Day 11 – 528 miles -We were up early at the lodge. After breakfast we checked out and headed for Mountain Crossings at Neel gap to load up on merchandise we couldn’t get while hiking through. I bought a couple shirts, stickers, lunch, and few odds and ends. We chatted with a few hikers and were off to Fontana Dam. Fontana Dam, incidentally, is the tallest dam east of the Mississippi and is managed by the Tennessee Valley Authority. AT hikers cross this dam on their way to and from the Smokey mountains. After leaving Fontana Dam we got on Route 28 West and followed it along the river for a while. Tim started talking about the Tail of the Dragon of which I had no clue what he was talking about. He said he thinks we’re in the vicinity of some famous and deadly stretch of road. I’m like oh that’s cool… We pop out in Deals Gap on the NC/TN border. Home of the Dragon and consequently the Tail of said Dragon. A 11-mile stretch of road with no less than 318 curves within it. This road is so famous that we encountered multiple cameramen taking pictures of the vehicles that cruised this section. Over 1200 vehicles travel the tail every day. We saw a lot of VW tuner cars, motorcycles, sports cars, etc. We saw people trailing cars up just to run them on this road. I was kind of flabbergasted & pleased at the same time that something like this still exists in our whitewashed world. I ran the tail and survived to tell the… tale? :)) After running the through the Dragon tail we ended up on Foothills Parkway which is an 18-mile stretch with overlook stops that gaze onto the Smokeys. After the parkway we made our way towards I-40 then I-81 and north to Waynesboro, VA. for the night. The weather got to be terrible the last few hours of driving and I was exhausted when we finally rolled in to the hotel. Got a 2pm checkout and used it.