Thursday, October 15, 2020

Once More to the Great Smoky Mountains

Today I took advantage of the fact that Anna's off work for her Fall Break to go out for an all-day adventure on one of my favorite drives: up U.S. 441, through north Georgia, into North Carolina, through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and on to Pigeon Forge, TN--and then back home again.

In one day.

I left this morning at about 9:20 and didn't get home until fourteen hours later*; frankly I wish I'd stopped at the NC/TN border--Newfound Gap in the GSMNP--and then headed back home. Three-hundred and eighty miles is a little too much for a one-day round trip (especially when I don't head out in the morning until over an hour after I'd intended too).

But still, I had a great time, and I took lots of pictures. Here are the ones I texted to Anna and the girls as I went:


(Tallulah Point Overlook, a place I always look forward to stopping at, has moved. I didn't see its new location.)










(The picture above and the two below show Gatlinburg from the bypass.)




(This was at that big year-round Christmas place in Pigeon Forge. Since Elyse collects cardinals, I thought she'd like it. (The picture, I mean; I didn't buy it.))

* If you compared that timeline with the time stamp on this post, you'd have to conclude that my arrival home is still in the future. I'm actually creating this post the next day, on Friday; it's actually "yesterday" I'm describing, rather than "today." Don't tell anyone.

No comments: