Total KMN = 353

The three time changes must have caught up with us as we both slept until after 8 am - very unusual for us. Was probably a good thing as it was raining pretty heavily when we got up and by the time we were ready to go it had pretty well stopped. We did start out in rain gear just in case. The road was wet too so we needed to keep our pants dry.

We left Maggie Valley and rode through the Soco Gap. Rode along the Cullasaja river in the Nantahala National Forest - a very windy lovely motorcycle road. We have enjoyed the curvy roads around/in the Smoky Mountains.

We had planned to stop at the Whitewater Falls, acclaimed to be the tallest falls in USA east of the Rockies but the fog was so thick we could only see about 10 feet in front of our faces -four way flashers on and going pretty slowly.

We stopped to check out the Stumphouse Tunnel in South Carolina. It is a railway tunnel they had begun to build in 1850 but after getting 1600 feet of the ~5,000 feet completed the contractors ran out of money so they stopped working on it. Years later the Clemson University used it for curing their world famous blue cheese as it provides a consistent temperature and humidity. They no longer use it for that as they now have a modern "lab" for that purpose. Pretty interesting to walk into the tunnel and see how it was dug out by pick and shovel all those years ago. There is a steady drip of water as well.

All along the roads for miles going up and then back down the passes again the roadside is covered with rhododendrons. They were flowering in the lower areas and were pretty spectacular so we could only imagine how it must look once they start to flower up higher where the bulk of them are.

Interesting side note: we have noticed that speed limits are much lower in SC and, even more surprising, the locals seem to stick pretty close to them. Maybe in some SC counties it is jail time for speeding? Not going to test that theory.

We are now at Greenwood, South Carolina for the night.