Taking a 4 day weekend starting tomorrow, and hopefully the rain stops. Me and my son are driving the Mustang down to Tennessee and North Carolina, to drive the Tail of the dragon, Cherohala Skyway and some other area roads. We will see what we have time to do. Should be a blast!

For those who have conquered the Tail, are there good places to stop and eat, and things to stop and see. I've not been on that side of the Smokies so I'm not familiar with it, and looking for recommendations.

 

Might as well roll on a little of the Blue Ridge Parkway while you're there, Rog. I recommend it highly for Mustang or motorcycle.

 

We did that in a Morgan some years back. Beautiful drive.

 

Roger, I'm not familiar with what type of eateries that are around the TOD. But, your not far from Pigeon Forge, TN. You can't fall down without landing on a restaurant, or a motel there. Have a fun, and safe trip. The Mustang is a great road trip car.

 

Had a great drive down, the 5.0 was incredible in the mountains. Love the power for climbing, and it did well on mileage. From Indy to Loundon ky we averaged 25.7 diving 75 with cruise on. Next tank was 22.5 which included our drive on the Cherohala skyway. Quite pleased with that and the new suspension package.

That is a beautiful drive, unfortunately we only went a little over half way, and turned around. The smokies were smokin at higher elevations, and it was difficult to see, plus it was misting rain. The road also seemed to have tree foliage all over it, so the it was a little slick in spots. Will definitely need to come back and do more in this area. We did have a chance to see a beautiful water fall. Really spectacular.

If you make it down here, a good place to eat is the Tellicafe. Good home cooking, good service at a reasonable price, and the apple pie alamode was served warm mmmmm.

 

Sorry I missed your initial post. If you are still in Tellico Plains go to the Tellico Grains Bakery (nice play on words) where they have unreal sandwiches made with a local ham that is just delicious. If you complete the Skyway tour into Robbinsville, NC go up the Nantahala Gorge for a wonderful drive. You can catch the national park on the way back to TN if that is where you are staying. As previously stated there are tons of eating establishments in the Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge area.
In Fontana Village, near the Tail of the Dragon, there is a place called the Wildwood Grill which is very comfortable and has outside seating. The food is nothing special but you can't go wrong with a simple soup and sandwich. There are NOT many eating establishments in the Dragon area.
Have fun!

 

We did the Dragon today and it was a blast. It was so much fun. We went early to beat the heavy traffic. Practically had the road to ourselves. Since I had not driven the road before I stuck to the speed limit maybe 5-10 over, and it was still fun.

We also made it to robbinsville and Fontana village. This weekend in Fontana they were hosting Z days. A lot of beautiful Nissans there, saw a couple of GTRs and a GTS right hand drive. Spoke to a few of the guys, they were having a good time and they were flying or appeared to be. I was the sole Mustang.

If you've never driven the dragon, you've got to put it on your list.

 

Our Trip was 1320 miles of father/son fun. That despite the weather not completely cooperating. We had spotty rain, Thursday and Friday, and we even had some sleet, and snow when we were on the Blue ridge parkway, after we got up in to the higher elevations, between 5500 and 6000 ft. I thought we were done with that stuff! Temps dropped to 34 degrees, we werent prepared for that as in dressed or gear. We had wind breakers, and we were prepared for 50-60's not 30's. We ended up driving about 100 or so miles on the Parkway. There was not much traffic on the Parkway compared to some of the other roads.

Some photos, last one of a GTR :

 

Happy to hear you enjoyed the trip Roger. IMHO, there's nothing like a run through the Smokey Mountains. It's been a favorite day trip of the Wifey, and mine since we were dating in the 70's. Yeah, we be old.

 

Nice!

Reminds me when in the mid 90s I drove on the NC part of the Parkway with a friend's Fox body Mustang. The fall colours were amazing.

 

Glad you enjoyed it!
Abd i could swear thats a G37 coupe lol

 

Yep, that's an Infiniti...I raced...er, enthusiastically drove along with one through some of the national parks around there. Lot of those guys like to refer to them as GTR's.

Glad you had a great time. If you can go in the week and when the weather looks bad, but won't be, its perfect.