Summer Fun

Concerts, festivals, rodeos, and more in North Georgia and North Carolina

By Collin Kelley

If you’re headed to the North Georgia Mountains and North Carolina in June, there are plenty of events and activities to keep you entertained along with the usual hiking, paddling, and scenic views.

Check out these events:

The country star will perform at the Georgia Mountain Fairgrounds in Hiawassee on Saturday, June 10, at 7 p.m. Get tickets and more information at georgiamountainfairgrounds.com.

Blue Ridge Mountains

Wine & Jazz Festival

Head to Ellijay on Saturday, June 24, for this day-long event (11 a.m. to 9 p.m.) featuring music, food, fine art, and wine from regional vineyards. The cost is $70 per person. Get more details at gilmerchamber. com.

Mountain Top Rodeo

The 34th annual rodeo is set for June 9-10 starting in Dahlonega. There will be steer wrestling, team roping, barrel racing, bull riding and more. Tickets are $20 for adults and $10 for kids, Get more info at mountaintoprodeo.com.

Authentic Unlimited

Slip over the border to Franklin, NC, to see the bluegrass band perform Friday, June 23, at 7:30 p.m. at the Smoky Mountain Center for the Performing Arts. Get tickets and details at smokymountainarts.com.

Gazers of the Galaxy

Ascend Georgia’s highest peak, Brasstown Bald, on Saturday, June 24, at 8:30 p.m. to get closer to the stars! Expert astronomers will be on hand to guide visitors on a tour of the night sky. Find out more at exploregeorgia.com.

Thunder in the Smokies

The oldest and largest motorcycle rally in the southeast takes place in Maggie Valley, NC from June 30 – July 2. There will be music, games, and rides on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Visit handlebarcorral.com for more.

Tennessee Aquarium adds new exhibitions

For more than 30 years, the Tennessee Aquarium has served as a must-see attraction for visitors to Chattanooga and now there’s even more to see and do this summer.

The new “Ridges to Rivers” gallery, which opened March 1, allows visitors to get nose-to-fin with dozens of species of colorful minnows, iridescent darters, and gleaming sunfish that live in Appalachian waterways.

The new gallery is anchored at one end by a massive 22-foot-long exhibit recreating the fast-flowing rapids and placid plunge pools of the Upper Tennessee River. On the opposite side of the new space, guests can experience a redesigned Lake Sturgeon touch exhibit, renamed Sturgeon Bend. Made possible by support from the Tennessee Valley Authority, this expanded experience features three times the footprint of the previous sturgeon touch exhibit, all the better for even more guests to lay fingers on these true living fossils.

Just down the hall from “Ridges to Rivers,” two more newly opened exhibits welcome guests to the “Rivers of the World” gallery. This pairing of habitats –collectively called “Seasonal Floodwaters” – features some of the species found above and below the waters of South America’s Amazon River basin. On one side, brilliantly colored Poison Dart Frogs hop from mossy log to leafy bromeliad alongside an electric green Amazon Basin Emerald Tree Boa. Next door, beautifully patterned, shimmering Discus – large, flat fish nearly the size of dinner plates – and schools of neon Cardinal Tetras flit through roottangled water.

“Deeper Dives: Feeding Frenzy” pairs a group of up to six guests with a knowledgeable guide from the Aquarium’s education team who will take them on a personal adventure through some of the facility’s seldom-seen areas. Along the way, they’ll learn about the animals exhibited and their roles in their wild ecosystems. However, the tour’s appeal is its namesake, a chance to scatter feed the 618,000-gallon Secret Reef and its resident sharks, rays, and saltwater fishes.

Find out more about the new exhibits at tnaqua.org.

Rough Draft Staff