Motorcycle touring is popular in the North Carolina Smokies. Our curvy and scenic mountain roads are nothing short of ‘biker heaven’. Yet one group of riders drew a lot of attention when the “Blue Ridge Iron Indian Riders” thundered into the Gear Head Inn near Cherokee recently. The Whittier motel caters to motorcycle and classic car enthusiasts.

The riders were not indian, but the bikes were. They all were Indian Chief motorcycles, with their signature deeply valenced fenders.

Considered ‘America’s First Motorcycle’, Indian Motorcycles were popular from 1901 until World War II, when production shifted to supplying military and police vehicles. After the war, the company struggled to recapture its market and eventually closed its doors in 1953. The company was resurrected in 1999 and today Indian Motorcycles are manufactured in Kings Mountain, North Carolina.

Photo by Andy Jay, editor of Dashboards and Saddlebags magazine

Patricia and James Fields of Crossville, Tennessee explore the 275-foot, double-span Needmore suspension footbridge over the Little Tennessee River. It’s one of two suspension footbridges in Swain County. A smaller one spans the Nantahala River west of Wesser.

Suspension bridges were originally built to allow children from local farms to cross the river to catch the school bus in the days before good roads lined both sides of the river. The Needmore bridge is now part of the 4,525-acre Needmore Game Lands, located in Macon and Swain counties and managed by the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission.

To visit this bridge, from Bryson City drive west on US 74 approximately ten miles. Turn left on Needmore Road at Smoky Mountain Jetboats (just before Hwy 28 North). Continue south on Needmore for about four miles to the bridge. The GPS coordinates are N 35.32544, W 83.52328.

Downtown Bryson City was literally overrun with Minis. On Saturday, April 30, more than 100 of the sporty British compacts made the annual “Ice Cream Run” to Soda Pop’s Ice Cream Parlor on Everett Street. The Saturday side-trip was part of 9th annual “Minis on the Dragon” rally which brought more than 500 of the cars to Fontana Village for the four-day event.

If you’re a Trillium-lover, now is the time to head for the mountains. In the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, you’ll see them carpeting the wooded slopes along Newfound Gap Road (US 441), which runs from Cherokee to Gatlinburg. They are especially abundant near Collins Creek on the North Carolina side and Chimneys on the Tennessee side.

The Large Flowered White Trillium (above) is the most abundant of the Trilliums of the Great Smoky Mountains. The big, bell shaped white flower, which usually turns to a delicate pink with age, is on a stem 10 to 15 inches high. When started from seed, Trilliums take 6-8 years to have their first bloom.

If you’re driving from Cherokee, Galbreath Creek Road is a convenient shortcut from Highway 19 into the Deep Creek area of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The unpaved portion within the Park is a quiet country road that hasn’t changed much in decades.

Linda Stephenson shot this handsome portrait of Galbreath Creek Road last Fall. She says “Deep Creek is and has been a very special part of my life for many years.” And a lot of people must share that sentiment because Linda’s photo won the People’s Choice award at The Marianna Black Library‘s “Life in Swain” amateur photo contest last year.