Ride The Dragon!

The Dragon in Winter.....quite a different place.
The snow and ice are a small part of it....the lack of leaves and green are a big part of the difference in the winter (April is Winter????)
Duchess walks to the overview as we begin the circle of the Dragon!
Ice, Ice Baby.....It is everywhere while we tour in the cold times......
During the winter Fontana lake is dropped, intentionally by the TVA folks to levels as much as 60 feet below the Summer level. This creates quite a site for those who view the lake with its "brown belt" of land created by the drop.

We love Fontana, having stayed there twice before for a week each time.....great place, but a bit remote. It was nice to pass thru!

We had one really exciting moment when we were winding our way up the Rt. 129 leg of the Dragon toward NC.....We rounded a curve (there are 1,000 180s on this road!) and found a biker in the ditch. We stopped and he was uninjured.....To his good fortune he was on an inside curve, and thus went into the ditch......Minor damage to the bike....had he been on an outside curve he'd have been 1-3,000 feet down the mountainside. He was lucky!

We helped him out of the ditch and then he was on his way.

Duke