Wednesday May 15th, 2019.
Day 1.
1:20 a.m.
For the first time in all my touring years, I booked my hotel/motel stays in advance and had chosen this particular time of year for the trip.
I had tried to make this ride last year, coming very close to making it happen, until at the time, I got the shock of my life when within the course of a 24-hour period, my timing for researching and choosing motel lodgings in this area, prices changed ‘cos the visiting season had kicked in.
Prices literally tripled overnight and I had no choice but to scrap my plans for that years’ visit.
Good thing anyway, ‘cos in retrospect now, the Foothills Parkway did not open until the 1st of November, 2018. It was #2 on this years’ list of must-ride roads!
Tucked away in the mountains just north-west of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the section of the Foothills Parkway I particularly wanted to ride on is the stretch of road linking the towns of Walland and Wears Valley (direction west to east), and is more popularly known as “The Missing Link”.
The Missing Link is a 16-mile stretch of road and was completed and opened in November of 2018 after 52 years in the making.
Cost overruns and funding appropriation for the project was erratic over the years causing the project to come to a standstill.
Well, until recently with these issues addressed, the project of joining the 2 ends of the roadbed finally came to fruition.
Eventually when the full length of the Foothills Parkway is completed, it will connect US 129 (Tail of The Dragon) with Interstate 40, further to the east.
The road traverses the foothills of the Great Smokies, providing magnificent views of the Smoky Mountains.
The type of engineering used to construct the highway is modeled after European design and was also of interest to me.
If you are interested and would like further information and material, a lot of it abounds on the internet. Just “google” Foothills Parkway - it will save me a thousand more words.
So arriving home after work last night and with my wife away doing the “grandma thing”, I prepared my meals for the day to take along with me, cleaned up the kitchen and went directly to bed.
Estimated time for my “kickstand to go up” was 4:00 a.m. I hoped to get about 2 hrs of sleep, if any at all.
Of course like all other times, I was too excited to get any meaningful sleep anyway.
It was 55’F (13’C) when I pulled away from my driveway at 4:20 a.m.
Not bad. 20 minutes behind schedule. I’ll settle for that.
I headed out along US 83 which took me due south through Lodi,OH and dumped me right onto Interstate 71.
At 8:00a.m. I exited the highway entering the town of Lebanon, OH and fueled up the bike.
Of course the highway was boring. I did not expect anything else. I needed its efficiency on this morning.
Cold as it was, I was adequately bundled up in layers of clothing ‘cos I knew that as the day wore on, temperatures would begin climbing and I would have the need to start shedding some protective clothing.
My 2nd stop for fuel was just past midday in the town of London, OH. Temperatures had climbed to 68’F (20’C) and I shed my warm weather protective gear and settled in for a lovely ride for the early afternoon.

The Interstate wound me up, into and through the lovely mountainous region of East Tennessee.
I tagged on to a couple of Datsun Z Model cars - an older 280 Z (could have been a late 60’s or very early 70’s model) and a newer 300 ZX. Both of which were running together at a pretty good clip.
Joining their action, the now spirited ride brought me to life.
As we went up in elevation, I began to smell the unburned gas in the combustion of the older Z car and observed/noticed a lack of power in his performance - result of his era-technology of the carbureted engine by design. But he was otherwise running along just fine. I could see he had done a lot of work on the car to keep in in such decent condition. I could appreciate that by virtue of my own similar experiences in the past years.
I was content, allowing the 300 to set the pace.
I laid back. No desire to pass either of them. I was enjoying the pace and the road-company and stayed with them til the turn-off towards Townsend, TN.
At 3:00 p.m. I arrived at my first overnight-destination for the day in Cades Cove, TN.
I was a little ahead of schedule, but that was fine, it would give me more time to catch up on my lack of sleep from last night.
I turned in early after a shower and returned phone calls.
I slept like a baby on this night.

Next - Day 2