friends

After visiting The Carter House on sunday, we went down to Cyn's friend Kathryn's house. Her husband was there, and her newish son. She and Cyn played Scrabble (in person, as opposed to online). After that, we followed her over to her sister, Emily's house, where we met her husband and daughter, and enjoyed a delicious dinner and conversation. We had met them before, but only somehwat briefly, so it was nice to spend some time and get to know them.

Bright and early (for us) on Monday morning, we left our motel in Lebanon (near Nashville), to drive to Jackiejj's house. We were a little mixed up on times, forgetting that we were crossing into the eastern time zone, but we still made it there before 1:00. Jackie had a wonderful lunch waiting for us, in her cute little house. Afterwards, she took us on a little tour of her charming little town, and then down to Norris Dam State Park where we saw an old mill. Then over to the dam itself where we took a nice walk along the river below the dam. Hopefully next time we can spend more time with Jackie.

Then it was short drive over to Hilltop's home, where we met him, his wife, and their two dogs and cat. Cyn had met Stever before, but I hadn't and was looking forward to it. We had a good time there. Stever's a fun guy. And they took us on a drive around their neighborhood, and out to dinner at a local place. (We had such good food on this trip!) I got to see Stever's artwork up close. It's amazing how different some of it is up close, as compared to the little pictures on my screen at home.

Thanks to all our friends in Tennessee, who showed us such a great time!

The Smoky Mountains

I think there's been a lot of repetition, for those who also watch Cyn's journal. For those who don't, you might want to check it out if you're interested in what's going on in my life - she's a bit more verbose than I am. And she's got all the pictures of this trip so far. I don't know when I'll get around to posting them myself.

I think we were out of the motel by 9:00 on Tuesday. Pretty good for us. We immediately hit a five mile, half hour traffic jam, and the freeway into Knoxville was stopped down to one lane. I think it was a half hour drive down to the park, after that, give or take a grocery and gas stop.


First thing, we went into Cades Cove. It was still somewhat early, so the traffic wasn't bad at all. Cades Cove is a wide flat valley in the middle of the mountains. It was settled from the late 1700's through the late 1900's. Besides being pretty, it's got a few historical sites, like old farms, churches, cemeteries and the like. We stopped at a couple, including a little farm village, with a working mill (that was shut down due to low water). There's an eleven mile,one-way road around the cove. I'd planned on coming in on the north side, stopping at the mill, and exiting on the east end. First, I missed the road I intended to take in - which wasn't a big deal - so I came in on the east, and we drove all the way across. Then, after the stop at the mill, I learned that the road I intended to take out was closed. This was a big deal, since I wasn't sure we'd have time to get around the park in a day. So we crawled back around the loop. It was a pretty ride, but those people drove like they'd never seen trees before. Maybe they were looking for bears.

So we drove back the way we'd come in, and then cut across the north side of the park, towards the main entrance. Like all the roads in the park, it was a fun, curvy road with great scenery. We stopped at the visitor center to pick up a map of hiking trails, which we never used - too little time. Then we drove up Newfound Gap Road toward the top of the park.

We went up to Clingman's Dome, the highest point in Tennessee, and the park. From the parking lot, it was a half mile walk, and had an elevation gain of 330 feet. That doesn't sound like much, but man, it was steep. My legs were stiff for two days afterwards. Of course, spending a day and a half in the car, directly after the hike didn't help. From the top, you can usually see for many miles (hundreds?), but it was very hazy. Still a good view.

Then we headed down, to the south side of the park. It was late in the afternoon, and I wasn't sure how much time we had left. We stopped at the Mountain Farm Museum, and had a nice walk around their farm (it was good to stretchour legs after that hike). It was a more-or-less working farm. They had gardens, a big patch of tall corn, barns, outbuildings and pigs. (pictures)


From there, we went south out of the park, into Cherokee, and the reservation. It was kind of sad to see all the kitschy Indian themed stuff - Indian Princess Gift Shop, and Big Chief whatever. There was some beautiful scenery south of the park too. Fontana Lake is enormous, and the hills around it are dotted with homes. Expensive ones, I would guess. From there, it was a bit of a drive over to Fontana Dam. The dam is 480 feet high - The highest concrete dam east of the Rocky Mountains. It's pretty impressive. There are two huge metal gates leading to the spillways, which are giant round concrete pipes, that you can look down into... the darkness. Cyn, of course, had trouble going near the railings. Just downstream from the dam, we crossed a bridge, and saw that there was a thick fog on the water. The cold water from the bottom of the reservoir mixed with the warm humid air. We followed the foggy river for a way, until we turned north to head through Deal's Gap.


I was a mile or two up, before the name rang a bell - Deal's Gap is a road that's world-famous for its twists and turns. They call it the Dragon, and motorcyclist come from everywhere to ride it. Fortunately, it was getting towards sunset, so there weren't many, and I wasn't getting in their way. I made pretty good time on that stretch, considering I was driving a station wagon. It was a lot of fun... but not so much for my passenger (there was a lot of screaming). And I wish I'd figured out that I could use the seat belt to keep the cooler from sliding back and forth across the back seat. Fortunately, the sun hadn't quite gone down, because I wouldn't have wanted to be on that road in the dark.

From there, we took the Foothills Parkway back north. Then, it was nearly dark. Just enough light to see ahead of my headlights. Which was nice, because it was another picturesque road, though not as twisty. By the time we got to a main highway, it was fully dark.

Given the fading light, our timing was perfect, except that we didn't get to hike, except for the walk up to Clingman's dome. I couldn't complain too much about the closed road - though I would have liked to get off the pavement and into the woods.

So... it doesn't seem like there's all that much to tell, but it sure was pretty.