Knoxville

On Thursday we took leave of Chattanooga and moved North to Knoxville Tennessee. We did not cover a huge amount of ground but wanted to stop for a while in this part of the state so we could explore the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Once again rain chased us up the highway to this more mountainous part of Tennessee and we got set up just before the rain.

Friday we set off for a drive through the park. The Smoky Mountains National Park is the most visited national park in the country. Over 9 million people visit this park every year! Since over 1/3 of the US population lives within a day's drive of the park, it makes this park a pretty popular destination. On the way to the park we drove through Pidgeon Forge and Gatlinburg. The brochures we read listed these towns as gateways to the park as well as home to lots of arts and craft shops. They also seem to have lots of tourist stuff-in fact they were overly "touristy" but we may check them out later.

We took a drive over Newfound Gap--the lowest crossing of the Appalachian Mountains. The road winds through beautiful hardwood forests. Creeks rush over rocks next to the road, the forest has huge trees and lush undergrowth.
The forest floor had lots of pretty little flowers like this one. Too bad we don't know what it's called . Apparently the wildflower season was earlier in May although we did see a few at the higher elevations. At the crest of the road we were at 5200 ft elevation--it was pretty chilly!

Along the crest was the actual Appalachian Trail that runs from Maine to Georgia. According to the National Park Service about 400 hardy souls make the entire trek each yr. Looking at the rugged terrain we were traversing, our hats are off to them!

Almost every turn of the road had more beautiful vistas and lots to look at. There were a fair number of people taking the same trip we were taking. According to the ranger we talked to, the number of visitors is already up this year. The staff speculates that the high gas prices are going to force more families to take vacations closer to home. We decided then to not go back to the park until Monday--no reason to go over the busy weekend!

At the end of the drive we came upon this old grist mill. It has been on this site since the late 1800's. The park service renovated it and it now is in continuous operation grinding corn. It was pretty interesting to see how the mills work.

We exited the park in North Carolina. We drove the last 20 miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway to get back to the highway and then drove back home.