Mid-Atlantic Gardening: Guess where we were, 1 by sallyg

sallyg wrote:
The gold goes to claypa, with the silver to Kubileya. You might even actually see NC in the mountaintop views. That trail is called Chimney Tops.
rcn--you cheated, no bronze for you LOL.
Highway goes across TN Knoxville to Chattanooga and you take another road south thru Pigeon Forge , Sevierville and end up in Gatlin burg . The traffic IS horrible as one book said. Its like going thru a beach town like OC MD. Super touristy. We ate at a Mexican place in a strip mall going into the area and waiting for traffic to subside on Friday evening. Good luck! If you make it to Gatlinburg and a hotel, just stay in and rest up for the hike. Boy I sound like a party pooper, but we didn't want to spend 11 $ each for a ski lift ride up the mountainside from G Burg, or spend much time in the mobs walking on the main drag. There is a river next to River Road with a patch of sidewalk along it. An erstwhile, very mini Riverwalk San Antonio. Plenty of shopping if you like that, the obligatory Ripleys Believe it Or Not.
But the big reward came the next day. Load up on your complimentary hotel breakfast bar or hit the Pancake House --one on every block. Then drive a very short way into Great Smoky Park. For the cost of $1 for one trail map (souvenir, didn't need it) we had a beautiful hike, one of many. Lots of trail info available online. Popular and busy but clean where we were.
The Smokies are smoky because of the very high rainfall, like a temperate rain forest.
The strenuous level 4 mi round trip hike took a couple hours plus time to swim and play in the river at the beginning/ end of the hike. So the timing was great to hit well-known Smoky Mountain Brewery Restaurant for between meal eating which is great with these popular places. It was really good, located in a small complex ---you can park within as long as you make a purchase somewhere in the shops or restaurants within, other wise they'll charge ten dollars.
Ober Gatlinburg does sound fun for kids, but we didn't quite have the time.- this time.

This part of Tennesse is just beautiful and looks like a great place to garden. Chattanooga is growing fast, downtown Chat was nice when we stayed there a couple years ago.
On the way home we did another trail in another area, the South Cherokee Nat Forest. That is NOT under the Parks system but USDA. Very little info online. Much more like a local park. Big lake , sure the camping is nice there too and you can swim in the lake. We drove the winding road up to a camping area with its own small lake with swimming beach. This time we took an Easy trial and it was a little boring, but a neato waterfall at the end.- Benton Falls. I hope this pic is in focus. Somebody had trouble with focusing. Sadly, on this trail we found two discarded diapers. (How disgusting can people be- they can't even carry it out and can't even cover it or throw it far off the beaten path. Even if they were only water soaked or maybe pee'd...)
Hope you enjoyed the view. I'm just so glad I did enough research to avoid some hassles, do things we like, and the kids are not too big to have fun with us for a while.