I left home around 9:00 am in beautiful weather, cool in the morning and slightly warm in the afternoon. The BMW R1200 GSA had its 12,000 mile service the week before and I was packed for both camping and one overnight in a motel. Planning on multiple things means that I am carrying more on the bike than if I just decided to hotel it.
Lake Norman State Park
The big lake parks are what you would expect. Very much Boater centric with everything that you could want for a visit. It only lacked cabins. Camping, boating, hiking, biking trails and picnic areas. It is a beautiful park even though the parks of this size overwhelm me and I can't really narrow down what I would do. And if you are a boater you have it here. Lake Norman is huge and only a small portion of it is in the state park.
I was expecting to visit 3 parks today so off to the next.
South Mountain State Park
This Park was designated as a National Natural Landmark in 1975. It has 14,100 acres with a 600 foot granite dome as the spectacular feature. Plenty of picnic areas, Hiking trails, camping sites with some having electric or water. RV sites and a dump station. There are 17 miles of park streams that are designated trout waters. You can even go rock climbing. It was now 1:30 and I needed to find lunch and move on to my overnight camp.
For motorcyclists the road from Laurel Hill, NC to Morganton on old North Carolina 18 road is a wonderful twisty road that I didn't expect to find on this trip until much further west. Well worth seeking out this stretch of highway.
So, it is Sunday and I am now looking for lunch in rural NC. It seems that the Pandemic hit the mom and pop restaurants extremely hard. It is hard to find one. I traveled Old NC 18 for an hour with no luck so when I crossed into Morganton I ate at a Bojangles. Would really love to find more diners with blue plate specials like meatloaf. But I need to get on with it to set up camp.
Lake James State Park
This park started as a small park of 565 acres in 1987 but added much more acreage over the following years. The area I was camping in was Paddy's Creek Area. The campsites were spotless and since I needed a treed lot for my hammock the Rangers let me find the one I wanted and swapped my reserved site for it. The campground attendant brought me a load of wood for the campfire ring and I made quick work of hanging the hammock. Neighboring campers let me know that they had plenty of paper to start a fire but the wood delivered was bone dry and lit right up. I spent the evening reading a book and sitting sideways in the hammock near the fire.
The 700 foot beach was beautiful as was the park. I slept well that night listening to the leaves blowing in the light breeze. The attendant said that they frequently get astronomy clubs bringing in their telescopes because there is very little surrounding light from towns. It was very dark and great for sleeping with temperatures in the high 50's.
I got up around 7:15 and enjoyed my coffee and oatmeal while gradually packing up camp. By 9:00 I was ready to go but the fog was thick and I waited another 45 minutes. The route to Chimney Rock State Park was pretty short but very interesting. I took I-40 West for about 18 miles to Old Fort and took Bat Cave Road toward Bat Cave. This road is well publicized as a great motorcycle road. I can vouch for that since it has very challenging twists and turns. It winds a long way the connects with Rt. 9 which I took south to Bat Cave. If you took it north you would end up near Black Mountain. Rt. 9 is a different but still fun road with long sweepers and higher speeds. Enough so that on weekends the highway patrol monitors this route. It was a fun ride into Chimney Rock.
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