The Mountains are Calling - Smoky Mountains, TN

Monday, May 4th

So, we have decided that the Smoky Mountains are calling, and we need to go. Even though the National Park is closed, we figure that there will be some trails/activities that we will be able to find - we've been pretty successful so far. This was on our original itinerary, and it is definitely one of the places that both of us want to see. Although we have stayed at KOA campgrounds the entire time (Neil is pretty excited because we are almost to VIP status - which probably gets you early access to the bathrooms or something), we switch it up this time to stay at a different campground. Anne finds us a great deal in Pigeon Forge, TN at a place called Riverbend Campground. The dings in reviews that it gets are that there are too many "park models" (trailers), so we are slightly worried that we are headed to a full on trailer park...

The 1.5 hour ride goes very smoothly, and we get about 15 minutes from the campground and stop for gas - $1.14 per gallon. Awesome! Upon leaving, Neil has the campground address set in Waze to bring us there. Although we are on a main road, the GPS tells us to take the upcoming right, the road looks a bit sketchy... too late now! As Waze always seems to do, it takes us down a windy, tight road - which has Neil cursing out Waze and every road on earth that isn't a highway. He decides not to follow it's directions to turn on Sugar Hollow Road (that has small covered bridge written all over it in his mind), and we arrive safely with no real issues. Neil is getting quite good at maneuvering this big rig. Keep in mind that WE CANNOT BACK UP AT ALL. If we get into a situation where we need to back up, we would have to detach the car, then detach the trailer, turn around, and reattach it all. Likely with people honking and cursing. It has only caused a few mild nightmares and waking up with cold sweats for Neil on this trip.

Driving into Pigeon Forge, we both didn't realize that it would be a cross between Wisconsin Dells and Niagara Falls. There aren't too many places in the country that can sustain a free standing building that only sells those old-timey photos. Or a funnel cake shop. The entire town feels like a theme park. There are like 187 go-kart tracks and mini-golf places. Neil is practically crying because none of them are open, but we probably wouldn't go anyway. We take a left at the Hollywood Wax Museum (King Kong is punching a plane at the top of the building), and we are almost there. Leave it to Americans to build the cheeziest town right at the base of the most popular National Park. Awesome.

Upon arrival, we couldn't be more pleasantly surprised! The campground is right next to the river, we have a concrete pad (much easier to level), and the trailer part of the campground is quite clean. Way less lawn trash piles than we had envisioned! Score. We check in, and have the entire rig setup for living before 1:30 PM!

Concrete pad!  These are the things that we get excited about these days.

Getting our feet wet in our backyard!  

The campground website says "bring your own raft or mattress" - mattress??!

One thing we have definitely not experienced too much on this road trip is a short drive between destinations. Usually, so far, a travel day means that we aren't going to do too much that day. However, being set up by 1 PM means that we can enjoy the nice day and head out to explore, and we are ready to hike one of the amazing trails around here. So we head through Pigeon Forge (Neil almost causes 8 accidents from drooling over the funnel cake shop, go-kart tracks, lumberjack battle course and everything $9.99 shops), and up towards Gatlinburg - the gateway to the Park.

Gatlinburg

As we approach Gaitlinburg, we note that the Gaitlinburg Byway that leads to the park is CLOSED.  We continue through Gaitlinburg towards the Smoky Mountains Sugerland visitor center, which per one website opened up in early May - CLOSED. Bummer. Oh well, let's go try another that we found. CLOSED.  And there is no parking anywhere nearby.  Uh-oh. Looks like this park and all of the trails really are closed down.  Neil suggests a round of disc golf at a course that is only like 15 minutes away at a local park. CLOSED. Ok, I guess we will head back to the rig and enjoy the day at home...

One more try, Anne finds a back road that might be open, so why not? It is a super narrow one-way road and at the end we find a Park road that says "Do Not Enter" and a place to park our car!  Some people we encounter inform us that if a Ranger finds us, we will get a ticket, but are there any Rangers even working... haven't they all been furloughed??  We take our chances and decide to check it out.  They also inform us that earlier someone had seen a bear and her cubs! 

There's a little store here and in talking to the owner, turns out that this was an operational mill (called Ely's Mill - visit this place!) that her grandfather owned, and she is bringing it back to life. It started in 1925, and she is trying to restore it to it's former glory. She is rebuilding the big wheel, and has now turned it into an amazing little property with a shop selling only local goods, a couple of outbuildings with artisan workshops, and even a venue for small weddings. So cool. 

The closed road that we stumbled across is actually a motor road tour that you would drive through with points of interest along the way. We start walking and we go up. And up some more. And then a little more. After all is said and done, we walk about 2.5 and go up almost 1000 feet in elevation. Once again, we have turned lemons into lemonade, and it is an amazing walk through the woods. We see a few people coming down the road, and even a person who passes us while going up (we're slow and out of shape). We feel bad for breaking the rules - but we are definitely being respectful of the environment.

Park entrance... Hope we don't run into a Ranger!

Stopping to catch our breath and enjoy the sights. 

The road meandered along this stream for the entire hike.

Must touch the water!  5 seconds later Neil is in the stream. SOOO COLD!!!!

No bears here! Kind of one of those things we wanted to see from a distance...

One of the coolest parts of this walk are the old buildings that we see along the road. We come across 2 different dwellings that have been preserved. The first one is a residence with one building and a little mill house on the river. The second one is a full on mountain farm that was inhabited from 1890 to 1930 by a family with their 10 CHILDREN! Crazy. We walk the property, and as Neil is talking (surprise, surprise) about the barn, a pair of eyes look around the corner and stop Neil in his tracks. It is a Doe, and she is over by the barn. She initially runs off into the brush, but then decides to come back and check us out. She is so sweet, and seemingly not that afraid of us. Honestly, it is the closest Neil has ever been to a deer, they are such beautiful animals!

One of the things that irks both of us is why people feel the need to write and carve their names into things to prove that they have been somewhere. Nobody cares! There was even a sign about it "Bob was here" - Don't be like Bob. There are no similarities between Neil and Bob. Ok, off the soapbox now.

Room for 12?!?

We're not tall people, but we felt tall in this house! 

Come here little deer...

Bob sucks - don't be like Bob

As we finish the walk (the way down was a lot easier than the way up!), we come across the most amazing wild turkeys in the road. As we approach, we hear the gobbles and then they scatter. Surprisingly, these birds can move pretty fast! That cool little place Ely's Mill is in the background.

After the walk, we still actually have a few hours of daylight left, so Neil lobbies Anne for a quick round of disc golf. Although the local park is closed, he has found a private course that is only about 10 minutes away on a church retreat site. He calls the number and there is no answer, but we decide that it is worth going to check out the spot - maybe we can get on the course anyway. As we pull into the grounds, the office is closed, but Neil spots a few older gentlemen on the grounds. He approaches them (keeping distance of course) to ask if we can play the course. They couldn't be nicer. They call the owner, and he says no problem - they just usually ask for a donation for people to play the course. We gladly pop $5 into the bin up front and play the 9 hole course. It is a beautiful course and property, and we manage to fit in 9 with plenty of daylight to spare!

The obligatory pre-game selfie...

This is one of the streams that ran through the property - luckily it wasn't in play...

After a full day, we head back to camp to chill, have some dinner and play some more games with friends online. We decide to pick up a pizza and wings from a local brewery, and Anne gets a few beers to go. Although we are happy to see that every worker and server is wearing a mask, we can't believe that there are actually people eating dine-in at the restaurant. Tennessee has reopened their restaurants for dine-in. Neither of us has any desire to eat inside a restaurant at this point, but we are thankful that we can do take-out and don't have to cook tonight - or do dishes!

Tuesday, May 5th

Rain is in the forecast today, but when we wake up at the crack of 10 (we are both serious night owls), it just looks a bit overcast. We have been saying that it would be great if we could actually ride our bikes from the campground instead of having to put the bikes on car. At every campground so far, it has been either too dangerous or too hilly for us to bike from the campground, but we can actually do it here! We head out on the bikes, and find an amazing bike path right along the river in Pigeon Forge. Awesome. We bike about 10 miles to each end of the bike path, and we only catch a few drops of rain the whole way. We make a stop at the Island, which is a outdoor mall type of place. It has some cool fountains in the middle set to music, much like a mini version of the Bellagio fountains in Las Vegas. Pretty cheesy, but kind of cool. The sky looks a bit ominous, so we cruise back and have lunch. On the way back we see a ton of geese and ONE SWAN. And that swan was a bit mean! As we were passing him (or her), it lunged at us with an open mouth. It was slightly comical and mildly scary, but he wasn't quick enough for us!

A great trail right next to the Little Pigeon River.

We have lunch and take care of a few chores around the "house", including taking out the trash and walking Hamilton. Neil is very excited, because this campground is paved. So - he can take Hamilton for a walk/run on his skateboard and take the trash out all at the same time. This always garners a few laughs, points and looks from the campground natives. Admittedly, it's not often you see a fat man on a skateboard being pulled by a Chihuahua...

You would probably laugh and point too if you saw this while camping.

Although it looks like rain on the radar, it looks a little better on the radar towards Knoxville. We decide on (or Neil advocates for), you guessed it, disc golf! He has found a course with good ratings right near downtown Knoxville, and it didn't disappoint. Although it was not that well marked, it was a great course with short pins on every hole, but it was VERY hilly. The last hole was literally straight uphill - slightly cruel for a finishing hole. But, we are both excited, because we honestly thought today would be a complete washout. But, we were able to fit in a 10 mile bike ride AND 18 holes of disc golf.

Is Hamilton peeing? Surprise, surprise.

We realize that it is now 7PM and we are both pretty hungry - and we are about 30 minutes from home. We decide that maybe we can (safely!) find some takeout in Knoxville, so we head to Old City. It looks like a pretty hip area, and it turns out to be a really cool little area. Although it is a ghost town, we find a little tamale place that looks really cool. With masks on, we grab a couple of tamales and head back to the car for a makeshift snack/dinner. Anne even finds a local beer to go, and we sit in the car for dinner - I guess it's a sign of these crazy times. We can't help but think of how different our meal would be if the times were normal. Oh well - no complaints here. We still feel incredibly lucky for this adventure.

Dining "out" covid style - Delicious tamales!

Sampling some local beers (not driving)

Anne got a pic of this quote while driving the theater district in Knoxville.

We head back to the RV for another night of games, relaxing, and planning for the next place. As of now, the plan is to head for Indiana next - we are getting ready to head back to Chicago to pack up our place for closing. It is set for May 29th, and we have some work left to do. Our plan is to be back at home on Monday, May 11th, so we should probably head back towards Illinois. We read that the state parks in Indiana are open, and we can add another state to our map of where the RV has been!

Wednesday, May 6th

Rain is in the forecast again today, and unfortunately our luck has run out. For the first real time this trip it seems, today is a total washout. It is raining and it doesn't appear to be stopping. Although we are a bit bummed, it is a perfect day to finish the blog, and we really both need to do laundry. We head out for a local laundromat and get the party started. We both feel like idiots with our masks on, because we are the only ones around with one on. We really don't care, because we both feel better safe than sorry. Luckily, there are only about 2 other people in the large laundromat. Score. We both decide that doing our laundry in a laundromat is slightly annoying, but MUCH faster! Those commercial machines make it so that we can finish the entire job (2 FULL loads) in about an hour. While our clothes are in the washer, we run to the post office to mail out Mother's Day cards and a few postcards - they have an outdoor mailbox. Score! We decide that if anybody wants to steal our wet clothes from the washer, have at it. We move the loads to the dryer, and go back to the car. Neil has strategically parked so that we can watch the clothes tumbling from the car - that counts as not leaving them unattended, right? We are such rebels.

One thing that Anne has wanted for a long time is to get a haircut, but she wasn't able to get into her salon before they all closed.  And now she is at the end of her rope with how long her hair has gotten. She decides that it is time to use those barber scissors she bought at Dollar General in Savannah. I mean, what could go wrong?  After the first snips, Anne realizes she'll need some help in the back so Neil offers to help.  We definitely had a few laughs while getting this done on a rainy day. It came out great though, and Neil is contemplating whether his next job should be cutting hair - he hasn't done that yet as a profession... That said, he keeps saying that he has a new respect for barbers. It is a lot harder than it looks!

Since the salons are closed, taking things in my own hands... eek, fingers crossed!!

So scary... what's going on back there??

We finish off another evening playing games with friends online. Every Saturday and Wednesday, Neil has been playing poker online with his friends from The Grift, the band he was in on the East Coast. Anne hooks up with one of her many friends or family members to play Dominion online, which has become a nightly occurrence - either with Anne and Neil only, or with the outside world. So fun.

We have also started planning our trip back to Chicago. Neil books a campground in Springfield, IL for the night of May 10th, so we can be close to Pontiac RV, where we will store Ronald Vincent Vega for a few weeks while we finish moving the house to storage. So, we go to book a campground at our next stop in Indiana at a KOA inside the Brown County State Park. CLOSED. Turns out that all campgrounds are closed in Indiana until May 24th. Ok, Plan B, Louisville, KY. Neither of us has been there, so we decide that will be a good spot. Neil goes to book the campground online, and it says there are "special requirements" for your stay, so you need to call to book. On the phone the owner of the campground says that they can take us for either 1 night of passing through OR 14 nights of self-quarantine. Ok, Plan C. We decide that we will just head back through Paducah where we started this trip. We like the area, we like the campground, we like the owner, and we are happy to give him the business. We have both decided that we are practically locals in Paducah at this point - this will be our third stay in the area. Neil reminds Anne that there are 2 nice disc golf courses within 10 minutes of the campground, and I'm sure that's what sold her.

Off to Paducah we go in the morning! Thanks again for looking, and until next time...