This was originally posted over on NAM
I spent a couple of days down around Deal’s Gap this week. I’ve got a MINI-owning friend who lives in Knoxville, about 45 minutes from the Dragon and I had a few days off from work, so what better to do than go drive? The drive from Indy to Knoxville wasn’t too bad; about 5.5 hours, all Interstate. I gave my GPS and new Valentine One a good workout on this trip. The MINI’s starting to feel like Darth Vader’s bathroom. Not that that’s a bad thing, mind you…
Thursday morning I headed toward the Gap from Knoxville. It wasn’t a great day weather-wise; mid-40s and overcast, but the roads were clear and fairly dry. I didn’t have a very good idea of the start and end point of the actual Dragon, so I basically did a run without really knowing it. I saw the signs admonishing people to stay in their own lane (I mean, duh, right?) and the motorcycle resort, but I still expected something … more, I guess. That first pass was a lot more work than I figured it would be. I was pleasantly surprised to have several cars (SUVs, mostly, of course) pull over to let me by. The grin factor kicked up a notch when I got past the Southern end of the Dragon in NC and 129 opened up a bit. That’s my kind of road.
I’d hoped to make a few laps of both the Dragon and the Cherohala Skyway, and boy was I surprised to run into snow and ice above 4k feet!
I finally gave up and turned around once I took that picture. I’d gotten behind a snow plow and one other car and wasn’t having any fun. Up until the ice started, the Skyway was a lot of fun. The posted limit of 45 was sufficient to pull some lateral Gs without excessive pucker and the scenery was beautiful, of course.
Having had to bail on the Skyway, I headed back to the Dragon and did another 3 passes. I definitely got more comfortable with each successive run, but overall I was a little underwhelmed, frankly. I prefer faster stretches of road that aren’t quite so tight. By the time I’d made my fourth run, I was able to get up into 3rd gear, but that wasn’t really necessary. In all, it was an enjoyable day, and I definitely look forward to MINIs on the Dragon in May!
Friday we went to check out the Lost Squadron museum in Middlesboro, KY. That was about a 90 minute drive up through TN and into KY. It was a fairly sedate, yet scenic, drive. The museum itself is very cool. I’m an aviation and history buff and am absolutely fascinated with the story of these lost airplanes and how one P-38 was recovered 50 years after it was abandoned on the ice in Greenland. The guy running the place that day was really cool and talked flying with us for quite a while. I’d be back in the air if it weren’t for the MINI! 
After the museum, we trekked up to the overlook point in the Cumberland Gap park, which is apparently on the rim of a giant impact crater (which actually contains Middlesboro). We could only see some of the crater from where we were, and due to the weather, but it was pretty fascinating. And damn cold. I miss hills; I wish God would have rumpled the geography a little more around Indianapolis…
Coming back out of Middlesboro, we took route 74 West out of town, aiming for 25w & 90 in TN, which took us back down to 63 toward I-75. 74 had huge potential, but turned out to be a slick-as-snot road covered in a greasy, slimy coating of mud from coal trucks roaming the area. It started out fun and then I realized I was kind of skating around some of the corners. A quick brake-check indicated just about nil in the way of traction, and I tip-toed my way back into Tennessee. Bummer. 25W made up for it, tho. There was enough traffic to make it frustrating, but once that was dispatched, the road was fairly clean and twisty! Whee!
Today I cleaned the house. 
