September 15, 2012 Aiden and I left Inwood WV to ride through VA and NC to get to Deals Gap and The Tail of the Dragon. That day Aiden was 3.5 years old and had already logged around 5,000 miles in the sidecar in just over year. We lleft on a saturday morning and headed south through VA. Every where we stop we always get a conversation started with folks about the kid in the sidecar , the only place I can refuel in under 30 minutes is in my home town. We rode to Roanoke VA and met some members of Bikers for Christ there for lunch and hung around for a while. Next stop for dinner was in Wise VA, south west corner, to meet with some other Bikers for Christ members and state elder. That night we stayed in Norton VA. Sunday morning we left and headed towards Ashville NC and over through Maggie Valley to the Wheels thru Time Motorcycle Museum. The girls at WTT took our picture and put us on their Facebook page before we left the building that day. From there we rode thru Cherokee and up to Deals Gap sunday evening. Now we just spent two days riding to get there, we checked in and unloaded the bike and as we are looking aroung at all the bikes in the parking lot Aiden(3.5 years old remember ) looks at me and says "Aren't we gonna ride??" .So ...I get him in his carseat, pull the belts a little tighter and cinch down his "Redneck Hanns Device " and away we go riding the Dragon. We have Scala Rider comm devices on our helmets so we can talk along the way so for the first 5 miles down the Dragon he is giggling and squealling like a little school girl. He told me later that evening "Pap Pap that was the best carnival ride I have ever been on!" and teh next day we rode it again and he now calls the Dragon "The Wiggly Road". We also rode down 28 and stopped to check out the Fontana Dam and other local attractions. For our return ride home we came across the Cherohala Skyway to Tellico Plains and north to Marysville and to Knoxville TN to meet an old friend from work . We checked out the Harley dealer while we were there also. We traveled north into VA for the afternoon and stopped for the night . The next morning we headed north for a bit and stopped at Natural Bridge VA to see the bridge and walked the entire trail to the waterfalls. The final leg of the ride was Thursday afternoon 150 miles to home. Me n Aiden rode 1350 miles for 6 days . So far since July of 2011 he has over 7,000 miles in the sidecar with me.
Doug "Rain Man" Plotner
