I really wanted to get an Alabama cache since we were so close to the border. Plus, we kinda wanted to see where they made the cast iron Lodge pans. The time zone line is right in the middle of the state of Tennessee so we kept going from central time to eastern time back into central time. We had to pay attention so we knew how long to stay in a certain place. We drove the 30 miles to South Pittsburg, TN. I had the address in the Nuvi on where to go. South Pittsburg is a small town on the Tennessee/Alabama border. It is home to the National Cornbread Festival held every year during the last full weekend in April. We got to the Lodge store too early so we drove around looking for a few caches to find while we waited.
I started with our Alabama cache first. It was less than two miles away in Bridgeport, AL. We drove down Hwy 72 paralleling the Tennessee River. There was a small pullout where I parked the car. There was a white marker welcoming you to Alabama. Alabama Trail of Tears Historical Marker (GC6GPE5) was a pill bottle in the bushes just left of the marker. It wasn't hard to find. I got back in the car, got back onto the highway and made a U-turn to head back to South Pittsburg.
I set the coords on the Nuvi to IRON Man (GC271TF) near the Lodge store. Again, no one wanted to get out so I found it by myself. The cache was boring but the location was pretty cool. The man was made out of Lodge products. I signed my name, took the necessary photo and went back to the car.
We've wasted enough time now to where we can get into the store. Erika decided to stay in the car again since she was sleeping. Mom and I headed in to see what kinds of things they had and if we could learn anything about the cast iron industry.
We learned that the only tours of the Lodge factory was in April during the Cornbread Festival and sadly it was August. Mom did buy a cast iron Lodge skillet and I bought a yellow reusable shopping bag because it was cool. We used the restroom before we left. We decided we were done with the small town and headed back to Chattanooga to go see the Chattanooga Choo Choo. Mom got the address for me and off we went.
We found Terminal Station, which was owned and operated by Southern Railway and in 1989 turned into the Chattanooga Choo Choo Hotel. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A famous song, Chattanooga Choo Choo, was written in 1941 about the train going through Chattanooga. I got as close to it as I could but I had to stay in the car so we didn't have to pay for parking. I let mom out while I sat in the gravel parking lot eating my leftover chicken from last night. Erika was still asleep in the back. Mom was gone for about 20 minutes.
Mom came back and she said she talked to someone inside the hotel that there is a parking garage you can go up to and get a great view of the city. We looked for a free place to park and left Erika inside the car. We walked to the parking garage and went up the elevator. When we got on top of the parking garage you could see a 360 degree view of Chattanooga. We were up there for about a half hour checking out the sites.
We walked back admiring some of the murals along the way. I wanted to get the webcam, I See You (GCPB7G), inside the convention center before we left town. I plugged the coords into the Nuvi and off we went. We were not that far away from the center. When we finally got there, avoiding as much traffic as we could, I had to find a place to park for a few minutes and got inside. Unfortunately, mom and Erika would have to stay in the car while I ran in so we didn't have to pay to park.
I found the website I needed to screen shot my photo once I found the spot I had to stand in. I found myself on the website and took a few pictures just in case something went wrong. Before I left I looked at my saved screen shots to see if one turned out. All of them did so off to the car I went. We put Knoxville into the Nuvi and to I-75 we went!
Erika was finally up for the day and chatted with us as we made our way east towards Knoxville. I checked to see how much gas I had and we should make a stop soon to fill up. I asked mom to check my gas buddy app to see what gas stations were ahead of us and which one was the cheapest. We found a Love's just a head of us in McDonald, a small town east of Cleveland, TN. We got off at exit 33 and filled up. Erika got out and grabbed a sandwich from the Subway and I grabbed a few Pepsi's and a Milky Way.
We got back onto I-75 and watched the landscape go by as we made our way east to Knoxville. Of course there were the dumb stupid drivers we had to avoid here and there. We arrived just after noon. We took the I-40 junction and got off of the interstate towards Sevierville and Pigeon Forge. We found the exit and got onto the Winfield Dunn Parkway towards Gatlinburg. This was a very long road and it seemed to go forever. I didn't realize this road was this busy! We pictured something completely different than what was in front of us. We thought this area was a small historical town...we were way wrong. Sevierville, Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg were basically the Las Vegas strip of Tennessee! There were buildings, stores, people, restaurants, traffic, traffic lights and to top it off it started raining really hard. We decided to go to the Smoky Mountains first. We just followed the road towards the Sugarlands Visitor's Center.
We actually waited in the car until the rain calmed down a bit or we would have been pummeled or possibly drowned. We all ran in really quickly to find out where we needed to go and to get a few maps. We all used the restroom and browsed the gift store for a while. We thought it if we stayed in there for a bit the rain would subside. All three of us got a few things while we were there. I got a few postcards (I send them to my pen pal in Germany), a magnet and a plush possum because I could. We talked to the clerk about how awesome it was that there was no national park fee. Here's why:
"The reasons for free entry to the national park date back at least to the 1930s. The land that is today Great Smoky Mountains National Park was one privately owned. The states of Tennessee and North Carolina, as well as local communities, paid to construct Newfound Gap Road (US-441.) When the state of Tennessee transferred ownership of Newfound Gap Road to the federal government, it stipulated that "no toll or license fee shall ever be imposed..." to travel the road.
At that time, Newfound Gap Road was one of the major routes crossing the southern Appalachian Mountains. It's likely the state was concerned with maintaining free, easy interstate transportation for its citizens. North Carolina transferred its roads through abandonment, so no restrictions were imposed.
Action by the Tennessee legislature would be required to lift this deed restriction if Great Smoky Mountains National Park ever wished to charge an entrance fee."
We headed out to the car and started up the grade toward the Newfound Gap. There were lots of people going to and from. When we finally did get to up to the Gap, we also noticed that we were straddling the Tennessee and North Carolina state line. We would have to visit it on the way back down. We continued on to Clingman's Dome, the highest point in the Smokies and in the state of Tennessee.
We saw a wild turkey on our way to the parking lot. It's been a while since I've seen a wild turkey wandering around. It was kinda cool.
We finally got to the lot and found a place to park. We grabbed the stuff we might need for our half mile up and our half mile back. Mom brought her backpack and we crammed some snacks and water inside of it. We started up the nicely manicured, paved, slightly uphill trail. We had to stop a few times because the elevation got to us.
As we reached the top we saw signs for the Appalachian Trail and now I can say I've walked part of the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) and the Appalachian Trail, two of the longest trails in the US.
We saw Clingman's Dome and made our way up the ramp to the top. There were a lot of people up there.
We got a few pictures and answered the questions for the cache, Top of the Smokies Virtual Picture Cache (GC84C0). We were very happy some of the clouds cleared away so we could actually see some of the landscape. We stayed up there for about 20 minutes enjoying the view before we made our way down.
We took pictures of some of the butterflies and birds as we made our way back down to the car. I checked to see if there were any other caches along the way. There were two earthcaches but I only did one of them. We got down to the bottom of the trail and while mom and Erika wandered around I did the earthcache, NP Smoky Mountains - Clingman's Dome Concretions (GC6TRMK) which talked about the large boulder anomalies. I answered all the questions and took a picture of myself near ground zero.
We got back to the car and mom said, "let's go to North Carolina!" We looked at the map and the nearest down was not too far away. We plugged Cherokee, NC into the Nuvi and headed down the Smoky Mountains. Cherokee is a small census-designated place in western North Carolina full of Native American culture. We grabbed See the Dancing Water (GCY5P9) as we entered town. It was my first North Carolina cache but the cache wasn't that exciting so I got a picture of the location instead.
We drove around the small town before mom saw a store she wanted to go into. We parked the car and noticed a man was dressed in full Native American garb chanting and banging a drum. We hung out for a while listening to it. Mom talked to him for a few minutes and then we went inside the store to see what was inside. Lots of jewelry, leather, T-shirts, sweatshirts and other miscellaneous items. Mom got grandma a shirt and Erika bought a dream catcher.
We got back in the car and headed back up into the Smokies but we took a small detour to Mingus Mill. We were the only ones there and had no idea where we were suppose to go after we parked. We found this old road and followed it for a short time and then decided to walk back and take the other trail. The mill was pretty cool. We read the informational board to find out more about it. Of course we took a few dozen pictures as well. I also did the virtual 1886 Turbine (GCGYMA) while we were here. It asked us questions about the mill and the stones.
We used the restroom before we headed back up to the Newfound Gap.
When we got there, we almost missed it. I made a wacky turn and parked in the lot. We enjoyed the view and straddled the TN/NC border.
We got a few pictures and I did some more reflecting. I thought about Grammie again and how I missed her terribly. Losing a family member definitely gives you perspective on life. It makes you question everything that you've been doing and things that you might do in the future. These past six months were really hard for me and I wished everything would have turned out differently. I would trade my job if it would bring Grammie back to us.
We got back in the car and headed into Gatlinburg where we feverishly tried to find a parking spot in the sea of cars and people. We found a cheap lot near Gatlinburg's version of the "Space Needle." We paid our money, put the ticket in the window and grabbed everything we though we might need for dinner and some walking around.
While mom was looking for some things to see, do and eat before our trip, she saw a place called the Mellow Mushroom and she really liked the sign.
When we drove through here earlier we made note of what part of town it was in. We did pretty good. We didn't have to walk that far. We walked inside and were ushered to the second floor. Apparently, the lower part of this building was Dude's Daiquiris. The three of us sat in a giant booth. The waiter took our drink order and we scoured the menu. I am pretty content with boring cheese, pepperoni and olives pizza. Mom was there with me and Erika really didn't care because she was hungry. We got our side salad before our pizza and the three of us destroyed it.
Our food arrived and we inhaled it. It was so good and it hit the spot after a really long day. Mom took a few pictures of the place. You almost needed to be high to hang out here. The décor reminded me of the 60's and 70's.
We paid for our meal and headed out to the chaos. We walked around some of the shops in town. I ended up getting a few postcards and other stuff for some of my peeps. We found this awesome shirt for Doug and it was only three bucks! It basically said something about his girlfriend being 100% redneck or southern or something like that. We thought it was funny so Erika bought it for him.
We walked back to the car and we though since we were in the area to go see where Dollywood was. We took some back roads from Gatlinburg according to Nuvi's directions. When we got there I didn't realize it was a theme park. Since it was now closed for the evening we just took a picture in front of the sign just to say we've been there...kinda.
We looked up the closest Walmart and there was one just down the road from us. It was also insane. So many people wandering around. I mostly went for some cheap souvenirs and birthday gifts for the people back home and to say we went to a Walmart in Tennessee.
We were getting tired and decided to head back to the freeway to find out hotel. I put the address into the Nuvi and for some reason we were having a hard time finding the hotel. I turned around a few times looking for the hotel sign. We finally found it after about ten minutes and some careful looking. The address was not correct. Mom got out and checked us in while Erika and I parked the car.
We grabbed our stuff out of the car and went to our room. This time we had two double beds and I shared with mom. I got cleaned up, we relaxed a bit and went to sleep. We had another long day ahead of us. Over the course of the night mom got a Charlie horse and kicked me. She woke me up and after about 20 minutes of stretching it out she went back to bed.
Next Adventure: Knoxville, State Parks, McMinnville and Heading Back to Nashville
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