Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Sept 12—Kingston to Kingston

Sandy rearranged his Friday schedule (I think he just told his staff to “handle it” for the day) and drove us to the Tennessee side of the Great Smokey Mountain National Park. I can’t tell you what a treat it is for me to have someone else behind the wheel. Heck, I’m happy to go to the dentist if someone else is driving.

Sandy got the day started by mentioning that the Alabama National Guard had been mobilized recently. My first thought was that Hurricane Ike had taken a huge right turn and was threatening the Alabama coast. But no, according to Sandy the Alabamians had heard that the Russians had invaded Georgia, and they were makin’ sure the damn Commie bastards weren’t a gonna come into Alabama.

Sandy took us to the Cades Cove area of the GSMNP. Cades Cove was a community located between mountain ridges and therefore very isolated. At first, when the national park was laid out back in the early 1930’s Cades Cove was not included and that was just fine with the residents. A few years later the government changed its mind (imagine that) and wanted to include the area. They forced many of the people to move, but allowed some of the older residents to live out the remainder of their lives in their cabins. I found out later that Cades Cove is the single most visited section of the park—over 2 million visitors annually. Some of the old cabins and churches are still standing . It was interesting to see the differences between one cabin and the next. I have always thought it would be wonderful to have a little log cabin tucked off somewhere in the woods. Elsewhere in the area there was a later homestead and an operating mill that ground the corn for the cornmeal they sold in the gift shop. What a wonderful, scenic place.

From the idyllic, rural, Cades Cove we next headed to Gatlinburg and Pidgon Forge area. Sandy learned that neither Betsy nor I had ever been and we had to go just to see it. If you like Myrtle Beach, Coney Island, or Nashville (IN) you would love Gatlinburg. Same junk, just another location. But now we can say we’ve been there.