Day 3 wet and more rain

May 23, 2022 – Up early and planned to leave at 9am.  Still raining – hard.  Rained all night.   Had to walk about a half a block to a restaurant for breakfast.  As I walked in Sandra motioned for me to come over to their table.  She said they had been talking and wanted to change our plans if I was OK with it.  They were concerned that the BRP would be too difficult to ride in the rain and fog and wanted to know if I was willing to drive directly to Maggie Valley because they wanted to go through Wheels Through Time.  I told them I was leading this ride for them because I have ridden the BRP 3 times so I was fine changing plans.  I agreed the parkway was just too dangerous in this weather.  So off we headed in a soft rain heading for route 40.  Make our first rest stop after an hour or so and the rain started coming harder.  In about 30 minutes of hard rain running down my face shield and pouring into the neck of my rain suite I was wet.  My feet started getting wet and the temps were 63 so it was cold.  Speed limit on 40 is 65 but I kept it at 54 because there are no wipers on a bike windshield or my helmet face shield which makes seeing very difficult.  Trucks splashing water as they pass.  Even at that speed there were times when everyone else was pretty far back.  We finally turned on route 19 heading into Maggie Valley and started looking for a place to eat before going into the museum.  By this time we were all soaked to the bone; well except for Don and Zoey who were in the van.  Spend about 2 hours in Wheels Through Time some in the group had never been there.  Still raining but we had to head for Cherokee up and over the mountain on route 19.  The tail of the dragon has nothing on this mountain road.  Add the fact that the rain was gushing down the mountain and across the road creating the possible hazard of hydroplaning.  Got to the hotel around 3:30 and we have a nice room over looking the river.  Still raining!  The group wanted to go to the casino for the buffet which we found out had been taken out over 2 years ago so all we had to choose from was the food court.  Zoey stayed in the room because we found a McDonalds and she was happy to have her chicken nuggets, french fries and coke.  We had a nice time with our friends and I think she enjoyed the time alone too.  Came out of the casino around 8 pm and the rain had stopped.  Maybe tomorrow will be a nice day.  Everyone is on their own to rest, shop or ride.