OMG - Smokey Mountains

We left Bandy Creek Park, Tennessee about 9:30 am on Thursday and headed south for the Smokey Mountains. Went thru Oak Ridge and looked for the Boys but they went hiding. Went around Knoxville, big city and headed into North Carolina via Pigeon Forge where Dollywood is located. Dolly has built an empire here and it is situated right as you enter the Smokey Mtns. If you have kids, you should definitely check it out but rob a bank beforehand and plan to spend a month. I don't think you would even get to everything then. And then we came Gatlinburg, my new favorite town. Houses and hotels built into the mountains and the town is absolutely charming. The uncharming thing was the price of gas, we needed to top off right before we entered the park and it was 60 cents more than anywhere else we had seen that day. Screw job!!! Another thing, if we had a dime for every Baptist church we saw today, we could pay for the camper heater and all the dog food for the trip.

After talking to a few people we decided to go thru the mountains and get to Cherokee on the other side and camp. The trip thru the mountains is hard to explain, pictures do not do it justice. Very very beautiful. We got to Cherokee and didn't find a campground. Again, we stopped and talked to some people and found out a bad storm was approaching. (Cousin Mary had also left a voice mail saying to watch for it. Thank you!!!) We found out from the locals that if it snows you can't get down from the mountains and we didn't want to get stuck there so we continued down the mountain in the dark until we were completely out.

So we stayed the nite at RaceTrac gas station in Cornelia, GA with our repaired camper heater that sounds like a 747 taking off when it works. And with the lights outside, highway traffic and 747 noise, we each slept about 1/2 hour total. We may be crabby today.

On to south Georgia to Debora and Ken. Hang on....