Planet 9

My wife and I finally found the time to take a strictly driving trip this past weekend to the mountains of North Carolina. I thought I would share some of the roads that we enjoyed and a few trip details for anyone interested in exploring the area.

It was raining Friday morning but I said screw it, this car was made for rain or shine so we hit the road. We spent the morning driving to Route 129 a.k.a "Tail of the Dragon". We had a nice drive by taking Route 19 through Cherokee and then a good blast east on Route 28 that leads right to the Dragon. We got on the Dragon right behind a BMW 325 that wouldn't go faster than 20mph and wouldn't pull off to let us by. So I stopped a few times to give him a head start and then see how fast I could catch up to him. With the rain and all the wet leaves I really gave the traction control a workout. If you live in the area and haven't driven on 129, you need to do it at least once. It is the only time I have ever felt car sick while I was driving, it has that many curves. We finally ditched the BMW and made our way back to Cherokee where we had a hotel booked for the evening. If you plan on staying in Cherokee be prepared...it is a dry town. That's right, no booze. Not in the grocery stores, not in the restaurants and certainly not in the casino. I had to drive to Bryson about 15 minutes one way to get a 12 pack of beer.

Saturday we hit the road again nice and early and took 441 North to the start of the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was early and still raining so we were the only car on the road. The fog (and my wife) limited how fast I was able to go, but it was still an enjoyable cruise with lots of nice winding road and a couple of cool tunnels to downshift in.

We got off the Parkway and onto 276 South. This was yet another great winding road, we stopped at Looking Glass Falls for a few pictures and to stretch our legs.

We were starting to get hungry so we drove to Chimney Rock via 64 east and had lunch at a nice little deli on the river with a great view of the chimney rock. My wife had found a recommendation to drive Buffalo Shoals Road, it is a very narrow run that follows around the east side of Lake Lure. The fun part of this road was only about 4.5 miles but it is well worth it.

At this point we called it a trip and made our way back to Metro Charlotte area. I spent the next day washing the Cayman, I think I will be pulling wet leaves and pine needles from the wheel wells for months.

I think it would be great to use this thread to start a collection of good roads for driving the Cayman on in Zone 3. So to recap here are a my recommendations:

1. Route 129 "Tail of the Dragon"
2. Route 28 through Fontana Village
3. Buffalo Shoals Road around Lake Lure
4. 276 around Looking Glass Falls

Here are some pictures of the trip.

Attached Thumbnails

       

Join us for Rock'n'Croc 4 next year. You'll get more than your fill of "great Zone 3 roads".

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since i live in franklin i'll use that as a starting area.

Highway 64 from franklin to highlands then return on buck creek road

horse cove from highlands to horse cove and back

franklin route us 64 to walnut creek to pine creek to cullowhee mtn. road to tilley creek to ellijay to us 64 (known as the ring of fire to us cyclists)

franklin to nanathala via wayah bald road and backside of nantahala lake stop for lunch and return via 28

loads more of local back roads too numerous to list. come up and lets ride sometime!

I have yet to do the dragon - it is on my list. I have however done Turner's corner (129) in North Georgia. Mario Andretti could not have done a better job on this road - Three lanes, one down and two lanes of banked bliss up the mountains

Is the nanathala the road dubbed "the most expensive road in North Carolina"? How is the traffic on it, and is there a big police presence?

not sure about the cost and not too many police.
today's trip
franklin to dillard, ga to highlands on nc105 to cashiers/toxaway/rosman on us64. nc 215 up to parkway then blue ridge parkway to asheville for a little shopping. colors were fantastic between 2000 and 4000 feet. above 4000 fall was over. some snow residue and there were places where the icecicles covered one lane... beautiful and more importantly Mrs. Zippy had a great time too.
came home via the highway as we wanted to visit a friend who just had a baby.

A great place to spend the night is the Pisgah Inn on the Blue Ridge parkway between Brevard and Asheville, NC.

Also US 64 between Brevard and Frankin is a neat twisty drive. Ed