Tennessee - Day 5 - back to Newport

Newport KOA
Tuesday, 5 November 2019

I spent several hours early in the morning planning a route through far eastern Tennessee, figuring out where I really wanted to go and separating those places from those I'd like to go sometime but probably not this trip.  See, I looked at a weather report and saw that we've got predictions of nighttime temps in the 20s coming up, which I translate to possible ice on the road in these mountains.

It's hard for me to plan sensibly because I'm not familiar with TN's roads yet (you know - are they more like West Virginia's or instead like Kentucky's?) so don't know how far off the main roads I can go.

I figured out a route that skirted the borders of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park - not sure whether to trust their roads that looked, on Google's satellite, like narrow mountain roads (which makes sense).  And there are some sights I want to visit in this part of the state.  So the only constraint seems to be campgrounds.

I realized that the Newport KOA that I'd just been staying in is the perfect distance from this campground and from the next ones, and then decided to just up and go there today.  I know they've got wifi there, so I could catch up with my blog, and I know I can do laundry there, so I quickly battened down all the loose items in the cabin, gave the dogs a quick walk, and off we went.

today's route

I decided on the scenic route today and, because I once again took the wrong turn, I saw a lot more scenery than I'd intended.  That's what the extra orange line is that seems to head nowhere at the bottom left of that map above.  We went at least 40 miles round trip the wrong way, but I saw a part of the state I might not have seen otherwise.

attractive county courthouse

Maryville
The first leg had me driving down a winding road to Maryville, which is a decent sized town.  In addition to being the county seat, it has the national HQ for Ruby Tuesday.  Who'd've thought a relatively obscure town in rural Tennessee would have the headquarters for a nationwide chain of restaurants?  Momma really liked going there for lunch.

There's also Maryville College and Pellissippi State Community College.  I'm finding the word Pellissippi all over this area, on street names and all kinds of things.  Because it was so common, I tried to find out where it comes from, the answer to which is that nobody knows for sure. 

Wikipedia says it carries the meaning everybody around here seems to believe: it's taken from a Cherokee word meaning winding waters, referring to the Clinch River.  But it turns out the Cherokee language doesn't have either a "p" or an "s" sound.  After some searching, I found this explanation.  Even if you're not curious about the name, you might want to check this link out for the pretty pictures and very old French and British maps of this area.  http://www.pstcc.edu/blogs/marketing-comm

I passed 5 road workers, all standing with their arms folded, all wearing those yellow safety vests, and all with long grey beards.  I wished I could stop and take a photo of them.

And not far down the street, I found a couple of other guys working on something in the median; one of them was sitting on a little Bobcat with a shovel attachment.  This guy was so big he seemed as wide as the Bobcat, and he was focused intently on texting something.  It was just another funny photo op I couldn't grab.

Countryside
And here is where I made the wrong turn.  I went back later to see what the directions actually said, which is that I should use the right 2 lanes to turn left.  No wonder I turned right instead.  And went more than 20 miles out of my way.

I passed a sign saying WARNING - Live Artillery Fire, and wondered what on earth was going on there.  Fortunately, I came back by once I'd gotten turned around and learned that that is the Friendsville Artillery Range.  Which seems a contradiction in terms, but Friendsville is the name of a small town here.

At this point I was heading southwest and finding not much color on the leaves - mostly green and brown.  Still pleasant but nothing like as glorious as I'd seen yesterday.

I passed Deb's Little Donkeys.  I think she raises them.

I was all the way to Lenoir City when I stopped to see why I wasn't finding roads that said the things I expected them to say.  And turned around and went back again.

I saw a sign that said the Dallas String Quartet will be playing in Maryville in November.

As I drove down the right road I suddenly started seeing much more color in the leaves and a lot more mountains.  Amazing the difference.

Cade's Cove
I passed the turnoff to Cade's Cove, which is a place the reception person at last night's campground told me I should be sure to visit.  He said it was wonderful there and the place he'd live if he were able.  So I looked it up.  And learned that it's an 11-mile loop of one-way and one-lane road through an area of the Smokies where a driver is very likely to see deer and turkeys and possibly bear. 

But many people commented online that the road is heavily trafficked (more than 2 million visitors a year) and many idiots stop their vehicles in the middle of the road (instead of pulling over) to view wildlife, and some complete idiots get out of their vehicles to view bears up close.  One woman wrote that she saw people doing this with a bear cub and she was hoping the mama would come along and knock some sense into them.  Others wrote that it took 3 hours to make the 11-mile loop because of being forced to stop and wait for idiots.

I've seen lots of deer and turkeys just in my campgrounds, and I saw bear in Alaska (though I'd like to see them again) so I was just not interested in taking 3 hours out of my day for that.  Too bad.

Townsend
I passed a sign for Tuckaleechee Caverns.  Having never heard of them, I looked them up and am now sorry I didn't know about them before.  This sounds like a place I'd definitely want to put on my list for a return trip to the state.   www.tnvacation.com/local/townsend-tuckaleechee-caverns

These caverns are in Townsend, which bills itself as The Peaceful Side of the Smokies.  Making me wonder what's going on in North Carolina on the other side.

Townsend is a tiny town but has a lot going on.  I passed a peloton of cyclers riding along the road, which was fortunately 2 lanes on each side at that point.  I met them again coming back after I'd stopped for us all to stretch our legs and have some lunch.

Townsend has a dulcimer shop.  It also has something they call Grains & Grits, a Festival of Southern Spirits and Gourmet Grub.  It was just this past Saturday and was probably fun, but the tickets were $75 so I'd have given it a miss.  The price is high because they've got a multitude of distilleries represented, from Jack Daniels down to local folks, plus 2 breweries and 1 winery.  I don't know what they had for grub but it was probably great.  You'd just want to have a designated driver if you were going to this shindig.

The road from Townsend to Pigeon Forge was almost all s-curves and switchbacks and 90° bends, going either uphill or downhill but rarely straight or flat.

Headrick Chapel, est. 1902, and cemetery and view

I pulled over into the church parking area to let folks go by me and enjoy the view.  This view is modest compared with those I saw a little later.

Immediately past this church I saw a field of horses (almost as many as I'd seen the whole month in Kentucky), all with their backs turned to the wind.

Pigeon Forge
As I came into Pigeon Forge, I saw a sign saying it was established in 1962.  That seemed odd to me so I looked it up and learned that pioneers and farmers had been living in the area for 100 years but they hadn't incorporated until 1962.  It was still a sleepy little place until tourists discovered it somehow in the early '80s.  Then Dollywood got built in 1986 and they never looked back.

What the town reminded me of was resort towns, like Atlantic City and Las Vegas without the gambling.  Every single building seemed to house tourist attractions of one kind or another - shops and hotels and rides and Ripley's Believe it or Not and all kinds of amusement places.  All very wholesome, I guess, and all designed to part people with their money as quickly as possible.  There was even a Thomas Kinkade Gallery.  My conclusion is that, like other resort cities, this place must have a stunning number of jobs available.

Pigeon Forge, by the way, was named for the forge that used to be here on the Pigeon River.  And the river was named for the Passenger Pigeon which, sadly, is extinct.  But they were here because there was lots of food for them here.  Just not anymore.

Gatlinburg
There's only about 8 miles between Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, but it's a lovely 8 miles.  For part of it the road splits with northbound and southbound divided by what might be Pigeon River.  Trees hanging over the roadway with yellow leaves, emphasized by the sunshine.  Really pretty.

The large parking lot for the Gatlinburg Visitor Center looked completely full, with more cars turning in as I drove by.  I wondered if I was missing something.

Like so many towns I passed through today, Gatlinburg is putting up its Christmas lights display.  I thought they solved their separation-of-church-and-state situation in an interesting way: they have a huge display of an American flag with the words "Old Glory" - all lit up in lights.  Celebratory without celebrating a religion.  Unless, I guess, you're a serious nationalist.

Salt & Pepper Shakers Museum
I saw this online and had trouble believing it was real.  So I stopped.  Admission $3.  But I just had to see.  And you'll get to see too.

turkeys and pheasants

turn the knob and the shakers pop up

vegetables

transportation

fruits

frogs

left handed shakers 

"Americana" they said

from Occupied Japan

Bakelite and Lucite

This was all the work of one woman who collected more than 20,000 pairs of shakers over many years.  There were far more than I've got here - rabbits and dogs and cats and various foods (bread, e.g.) and Native Americans and Amish and some made of wood or of metal or of porcelain.  There were some with gold all over them.  She had a whole section that she'd picked up in other countries.

My daddy used to collect salt and pepper shakers.  I guess he had maybe 15 or 20 pairs.  And I didn't see any here that looked the way I remember his looking, so this clearly isn't a complete collection.  She sure did her best, though.

More countryside
From here I saw wonderful views of the mountains.  At one point I saw 3 tiers of mountains like I did yesterday, but these mountains were close enough that I could see trees on all 3 tiers.  Then the road took me past one tier and - surprise - I saw 3 tiers again.  I guess the first one had hidden the view of a 4th.  Since I was driving in the foothills, each tier was taller than the ones in front of it.  It was a really great view.

And I realized how much I've missed seeing mountains.  They relax me somehow.  I guess because they seem so permanent.  Which of course they aren't at all, having been formed by tectonic plate upheaval that could upheave again I suppose.  But they look pretty solid to me.

I passed a sign advertising Smoky Mountain Llama Treks.

I turned north and noticed in my side mirror a beautiful mountain range of dark blue in the distance behind me.  Like a good-bye from the Smokies.

And back to the Newport KOA.  I didn't remember until I drove in that this was the campground that had food everywhere, but I picked out a different campsite that apparently is free of food - at least, the dogs didn't find any.