Even cooler this morning, it was just 40 degrees when we left our motel at 8:00AM. We headed to the highway, bound for Great Smoky National Park, via Waynesville and Cherokee, about 50 miles south! As soon as we got on the highway, this colorful hot air balloon came into view! Seeing this, I just knew it was going to be a great day!
We drove through Maggie Valley, which seems like a charming place, although the main strip is way over-commercialize (I can't even imagine being in this area at the height of summer!) then through the town of Cherokee and the Cherokee Reservation, taking some crazy winding roads through the rural reservation.
We entered the Park at the Oconaluftee Visitor Center and drove the Newfound Gap Road the 34 miles to Gatlinburg, TN (which is backwards, by the way - I guess the usual way to drive it is from Gatlinburg to Cherokee!) with some detours on the way. At Oconaluftee Visitor Center we saw our first wildlife of the day, some wild turkeys!
What we didn't know then, was that this would pretty much be the only kind of wildlife we would see all day!
Not long after arriving in the park, we needed a rest stop, and pulled off at Mingus Mill. The temperature had dipped into the high 30's in this shaded mountain area, and there was a real chill in the air. While we were there, we checked out the Mill:
Not long after leaving Mingus Mill, we stopped at a lovely overlook with a mountain stream The colors were great!
Then we found another spot with a stream and a bridge, not much later. This time the best view was looking east into the morning sun so the lighting wasn't quite right, but I managed to get a couple of decent shots!
Back on our journey, Newfound Gap road carried us higher and higher, and the overlooks were breathtaking.
We found some other tourists who were willing to take our requisite tourist photo, after we took theirs! You can see the photographer's shadow in this shot:
Bob, enjoying the view!
At this overlook we did find another form of wildlife, this unknown grasshopper! I've never seen this kind of "striped" grasshopper up north!
We kept driving, stopping at various overlooks, enjoying the views! At one point we could see a dense white cloud hovering over the valley - perhaps this is the "smoke" that the mountains are named after?
We then took a detour off Newfound Gap road, up to Clingmans Dome, the "top of the Smokies". At 6,643 feet, Clingmans Dome is the highest point in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It is the highest point in Tennessee, and the third highest mountain east of the Mississippi. The observation tower on the summit of Clingmans Dome offers spectacular 360° views of the Smokies and beyond, for visitors willing to climb the steep half-mile walk to the tower at the top. We decided against that steep half-mile hike to the observation tower. The view from the parking lot was pretty great already, and the scenery on the winding road was more than magnificent. But while we were there, we discovered that the white clouds of smoke we had admired previously were really clouds of pollution, hanging over the valleys! We also saw many dead fir trees at this elevation, as indicated in the photos below:
So...what is killing the trees at Clingmans Dome? The balsam woolly adelgid is an insect pest that infests and kills the stands of Fraser fir that occur naturally only in the southern Appalachians the highest elevations. The adelgid was introduced on trees imported from Europe, and the fir has little natural defense against it. By injecting the tree with toxins, the adelgid blocks the path of nutrients through the tree. The trees literally starve to death, and thousands of dead snags are all that are left on the highest mountain peaks. A "cousin" of this insect, the hemlock woolly adelgid, is killing hemlock trees throughout the park. Hemlocks killed by this second type of adelgid are visible along Newfound Gap Road.
After leaving Clingmans Dome, we rejoined Newfound Gap road, driving north toward the Gatlinburg (TN) Visitor Center.
When we arrived in Gatlinburg, it was lunch time, so we left the park and found a spot to eat in the town that was right there at the entrance.
Patiently waiting for our orders to arrive:
After lunch we decided to find Cades Cove, which is reportedly where the wildlife hang out. I know that chances of seeing wildlife are best in the early morning or early evening, and here we were, right smack in the middle of the day. But how could we come to the Smokies without seeing one of it's most famous spots? So I talked Bob into checking it out.
On the way, we passed by this beautiful mountain stream, and I just had to get some shots. I went and plopped myself down on a large rock right in the stream, and shot from every angle imaginable. This is the kind of shots I was hoping for, and they turned out to be some of the *best* shots of the trip.
Although the cove was beautiful, we weren't seeing enough that was noteworthy to hold our interest - mostly what we were seeing was the back end of the church van in front of us. We didn't stop at any of the historic buildings or settlements, because there were just too many tourists at each spot. At that point we began counting the number of cars that were stopping at each site - and therefore no longer in front of us! This is not the way we enjoy seeing nature!
There were some pretty spots in Cades Cove, but you had to look out the side windows, because there was nothing to see up ahead except a long line of cars in front of us!
The first things we saw were more wild turkeys, so that excited me! What better place to see wildlife, if there was any, than on a dirt road through the deep woods? Unfortunately that was all the wildlife we saw for the day!
Now, you have to remember where I live, to understand my obsession with seeing wildlife, and understand why seeing a few wild turkeys is such a big deal. This is probably no big deal at all - perhaps even commonplace - to someone living in a rural area, but we don't have wild turkeys in Queens where I live! I grew up in the country, but for the past 36 years I've lived in New York City, so I am always on the lookout for wildlife, and get excited over just about anything!!
Well that dirt road we were on was rutted and winding, and after a while, I could feel that Bob was getting a little stressed out about what it might be doing to his car. But by this time, were were pretty much committed to this one way road, and had to continue. It wound on and on and on through the woods. Finally we made a turn and discovered we were behind another car, so at least that car would indicate where the ruts and holes in the road were, so we could [hopefully] avoid them. And still we drove on and on and on. The woods were lovely, but started to seem never-ending.
Then...suddenly we were at the end of the dirt road, and coming out of the woods - and into the daylight - onto a highway!! Ah, we're not lost after all! But which way to go, now? Right or left? "Let's go left", I said, so we did. (Bob is soooo good, he always listens to his excellent navigator :)
Well, it became obvious after a few curves in the road that this was no ordinary highway - could we possibly be on the famous Tail of the Dragon??? The map was telling me we were close! We had planned to find this route at some point on our trip, as Bob wanted to experience this drive that is a favorite with motorcyclists, as well as have his photo taken at the Tree of Shame!
A couple more hairpin turns convinced us that we were, indeed, on the Tail of the Dragon, a section of US 129 that has 318 curves in the span of 11 miles! Motorcyclists, sports car enthusiasts, and other serious drivers come from all over the nation to "slay the dragon"! So we drove on, curve after hairpin curve, with motorcycles coming toward us on the other side, leaning waaaaaay over into the bend. The GPS was going nuts, trying to capture curve after curve on the LCD screen
A couple more hairpin turns convinced us that we were, indeed, on the Tail of the Dragon, a section of US 129 that has 318 curves in the span of 11 miles! Motorcyclists, sports car enthusiasts, and other serious drivers come from all over the nation to "slay the dragon"! So we drove on, curve after hairpin curve, with motorcycles coming toward us on the other side, leaning waaaaaay over into the bend. The GPS was going nuts, trying to capture curve after curve on the LCD screen
We continued on and on, not sure just which way we were heading, and at which end the Tree of Shame was. At one point I decided we were going in the wrong direction so we turned around and went all the way back. As it happens, we had been headed in the right direction the first time - okay, my fault, I accept the blame :) We were originally only a mile from Deals Gap and the Tree of Shame, when I urged us to turn around. But this way, we got to drive the Dragon's Tail nearly twice, and also got to see Fontana Lake & Dam as well, a beautiful spot we might have missed otherwise! In the end it seems this was all meant to be, and we had our big adventure after all!!
Fontana Lake, created by Fontana Dam (just behind my head!)
We reached Deals Gap, which seems to be little more than a motorcycle resort, but I'm sure it has significance to motorcycle enthusiasts, which we are not. I have never ridden on one, and don't really care to - truth be told, they scare the crap out of me! But we found the Tree of Shame, and I took Bob's photo near it, for the guys back at work! And this afternoon really turned out to be a fun, and out-of-the ordinary, experience!
So by now it was getting late, and we still had quite a bit of driving to do to get back to Asheville, and...we still had to eat dinner somewhere along the way. The plan was to stop in Bryson City because I wanted to buy a postcard for my Dad from that specific town. I had recently discovered he had read a book about a doctor's first year of practice in the Smoky Mountains, called Bryson City Tales. So I thought he might get a kick out of receiving a postcard from the real place!
It was a cute little town, and we walked around, bought the postcard, and some other souvenirs. We ate at The Iron Skillet, a place that had been recommended to us by a local as "the best place to eat in Bryson City". Seems to be a popular place! The food was good, but a bit too greasy for my taste! I am discovering that cheese, bacon and grease are staples in southern food!
By that time it was getting dark, and we still had some miles to drive, but Bob had to have his dessert, which is usually in the form of ice cream! So we stopped into an authentic soda fountain not far from the restaurant, where he got a milkshake to tide him over until we got back to Asheville.
By that time it was getting dark, and we still had some miles to drive, but Bob had to have his dessert, which is usually in the form of ice cream! So we stopped into an authentic soda fountain not far from the restaurant, where he got a milkshake to tide him over until we got back to Asheville.
End of Day 4, another very good day!!
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