You can view the pictures and view the map as you follow along.

NEWS: Starting in 2009, the Smokey Mountain Smoke Out will be held at new location and a new date! Get the details at http://smokeoutrally.com, including details on the week-long cross-country party!

Meeting up

It’s June, and time for the Smokey Mountain Smoke-Out, a bike rally that always has lots of custom, often home-made, motorcycles. Wagz, and a friend Ray, are going this year, along with some of the other ‘regulars’. I warn Ray that, of the six of us on this trip, MY beard is probably the shortest. Since Ray is unable to grow a beard (or it’d be a month before you could detect five o’clock shadow), I had to let him know that he’s gonna stand out around us.

After work on Thursday, we meet up with our packed bikes and head about one-hundred miles away in Athens, Ohio. We’re going to spend the night at Redbeard’s house, then head out in the morning. We spend the evening sitting outside, drinking beer and Jack Daniels. I surprise Ray with a fake beard, and we coax him to try it on. It almost looks good on him. After a few pictures and laughs, we get back to the business of drinking.
On our way

We wake up early the next morning, and slowly pack up the bikes. On about the second cup of coffee, Hoghead pulls in on his bike. We stop for breakfast before heading down the road. We take a short break just after we cross the Ohio River into West Virginia. Up until now, the road has been mostly straight, almost to the point of getting boring. Once we jump on I-77, the highway gently curves through the mountains. Just outside Charleston, the curves are a little tighter, and there more climbs and drops. It’s much like a video game that gets more challenging as you go. Hoghead and Redbeard have been on bikes together for many years, and growing up on curving roads, they are right at home. The rest of us work to keep up, enjoying the challenge.

At the end of the West Virginia Turnpike, the gentle curves are back. Things get much easier from here. After a lunch break and a few tunnels, we jump off the interstate, just inside North Carolina.

Arriving at the Family Campground

The Smoke-Out moved to a new location this year, the Farmington Dragway. While some camping was available at the Dragway, many attendees need to find camping elsewhere. I reserved us space at the Lake Myers Campground, a family RV park and campground, just ten miles away. Our friend LB, who lives about an hour away, meets us at the campground. Ray, LB, and myself, ride into town to stock up on beer, Jack Daniels, snacks, coolers, ice, and other supplies.

Most of the RV’s in the campground are seasonal, where people stay all summer, or visit their RV on weekends. The tent camping, however, is at the front entrance, and far away from the RV’s. The sites are quite large and well shaded. Although the park rules say that we can only have two tents per site, there enough other bikers camping here that the camp owner allows us to stretch the rules. He’s going to fill the tent area for the first time this season, so he doesn’t care too much about what we do, as long as we keep the noise down. He lets the bikes ride out the front gate. We’re happy because this gives us easy access, since the tent sites are right near the front gate, and it keeps the RV crowd happy, since we won’t need to ride all the way through the park on the noisy bikes all weekend.

All weekend, the RVer’s ride on their golf carts, on the path through the tent camping area. A few of them are friendly, and are just checking out the bikes and the bikers. Many of the golf cart folks just park across the road and watch for awhile, or ride by and glare at us ‘heathens’. Finding nothing to significant to complain to the owner about, they eventually go on their way.

The campground and RV park is quite nice. There’s a lake, for fishing. Two huge swimming pools, a long water slide, and lots of other activities to keep kids and adults occupied. There’s a small store that serves pretty decent meals all day, so we’re happy. It’s pretty hard to pack a bike with your camping gear plus all the cooking utensils, cleaning supplies, pots & pans, coolers, water, plates, etc.

We relax around a fire, and meet many of the other bikers camped nearby. It’s a nice place to be.

The Rally

Saturday morning, after a decent breakfast, we find the Farmington Dragway and the bike rally. There are many people here, and we can see that we are much better off pitching camp at the shaded campground than in the field here. Having a racing strip here adds some fun to the rally: Folk are able to open up their bikes on the quarter-mile track. While the bikes aren’t allowed to race, it’s still fun to have a place to watch the bikes do burnouts (staying in place, spinning the back tire so it smokes). There are vendor and a large tent where bands are playing. There’s just one major problem with the new location: the event was not allowed to serve beer. So, you have just over a thousand bikers, and no beer. You can by slushies and soft drinks, but that’s about it. Bikers on a road trip, as a whole, require at least some alchohol to have fun. No beer, no fun. The closest bar is ten miles away, so that really help a whole lot. We only spend about two hours at the dragway before we decide to head back to the campsite for some shade, and some cold beer.

Back to the Campground

By Saturday evening, however, we’re bored. While we are eating dinner, the ‘golf cart parade’ passes by. The first cart is driven by a nicely dressed elderly woman. Another golf cart is being led by a dog, on his leash (the North Carolina version of the Iditarod?), and about a half-dozen more golf carts. Hmm… Some parade. Very exciting, for someone, maybe. Certainly for the elderly woman in the first golf cart.

On our way walking back from dinner, we notice that the campground has golf carts for rent. Hoghead and I sign the paperwork and get the keys for the last one available. We ride back to our campsite in style, back to our tents to stock up on beverages. Open containers aren’t allowed, but we have tall cups for our ‘soda pop’.

We’re off to see the rest of the campground! We start out by going around the lake. There are a few folks fishing, and a few in row boats or paddle boats. The road ends, and we use the turnaround, which has a nice little hill, about five feet tall. After we backtrack a bit, we take the other paths around the entire campground.

The RV park is huge. There are hundreds of RV’s here, and some have been set more permanently than others. Some are landscaped lots, many have Christmas lights.

What I remember most, is the look that the RVer’s had on their faces when they realized that the BIKERS HAVE A GOLF CART! The first night, the Bikers were secluded in the tent area where they were very happy to keep an eye on us. Tonight, the Bikers can get around and watch THEM! It was quite funny seeing their reaction.

We’re a friendly group, and if people smiled and waved, we’d stop and joke with them (“Is THIS 42nd Street?”, “Do you know the way to San Jose?”, or if they were adults “Which way to Hooters?”). We’re so easily amused.

At one point, the campground owner rides up to us on his golf cart, and asks “Have you seen some people racing a golf cart?” Nope, not us. This cart just doesn’t have enough speed to do much, and we honestly haven’t even tried to race anyone. He looks at us with that “yeah, right” look, and rides off into the sunset.

As it gets dark we head over to the party house. Earlier, a band was getting set up, and people were talking about ‘the dance’. We pull up and park our golf cart in a line of carts. There was even a space marked for handicapped people, and the golf cart showed a blue card hanging from the steering wheel. It didn’t take us too long to figure out that most of the people at the dance were under the age of 21. This could mean nothing but trouble for us (certainly imaginary, than real, but it could only end badly for us), so we take the long way back to our campsite. We have beer and JD to finish off, since we can’t take it home with us.

Heading to Mayberry

By the time we wake up the next morning, Redbeard and Hoghead are almost finished packing, and they’re about ready to go. We decided to take back roads towards home, and we’ll probably take an extra day. They leave after breakfast, while we break camp. LB has to head back to his home, near Chapel Hill. Wagz, Ray, and I study a map to find a good alternate route that misses the interstate.

We head up some back roads to Mt. Airy, not far from Pilot Mountain. Mt. Airy is the town that inspired the fictional town of Mayberry, on the Andy Griffith Show of the 1960’s. While the main highway completely bypasses the heart of town (but is a continuous stretch of businesses ranging from tourist attractions with names like ‘Aunt Bea’s Buffet’ and ‘Gomer’s Garage and Auto Sales’. We found Main Street, and as we were parking, and old 1950’s police car went by. We got our cameras out, hoping it would show up again, but it didn’t. That was about the only thing ‘Mayberry’ about downtown, other than the familiar theme song playing constantly in a loop (make it stop, please!). It took me awhile to find the main highway again, but we did, and headed up over the mountain.

Just before we crested the mountain, the sky got very dark. Just as it started to rain, we found a little roadside diner, and took a lunch and rain break. Excellent baked pies. The rain let up before we were done eating. We checked out a map, and agreed that there were no good ways to get to some of the places we wanted to ride. The mountains tend to line up from north-west to south-east. If you’re trying to go north-east, there just aren’t many ways to get there. Plan B is to catch the interstate for awhile.

Rain, Rain….

After lunch, we put our rain gear on, and finish our way up the mountain, and jump on I-77 north. Just as we’re getting to a tunnel, there are a bunch of bikes getting on the highway, entering from the Blue Ridge Parkway. We move into the left lane, and as we enter the tunnel, notice the black skies above the mountain.

Sure enough, as we’re riding through the tunnel, we can see the white curtain of rain ahead of us. Even with our rain gear, it’s too bad we can’t stay in the dry tunnel and let the storm pass, but there is nowhere to pull over. We exit the tunnel, into the downpour. This is where it gets a bit scary… Most of the bikes from the Parkway were in the left lane, are trying to pull off to the right shoulder. All the cars in the right lane are freaking out, and trying to jump into the left lane. I look in my rearview mirrors, and see a bike behind me, but it’s not Ray, or Wagz. CRAP! With all the bikes, someone got between us. I sure hope Ray can see my taillights, and doesn’t pull off with the other bikes!

I continue past the other bikes, watching them rush to find their rain gear. We’re prepared, but then I see lightning. Time to get shelter. I take the first exit and hope the guys see me. There’s Wagz, with Ray following behind. Phew! Ray didn’t have good eye protection for wet weather, so he was blinded as we exited the tunnel. The other bike that got between us had slowed down, so Ray couldn’t see me. Wagz jumped ahead of Ray, and led him down the road. Cooperation saves the day.

We hang out outside a little diner, talking to another couple on bikes. They had fancy new one-piece raingear, but it leaked at the neck, letting in lots of water. It was windy, and they were very cold and very miserable. A few minutes later, the rain stopped. We could see that it was going to be ‘one of those days’ with constant off-and-on thunderstorms.

We head back on I-77 and make it another 30 miles before having to stop for another thunderstorm. Another 40 miles before the next one, and we’re to Charleston, through the worst of the curving roads and mountains. We make it to an exit with a few motels and restaurants. Find a place to stay, and eat at a buffet. The weather made for a challenging day. Probably a good thing we didn’t take all back-roads today, since we may not have been able to see the roads (at least everyone is driving the same direction on the interstate).

Monday morning, the sun is out, and we get an early start back to Columbus. A little spooked by all the rain the prior day, we don’t take any long breaks. As we get close to Columbus, it looks like rain again, but we manage to make it home before it hits.

It was a good trip, and the thunderstorms didn’t cause any problems, only a few delays.