6/1/12 – We left Knoxville this morning at 8:45, 68 degrees, headed for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It rained during the night, the ground was saturated and the parking lot full of puddles. We saw the lowest priced gas on the road out of Knoxville…3.17. What a difference from California where it was not unusual to see 4.89.

The park is not far from Knoxville. To get there we drove through Pigeon Forge. Anyone who has been to International Drive in Orlando would recognize a resemblance, except in a rural setting and with a bit of a mountain country flair. The 3-4 mile stretch of road was lined with motels, restaurants, and daytime and nighttime attractions…Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede, Dollywood Splash Country, Wonderworks, The Opry, Hatfield and McCoy Dinner Show, Hollywood Wax Museum, Titanic Museum, and on and on.

A few more miles and we entered into the park. There was no gate, no entrance fee, no park rangers to greet us, just a road surrounded by a canopy of thick trees with a stream running beside it. And soon it opened up into Gatlinburg. Yes, a town inside the park. This was another stretch of motels, hotels, restaurants and mom and pop businesses, to many to count…Hillbilly Golf, Sweet Fanny Adams Theatre and many others. There were hotels on the mountain ridges and hillsides, perched high in the trees…a sight which I have never seen in a national park.

Finally we were in the forest…and that is pretty much what this national park is all about…thick forest guarding the road that winds around and through the mountains, up one side and down the other. I don’t know why they call it the Smoky Mountains, but I could venture a guess, because the fog rose from each valley and the clouds loomed over us the entire ride. At the top we were in the clouds for quite a while, and it rained.

We reached the top, which was probably about 6,000 ft., and started down the other side. The road was well maintained and the driving was a lot easier than in the Rockies. And on the other side of the mountain was Cherokee, NC, another little town inside the park and similar to Gatlinburg except that it is in an Indian reservation and has a very strong Indian theme. In addition to the tourist attractions and shops of Indian artifacts, there was also a Harrah’s casino with a huge hotel.

The drive through the park only took about an hour and a half and there were few places to take photos yesterday, as it was foggy and dark.

We continued on to I-40 and headed for Apex, NC for a Danielle fix. I will note that driving in NC is often pleasant, as many of the roads are lined with flowers of many colors. Today we saw miles of yellow daffodils.

 We arrived at 4:15 and will be here for the next few days.