37 moving times.

Added GPS Track for the day: