One of the highlights of the drive, and I know this is a food nerd thing, was that we found a White Castle right at lunch time. I've always wanted to try the place even though I knew that they made little burgers on basic white buns. We've seen them on food shows and it was just something we (well, I) had to try. They tasted ok and we shared an order so it wasn't overly filling.
With that out of the way, we continued along the scenic highway as the skies darkened. There were a few rain showers but no tornadoes. Marilyn was happier than I was about that. Our hope was to find Cumberland Falls which was on an even more scenic (smaller) road. The gps decided that this was the correct location. Probably not...
A few km down the road we eventually found the falls which provided a nice break from the drive.
From the falls, we hopped back onto the freeway and made a beeline for Knoxville. This is one of our first views of Tennessee and what we believe are the Appalachians.
Our journey into Knoxville was a bit worrisome as the U of T Volunteers were playing and over 100,000 people were at the game. I figured we'd hit the city just as all those people were trying to go home. Luckily, we were a bit later and missed the majority of the orange clad crowd! At the end of the drive, we reconnected with some good friends that we had made on our European cruise in the spring. They kindly let us have a sleepover at their place and even took us to dinner at their country club. The club itself was amazing and overlooked the Tennessee River.
Our dinner was incredible as well. It was a high end dining experience that included organic Tennessee beef and Scottish salmon.
Here's Marilyn with Janice and Lew. We hope to be able to show them the sights in Toronto some day.
Reluctantly, we left Knoxville and headed off to the tourist destination of Pigeon Forge. Lew had warned us that it would be crowded but he should have said CROWDED! You are talking Dollywood, a ton of resorts and restaurants and a week long classic car show! We had no idea. It was kind of like the Vegas strip without the gambling! Our major destination was not Dollywood! It was the Lodge Cast Iron Factory Outlet. Lodge is made in Tennessee and they have a few outlets with a lot of products that we just can't get in Canada. After our visit to the store, the RAV seemed to be a bit sluggish.
Then we set off for Gatlinburg where we hoped to spend the night and explore the Smoky Mountains. The first place we stopped was a Best Western and they had a room overlooking a creek that was ready to go at 11:15. Beginner's luck with picking hotels on the fly I think. We unloaded and headed off for the mountains. There was a drive to the highest point in Tennessee called Clingman's Dome at 6643 feet. We drove in and out of rain on the way up but had dry weather and cooler temps at the top. It went from 35 degrees when we left to 19 at the summit. Definitely a nice change.
There was a .5 mile hike from the parking lot to an observation platform that seemed more like 3 miles because of the altitude and the slope of the path. It was worth the walk.
After the walking and heat we took a bit of a break in the hotel before heading out to the strip in Gatlinburg. It's a very touristy place as well with endless restaurants and souvenir shops. We were interested in checking out one of the moonshine stores as moonshine is now legal in Tennessee. Each place that sells it makes a big show of doing a tasting of 10 to 12 of their products. Moonshine is basically just raw alcohol but they refine it a bit and add flavourings. I started with the basic moonshine or white lightning and progressed to versions flavoured with berries, fruit etc. I felt that I had to taste them all to make an informed purchase at the end.
Here you can see some of the samples and the very small sampling glass.
They had a lot of product but, because it was Sunday, they could only sell until 7:00.
We also had a great time listening to some live music while I rested from my sampling. There were a bunch of rocking chairs around a stage where a group of guys were playing what they called bluegrass music. It was really fun to listen to and we bought a cd that anyone who comes to sample my moonshine will get to hear!
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