Road Trip: Southeast
Day 4: Saturday, September 24, 2022 - Knoxville, TN
Day's statistics:
Weather:
Steps: Steve 6,451; Linda 4,400
Drove: 243 miles
When I book our rooms, I always use the criteria "breakfast included". The biggest reason for this is that it is
more convenient to wake up, shower, dress, and go to breakfast; than it is to wake up, shower, dress, fully pack,
load the luggage into the car, and drive somewhere to eat. Plus it is a half hour or more later.
While it is true that this hotel had breakfast, let's just say it wasn't anything to write home about (or should I say
"write in a chronicle"?). There were apple-cimmimon Hostess pastries, bananas, and coffee (with non-dairy powered
creamer, no less). That's it. I had a pastry, and we wound up going to the Golden Arches across the street.
We hardly ever eat breakfast out, and usually only when we're traveling. Our experience at the arches was, shall we say,
less than ideal. I placed an eat-in order at the kiosk, took a table tent, and we waited. And waited. And waited. Eventually
someone (the manager, perhaps?) came by with our BAG of breakfast. They also provided no apology for the delay.
There was a couple two tables down that seemed to have a similar experience.
If table delivery is not convenient, then disable the option on the kiosk or remove the table tents.
Our first planned major stop today is in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
We saw the mountains from a distance.
To get to the NP, from Knoxville, by the route we took via the car's GPS system suggested, sent us
through a little town called Pigeon Forge (PF).
Have you ever been to PF? Or even heard of it? Before this trip, we only knew of it because someone gave us
a shot glass for it. So we had no problem passing through (though we usually like to do something when
we visit a town / city) - it allowed us to "claim visitiation for the shot glass".
But PF was not what we expected. Oh no, not by a long shot. Not that we had any real expectation to begin with, but what
we did see was... completely unexpected. We tried to capture what we could but, as I said, because we weren't expecting
anything, we weren't ready. We got ready after we missed an opportunity when we failed to capture a picture of... the upside
down house. Yes, you read that right: upside down house. (It's called Wonderworks.) Go ahead, Google it. I'll wait.
See? Weird, huh?!!? Once that went by, we had the cell phone out to capture other sites, like these.
There were some other interesting buildings, but with traffic and driving, it was a challenge to get too many
of them.
The highway through PF passed through and just proceeded right in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Of course, first things first was for us to get our NP stamp.
This was our second of three NPs we were visiting this trip.
We drove the 17 mile long "windy" road to Newfound Gap. We took some pictures when we arrived.
We probably drove, or will drive when leaving, on the road in the first image.
And even walked a little on the Appalachin Trail. And by "a little", I mean thirty feet, maybe.
There is a sort of "look-out" at the Gap, near the trail. And here is close-up of the plaque on the front of it too.
Here is the view, in the other direction than the images above, from the lookout.
There was a state line smack in the middle of the park, and at the point.
We drove on to an area near Clingman's Dome, a higher elevation, and more pictures. We didn't know until
afterward that there was a structure higher up than where we were - perhaps a short hike would have brought
us there - there are even better sights.
Here's a 180° stitched panaramic.
And a focus / perspective trick with the flowers, with the mountains in the background.
The road up to these elevations were "windy". Traffic kept most of the enthusiastic driving to a minimum.
But it was still rather enjoyable, from a drivers perspective.
Our car has a "miles to go" estimate. When we entered the park, it was 107. The ranger told us the trip to the Gap
was 17 miles. There and back should give us PLENTY of gas with no problem. Because the drive was up hill the entire
way, it turned out the estimate was a little generous. When we departed Clingman's Dome, we only had a remaining
estimate of 46 miles. Ah, never fear, the rest of the way is down hill! Pretty much every mile back down the mountain
ADDED TWO miles to the estimate. By the time we got back to the bottom, our estimate was up to 82 miles. Nice.
Near the exit to the park, while a string of us were driving along, I all of a sudden had sever pain in the eyebrow
area of my right eye. It even started tearing. We pulled over where we could and the pain subsided some. But it didn't
completely go away. In fact, it took days before the pain completely went away, and I don't even remember when it did.
Do you like driving? I do. A lot. So much so that when we were planning this trip, I was planning on
working in a drive on the Tail Of The Dragon.
We learned from the ranger in the Smoky Mountain NP that the Tail was on the outside of the park, along the southwest corner.
We were initially concerned that on a Saturday afternoon, there may have been a lot of traffic on the Tail.
We were really lucky. There was traffic, but it really wasn't that bad.
We decided to drive through the rest of the park, through Cherokee (another tourist trap [sorry to anyone
that may actually enjoy this place]), Bryson City, and over Fontana Dam.
We continued along until we hit Deals Gap, the start or the end of the Tail, depending on what direction
one is heading. For us, it was the beginning.
We didn't get any pictures of the plethora of cars and motorcycles parked at the two establishments in Deals
Gap - there were dozens, perhaps even more than a hundred. But we passed by, and pulled over a couple
hundred yards up the road on a wide shoulder to set up the camera.
For the unknowing, the Tail is an 11 mile stretch of winding road with 314 turns. This truly IS a windy road which is why I put
"windy" in quotes in the paragraphs above because, while they were twisty and curvy, they don't hold a candle to the Tail.
Back to the story. Linda held the camera in the passenger seat on a tripod. After setting up, we sat on the shoulder for a
little waiting for some vehicles that were getting underway, to pass - I wanted as much of a gap in front of us as possible.
After waiting a minute with no one else passing, we hit record on the camera, and pulled out.
We covered the 11 miles in about 18 minutes, for an average speed of about 37 miles per hour. It is hard to
accurately calculate exactly because there was an accident in the other direction which slowed us down; and our
progress was also hampered by a truck that DID eventaully pull over but only after about a minute; and the slow
moving motorcycles in front of us and the Corvette we were following. I even stopped in one spot to widen the
gap, but it didn't take long to catch up to the group again. But it was still a really fun drive.
There is a company called "KillBoy.com" that has at least two locations where they take pictures of cars on the
Tail. They then sell the pictures. While we don't want any of the pictures - because we have the video above -
our pictures can be found
at this link
at 1:59 PM (you can even see the camera in the
third of four photos),
and again at 2:08-2:09.
I even waved in one spot, but with the windshield reflection, you can't see it.
This state line passed by in the video above - at the 1:25 mark.
We continued on Route 115 / 129, and continued to enjoy the less-twisty roadway.
Car And Driver had a story about a drive from Robbinsville, NC, to Telico Plains, TN. They say that
while the Tail is so well renowned, this roadway is even better as it is longer and has even more turns. Had
we driven the Tail south, on the way to Atlanta, we probably would have driven this snippet of roadway too.
We returned to the city - Knoxville - in search of a location to eat Lunner. Linner? Lupper? Late lunch / early
dinner. While driving in town, we passed the Sunsphere (more on this thing tomorrow).
We parked, shoveled some quarters into the meter, and set out to find
Soccer Taco on Market Square.
It is a "chain", but a chain of three locations - if you can call that a chain. It's a Mexican food sports bar
sort of restaraunt.
On this day, most of the customers were watching the Univeristy of Tennessee vs. Buffalo
football game that was showing on all the TVs (UT did eventually win).
We were there just for the meal.
We had chips and salsa as an appitizer.
Linda had a street taco, and the "la basica sopa de pollo", or "basic chicken soup" (chicken soup with avocado,
wherein they add pico de gallo to it).
I had an enchillada and burrito, with rice and beans on the side. I have no idea what the phone was focusing on.
After our meal, we walked around the Market Square area a little. Here are some sights.
This restaraunt advertised - via a sidewalk chalk sign - that rooftop seating is available. From this angle, it looks like it actually is.
On the way back to the car, we passed this alley that had quite a bit of artwork.
On our way back to the hotel, we got another view of the Sunsphere.
We also stopped at Food City - a grocery store - and bought a case of water and a package of cookies.
The cookies would be our dessert...
We returned to the hotel, and retired a little early.