Road Trip- The Great Smoky Mountains, part 1.

Great Smoky Mountains, Tennessee

Recently, my family (mother, brother, his dog and I) spent almost a week in the Great Smoky Mountains- we stayed in a vacation home on a mountaintop between Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, Tennessee.  We checked out a few tourist sites, visited the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and hung out at the rather nice vacation home, which sported a home theater in the recreation room- yep, it got used!

I believe I have enough pictures for a few posts, let’s get started!

Part 1: Getting There, and ‘The Cabin’

 Heading south through Ohio farm country

 Water towers are always interesting to see…

Cincinnati Ohio

Crossing the Ohio River

 The Cumberland Gap is fun to drive through- this is the ancient trail that Daniel Boone helped blaze for the pioneers to follow through the Appalachian Mountains into the Ohio River Valley

That’s Kudzu all along the Gap wall- this invasive weed that has struck the south has been heading north for a while

There are lots of barriers up to catch falling rocks along the Gap

If you look closely, you can see wire mesh covering the rocks on the top left of the rock face

A brief but heavy rain squall

A wild dinosaur, or a roadside attraction…it all happened so fast…hey, just be glad I don’t show all of the fireworks stores along the way!

In Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, vacation traffic was heavy- the Smokies are in the distance

There’s lots of touristy places in Pigeon Forge, more on that next week

Driving up a mountain to get to our cabin

It was a steep drive, with large mirrors in places to see oncoming traffic around rock ledges

And here we are- our destination, on the mountaintop!  The cabin is hanging off the side of the mountain, actually

OK, ‘vacation home’ is closer to reality than ‘cabin’

Pro tip- don’t walk down a narrow steep dark spiral staircase in your socks if you’ve been drinking!

There were 3 decks on the side of the house, all with spectacular views of the local Smoky Mountains

The Greater Smokies get as high as 6,643 feet in elevation- to an Ohio boy like myself, these are definitely mountains!

That’s Pigeon Forge lit up in the distance

The nightly fireworks show going on at Dollywood

Yes, I’m tired too!  But fear not, a couple more posts are coming up about this vacation!