Trip actually starts Friday, straight from work in Roswell I head over towards Helen. Tiff and I have a cabin for the weekend up there. So I head off and get into Helen, where Tiff and a few friends are already at Pauls for dinner. They tell me the road to the cabin is pretty rough. I know there's guys out there that do some pretty awesome ADV rides on sportbikes so I figure 'how bad can it be', but to play it safe we leave the bike at a lit church parking lot for the night and try it with light out the next morning.

After our stay in the cabin, I decide to head out. The Smoky Mtn National Park looks pretty nice and the Pkwy that runs through it (Hwy 411) looks decent, and spits out at Gatlinburg, TN. Never been there so time to go!

First leg of the trip is getting back to paved roads!

About here is where I'm thinking it really sucks having the suspension tuned for track riding and not being able to lower the tire pressure just a little. Talk about bumpy!

For the most part is was just loose gravel, but some parts were pretty loose and dusty. No major potholes or anything but there were some decent uphill/downhill spots.

It was pretty fun and you can see the smile on my face still! I wanted to go back and try it again but my nuts were in a lot of pain. I had to stand up for most of the trip outta there. About 2 miles worth of rough gravel!

So do I get laughed at for my dust-chicken strips? I guess I could work on my sportbike-in-the-dirt corner speed!

I head out from here towards 197 from 356 (where the cabin was off of). When I get to the end I look back and take a pic, cya later Helen!

Get to 197 and head north. It's a pretty fun road and winds around Lake Burton. Get to 76 and head east for a few miles, and finally get to 411 which basically makes up the rest of the trip, almost 100 miles left of it! It's pretty boring the first bit but gets more fun once you get into NC.

This isn't twisty but if you keep a pretty high pace its still fun. Two lanes so passing the slow traffic wasn't a big deal.

This is just before getting into Cherokee, NC, the scenes are starting to look pretty good!

Head past Cherokee and finally get into the Smoky Mtn National Park. I wanted to take a pic with the sign there but... lotta tourists and leaf lookers had the same idea! They probably wouldn't have liked me rolling a bike up to where it was either...

The Smoky Mtn Parkway passes the southern end of the Blue Ridge Parkway and starts to really get some nice views.

This picture kinda doesn't do it justice but the mountains the road runs between make you feel pretty small:

Time to keep truckin:

This was a nice overlook so I couldn't resist being a complete tourist and taking more pictures:

There are a few pretty short tunnels you pass through which is kinda cool. Not sure what makes tunnels so fun to drive through but it was nice to see them on the route.

At this point I'm not really sure what state I was in, as I don't think there were any state line signs that I noticed. But I'm pretty sure around this point I got back into TN. The views here got even better and kinda reminded me of the trip I took to Northern California. Very pretty!

Finally got through the leaf-looker traffic to make my destination, Gatlinburg. I would have liked a better pic but with traffic I didn't wanna get squashed, some of those guys went that whole Parkway without looking at the road once I think!

Of course I can't just drive up to the sign and ride back, so I decide to see what Gatlinburg is about and drive up a little way. I was disappointed. 2mph traffic the whole strip and it's all gaudy little shops and stuff. The food vendors looked pretty good but this isn't exactly what I had in mind, I thought it was scenic roads and history and civil war reenactments and stuff, but it's just a strip of stores and attractions. There were a whole lot of "just married" cars there so either it is a popular place to get married or to go on a honeymoon. Not sure which.

Time to head back the way I came. I WAY overestimated the speed I could carry through the parkway so it'll be a while. I needed to take a break and decided to find a nice overlook and eat my lunch with a good mountain view but there were cars parked at all the good ones!

I decide to hit up the first one that doesn't have anybody there, and pull up to this one:

Not really what I had in mind of scenic overlook but the quiet was nice.

I saw a break in the trees so I head over that way and I'll be damned it looks like there is a creek down there:

I walk down there and it's a pretty awesome creek that the Parkway follows through most of it's trip I think. Pretty much like all the creeks in the mountain roads but it was cool to actually just walk up to it.

Upstream:

Downstream:

I was pretty impressed actually and decide to grab my food and sit right down on one of the rocks in the middle of the creek and eat my lunch surrounded by the water!

It was actually pretty awesome and I took a nice break down there and just relaxed. MUCH better than some crummy overlook with a bunch of kids and stuff!

After that I head back down to GA the way I came. Very nice scenic views

The trip was pretty nice. I'd definitely recommend it for anyone wanting to check out the mountain views, as they were pretty incredible. It was funny because all the overlooks were actually pretty lame compared to some of the views you saw while on the road with nowhere to pull of.

Gonna need to get some bags on the GSXR and try out a few more random spots!