Okay, related to the suggestions thread, here's a view from yet another first-time participant.

I wasn't really sure what to expect. I don't even know how I found out about MOTD, but I found these boards and read them a lot before registering. I found out late (I guess it was about March), so I got registered and looked for a place to stay. I found Natahala Village online (after calling about 10 places that were full) and made my reservations. I couldn't get there until Friday night because of work obligations and just not finding out about it until late.

So we arrived Friday night without a problem. I think I expected to see more Minis -- but I did see a pile of them across the street from the place I was staying. Nantahala Village is a beautiful place! We had a cabin overlooking a lush green valley. However, it was about 30-45 minutes from Fontana Village. I had planned on going to the drive-in Friday night, but after the 3.5 hour drive and a full day of work, I was just tired, so we slept.

Saturday we got up and drove to Fontana. We found the registration and had no problems. We had fun seeing all the Minis on the drive to the registration. We then headed down to the vendors area in the rain, scavenger hunt card in hand.

It was nice driving around the loop and gawking at all the neat Minis. We then illegally parked in a line of Minis and walked through the vendor area. We got all the stamps we could in the rain and did encounter two vendors who were very annoyed that we were collecting stamps. All the other vendors were happy to stamp our card even though we didn't buy anything. At this point there were not a lot of people out (it was raining on and off when we were there). Lots of Minis, not so many people.

We talked about what to do with the rain and we decided to make our planned drive anyway. We did the long Cherahola Skyway - Dragon loop. Even in the rain and fog, that was a lot of fun -- but it is a 3-4 hour drive. We brought our lunch and stopped at the top of the Skyway to eat. By the time we made it back to the far side of the Dragon, it had stopped raining and the roads were mostly dry.

This was my first Dragon run, and it was a blast! We caught up to a slow person (non-Mini -- didn't they get the memo?), so we just pulled over and sat on the shoulder for about 5 minutes, then started up again. We did this a few times and never had a problem. Finally, just before the end, a Blue Mini with Purple Stripes (I think) caught up to us. I don't know how they were still on the road! But we pulled over and they ran on by. We ended up following them back to the dam campsite and it was a female driver! Quite impressive driving, whoever that was.

After the Dragon, we headed to the dam that we thought was the Fugitive Dam -- I think we got the wrong dam. We saw the campsite, then headed to the top of the dam and did some looking around at the dam gift shop and tried to take a couple of dam pictures. We drove over the dam and saw the dam parking lot, too. That was neat.

By this time it was getting close to the dinner, so we headed back to Fontana and parked somewhere. Not much parking, but that was fine. We walked around until we figured out that you had to go stand in line to get the tickets and the wrist band. We got those without a problem (and I got raffle tickets even though I was missing about 3 stamps). Then we headed back to the dinner at the grill.

It was a bit confusing, but it worked out. The food, well, others have provided comments on that bit. I'm not willing to swear that it was indeed chicken that was served...but we did sit with a couple of nice vendors and talked about driving, so that was neat.

Back to the big room for the speeches -- nice giveaways and prizes. Unfortunately, I didn't win anything, so it simply must have been rigged. The German fellow was indeed a bit tough to understand, but he did have some good information. Thanks for getting the people from Mini to attend, that was pretty neat.

After the speeches, we hopped in the car and headed back to our cabin because we had to make an early start in the morning. We left at about 6:30 am, much disappointed by the straight interstate highways and wondering at all the cars that were a different shape than ours!

Overall it was a great weekend, and I hope to come back next year!

As for comments and suggestions for next year:

The space issue has really been beat into the ground in the other thread, so I won't add to it, other than to say that since everyone was so spread out, it never seemed to me that there were 500 Minis or 800 people (until the after dinner speeches). I would have guessed there were a couple hundred at most.

For next time, I'll volunteer to organize/host the long Cherohola Skyway - Dragon Loop with picnic lunch at the top of the Skyway. That was a really great drive and I want to do it again when it's not raining. However, it is a really long drive. I think it took us almost 3 hours without stopping to take pictures and see the views.

Thank you to everyone who worked so hard to put on and organize all these different events, even if I didn't get to attend most of them. I really enjoyed my weekend.

 

Thanks for the nice post. Very interesting to this guy, who has never been.

 

+1 on the Cherohala Skyway/Dragon loop. Indeed it is a long drive but it is so worth it. You definetely need to plan and allocate enough time for the roundtrip. Rain and fog are 2 issues one has to be prepared to deal with, especially at the higher elevations of the Cherohala Skyway. Another thing I like about the Skyway is that you can drive a little faster than the more demanding tail of the Dragon.

 

Absolutely loved the loop for the reasons you mentioned! It looked like there were great views, but we found the cloud ceiling was at 5100 ft -- we went up into the clouds and then back down! And yes, I think one side benefit of the weather is that there was NO traffic. I think we saw a total of about 6 cars in the entire length of it. It had turns (nothing like the dragon) and lots of up and down which was fun with a bit of speed.

 

I meant to try the other roads but we ended up being VERY busy for the whole event. I think next year I'll volunteer for less and drive MORE.

That said, planning a scheduled drive with picnic would be a great idea - keep me in mind if you're still thinking about adding it as an official event next year.

 

Last year there were 3 groups spaced 30 minutes apart that did a loop similar to this and they started at the base of the dam.

Or am I dreaming?

 

Yes - that was the Cascades Cove run, organized by agranger. Beautiful drive, probably the most gorgeous greenery I've ever had the pleasure of driving through. Definitely worth a repeat next year!