Letterboxing Clues
I have been trying to train my dragon for a while now, but it is a stubborn thing. Twelve feet long and almost two tons, when it is unruly, it is quite a scene. Still, I have hope for this beast. One of my friends recommended I take my dragon out for a long training ride near the Smoky Mountains. Dragons aren't allowed in the Smokies of course, too much risk of forest fire, but Hwy 129 along the southern boundary of the park was suggested as a great road to ride a dragon. So I had my stableboy in Maryville, Tn, saddle up my new mount and off we went, flying east towards the mountains. Things were going quite well at first. We had no trouble flying over the Chilhowee mountains, and waved at friendly tourists on Look Rock as we turned south. We picked up Highway 129 near the Chilhowee dam, then commenced following it.
That's when my dragon started getting distracted. Unbeknownst to me, this stretch of road is very popular among people who like to ride dragons. Dragons were zooming past us left and right, their thunderous roars echoing in our ears. I was up to my eyeballs trying to control my unsteady mount. It seemed like with each passing mile along this curvy road, my dragon became more and more agitated. It didn't come as a surprise to me that shortly after mile marker 3 (which is actually more than 3 miles along this route, the mile markers go from east to west and we were traveling the opposite direction), my dragon finally bucked me off in fit of rage, so disturbed it was by all the roaring commotion of this highway. I fell off and landed on the right side of the road by 3 large boulders, which blocked an old roadway heading up a hill.
My dragon was in fit and stormed off up this road, trying to distance itself from the highway. It passed underneath some fallen trees and I lost sight of it, since I had to find a way around these trees. I made it around the trees by going left off the faint road bed, and then moving back up onto the roadbed further up the hill. Then I set off at a trot up the ancient road. In a short ways, I passed some ruined car-seats on my left. My dragon had torched these in its rage and they were still smoldering. 97 ft due North past the seats, I was near the top of the hill and looking to the left near a large pine. My dragon would be close now, it loves pine duff. I looked all about until I finally spotted the tell tale wisps of smoke, coming out of a heap of rotten logs. And that's where I found it, curled up in a makeshift den of rotted logs, fuming and spitting flames. It took me hours to coax it out and get flying again. But this is all necessary if I was to train my dragon for riding. Someday, we will be like those other dragon riders, racing down highway 129. But not for a while yet.
