Day thirty three, Boone N.C. to Bryson City N.C.

As with yesterday’s gliche in my trip planning, I originally had today down for the last 347 kms of the Blue Ridge Parkway From Boone NC to its end at Cherokee, NC.

Too many kms for the one day so we compromised with some more of one of my favourite State routes, the 221 South.

We kicked off by riding south toward Blowing Rock and ducked onto the first 30 km section of the Blue Ridge Parkway off that road so we could ride and photograph the very frequently photographed Linn Cove Viaduct on that section of the Parkway. On the World Wide Web this looks like an impressive piece of engineering and looks huge. In the flesh it was all a bit of a disappointment and can only be photographed from a distance as you approach as strangely enough they have not built any overlooks at each end and pedestrians are not allowed on the viaduct. Needless to say the color pic I have added below is of a postcard, but Marie took a couple good shots I will add later when she gets back from Bryson City retail Therapy.

There had been new seal on that section of the BRP as well so there was loose metal everywhere and later there was a sign, “ motorcycles not recommended”

We jumped off just south of the Viaduct and back onto the 221 south for a well deserved coffee break. We had been on the road for a good thirty minutes by this time so re-caffeinating was well overdue you can understand.

We stopped at the Little Deer Cafe in Linville, it’s in the block of shops at the Route 221, 90 degree turn. Now this cafe is a wee treat, the coffee is espresso and delicious and they do their own baking. Friendly as owners. Good coffee is hard to find. Now any motorcyclist following our blog who is a coffee snob like us, here you go, if cruising the Blue Ridge, it’s a two min ride down the hill round a lot of awesome Twisties to get to it. If you are heading to or from the Blue Ridge Parkway and going through Linville, load it in the gps to get a good coffee, 3616 Mitchell Ave, Linville. There you have it, worth the effort. Pics of the “ Little deer” it is named after to follow.

Righto, so after our early coffee stop we continued south on the 221 through Linville Falls, past Linville Mountain and a whole lot of other stuff with Linville at the front of it as well, took a right on Route 70 and had a bite of lunch at the village of “Old Fort” before we jumped on the interstate to skirt around Asheville and head toward Cherokee. More to “ Old Fort” than meets the eye on a drive through as well, just saying.

As with yesterday, Route 221 south crosses the BRP at one spot and again, literally shadows it all the way south with the BRP over our left shoulder for the whole day.

Onto the I40, then later the I240, Alt 74 then the 19 to Cherokee. I was expecting Cherokee to be a wee country village at the end of the Blue Ridge, but Jesus Wept, we were greeted by a gigantic casino, heaps of traffic, crowds, poorly maintained roads. We gassed up and couldn’t, get out of there fast enough, I would call it a dump and that would be a compliment. We popped down the road to our accomm at Bryson City NC which has a little more character and no casino to attract a million people to a small spot. We are in a Sleep Inn again tonight, twice the price of the same establishment in Boone, but with rooms half the size and with staff with half the personality of those in Boone. fair to say I think the temperament of people in Bryson City may be affected by the crowds that flock to the Casino down the road at Cherokee. Tragic. Spoils the truly awesome surroundings in this part of the world in my humble opinion. Again in this wee corner of North Carolina is this strange state law that the State sets the price of Liquor and liquor stores are not allowed to sell beer, so a bloke needs to pop to the servo to buy a couple beers. Struck this in a couple places on the West Coast as well.

Only in America eh?

Anyway, we have left the Blue Ridge and are now in the Smokey Mountains. I like the look of the Smokey Mountains, more character, more hills, more rolling, more substantial and The way the hills surround Bryson City reminds me a bit of little old Reefton on the West Coast back home.

Oh by the way, Naki and Coulton cuzzy viewers, yesterday along the road in southern Virginia I spied a run down walk through cowshed, very similar to the one on East road as ya cruise through Douglas. This is the first walk through cowshed I have spied on my travels in the back blocks of the US of A, bought a wee smile to my face to know they used to milk in exactly the same buildings as Kiwi’s not that many years ago. Bit of useless trivia I thought I would throw in there.