By Lulu

This has been a summer of mountains for Thunder Roads Florida: Appalachians, Smokies, Black Hills, Rockies, and the Ozarks. This article features our time in June riding for nine days and 2,600 miles through Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, West Virginia, Virginia, North & South Carolina and finally home! We made a few stops for meals with friends, but MOSTLY we just RODE! First stop was in Blairsville, Georgia to check out Copperhead Lodge (a separate article features this cool motorcycle resort). Tellico Plains, Tennessee was the next stop to visit our old pal Mike Miller, who is building a home out of his workshop, right on the side of a mountain.

We left Mike to ride the Cherohala Skyway, 43 beautiful miles through Tennessee and North Carolina, and feeds you right into the Tail of the Dragon. The Dragon is newly paved from end to end making those 318 twisties much more fun and safer to navigate. A note to any who venture up for this ride…check the scheduled events in the area. Last year we encountered Miata Week, where hundreds of small cars were drifting on the 11-mile stretch. This trip happened to be Grom Week which wasn’t as annoying as Miata Week, although the crazy loud bumblebee sound of these motorbikes was close.

We needed to have our 2017 GPS updated as we were getting lost from time to time, so during a stop at Smoky Mountain H-D in Maryville, T.J. found Chris in the service dept, who was happy to take care of it while we ate a scrumptious meal at The Shed. The next day, an unexpectedly unique stop was having breakfast at Betty’s Stockyard Café in Kingsport, Tennessee, where Betty and her crew have been feeding the locals for 33 years. One of the best meals of the week. Our miles in the saddle took us through Nantahala National Forest in North Carolina and New River Gorge National Park in West Virginia where you must walk the steep wooden path to view the bridge from below! While riding in West Virginia’s mountains, torrential rain fell for most of the day, and we heard on the news the following morning that several people had drowned in flash flooding.

On the way back south, we stopped in Mooresville, North Carolina to visit Southern Country Customs to check out the custom build that Steve and Rusty Wallace were to auction for the NASCAR Foundation Ride in Sturgis. Finishing up the trip, we made a lunch visit with our friend Kristie (OB’s daughter) who now lives in Charleston, South Carolina and just had her second baby! Note to all who haven’t taken a week or two in the summer to get the hell out of Florida for some cooler days of riding…JUST DO IT! Book yourself a stay at Copperhead Lodge and explore the scenery the region has to offer!