Road Trip

Tourist Trap Loop

Brother Jim had promised his wife Linda a tour of the Biltmore House, so they left early to be able to take in that attraction before catching a plane back to Houston. Ninety-six year old Dottie made it known that she wanted to see Gatlinburg before they left on Tuesday morning, so Sandy, Paul and she did that today. That left Donna and I to entertain (or more accurately, be entertained by) the Canadian Cousins, Margret & John and Beth & Jim.

We talked them into a trip south to Clingmans Dome, over into Cherokee, NC before heading west and looping back into Tennessee along US129. đŸ˜‰ Actually both men had heard of the Dragon’s Tail and were interested in driving it.

It was early enough in the morning that the trip through downtown Gatlinburg was easy, but as soon as we hit US441 in the Smokey Mountains National Park we ran into a couple of sections of road work, complete with one lane closed and flagman waits. The road to the top of Clingmans Dome was pretty, but we weren’t sure what we would see at the top because the fog/clouds were pretty thick in spots on the 7 mile road to the tower at the top of highest peak in Tennessee. And at the parking lot looking south into North Carolina, sure enough it was like an ocean of white with a few islands of blue mountain peaks sticking up. We still opted to take the 1/2 mile walk uphill (seriously up hill) to the circular ramp to the top of the 54 foot high tower for a 360 degree view. It was so worth it. NC was still a sea of white, but back north to TN you could a perfect example of how these mountains got their name (the above photo.)

On the way back down the mountain we had two delays, one short, for grazing black bear cub and one long, for a road crew trimming trees (that wasn’t there on the way up.) And as we were leaving the park in NC we had one more slow down, as there were cars pulled off to both sides of road to watch an elk grazing in a field. The 50 mile trip from Gatlinburg to Cherokee had taken us 3 hours and it was nearly lunch, but instead of trying to pick a spot in the tourist town to eat, Donna and I suggested we travel 10 more miles to Bryson City.

If you ever find yourself in Bryson City at lunchtime you can’t do better than The Iron Skillet. The six of us opted for the lunch special of meat loaf, mashed potatoes, green beans, cole slaw and a roll for just $6.95. Mmmmm.

The first ten miles of NC28 north of US 19/74 is 4 lane divided, but the last 20 miles is two lanes of awesome windy black top along the Little Tennessee River that is my favorite in the state. About 2/3rds into that span the call comes up on the FRS from the Canadian Cousins behind us in their Chrysler 300C, “So, is this the Gap?” “Nope,” I reply, “Not yet, but in short while we’ll stop at the beginning point for a quick break.” At the Crossroads of Time we were 2 of the 4 cars in the lot, the rest of the 40-50 vehicles there were motorcycles.

The gap run was fun in spurts as I followed some fellow on a cool looking chopper, but he couldn’t go very fast through any of the 318 turns because of how low it sat to the ground. I did what I could by slowing to a near stop until the Chrysler 300C caught up, before racing ahead to catch back up to the chopper. When we stopped at the dam overlook, John told he probably could have kept pace better if not for the two women in the back who were not having as much fun on the roller coaster road as he and Jim were in the front. I don’t doubt it for a bit, as John is a member of the Canadian Mounted Police and had spent quite a few years as a motor patrolman, so I bet he probably could coax a quick run through the Dragon out of that rear-wheel V8.

We finished up the 180 mile day by driving the Foothills Parkway to Townsend, TN for a gas stop, following US321 through Mega Tourist City, Pigeon Forge to Gatlinburg and the cabin.

Redbird Creek


Redbird Creek from the Lookout “Tower” in Fort McAllister State Park.

Just one GA State Park cache today and we counted it towards Bryan County as well. Since Thursday we managed 15 caches that counted as 21 towards our Georgia Challenges (13 counties, 5 DeLorme pages and 3 State Parks.) After the second day in a row of coastal Georgia we both agreed that we have seen enough salt marshes to last us for awhile. Which prompted Donna to ask why we never tired of the other coast’s big rocks and pounding surf? The only answer I could come up with is that it reminds our lizard brain of the sound of our mother’s heartbeat in the womb.

The blue-violet baleen has really needed a bath. Poor thing was just covered in jet exhaust film from ten days in an airport long term lot and the past three days worth of squashed low country bugs. This afternoon it got just that and an internal cleaning as well.

Crooked River


The sun reflects off the Crooked River as viewed from the Georgia State Park of the same name. Six caches, five counties, one DeLorme page and one GA State Park.

How Low Can You Go

We went on a Georgia Geocaching run today. We needed to check on our cache in Santa Claus because of a recent DNF and while we were out, take a route to capture 4 nearby counties of Georgia’s 159 total.

Neither one of us could figure out how we had hid a cache in Toombs county (Santa Claus) without having a find there. So our first stop of the day was to change that. We found LIFE’S A GAME, HAVE FUN! in a park in the town of Lyons. Next stop was to check on the DNF’d cache. Usually one person not finding a cache is not a concern, but the folks who couldn’t find it had over 1,600 finds, so they probably should have found it. The cache was right where we put it last December. That’s the thing with geocaching, no matter how many you have found, you can still get stumped by an occasional easy one.

In some of these small rural counties pickings can be slim, so we only had a total of 11 caches on our list along the route through all 4 counties. One county only has two caches total and we really started sweating badly after we DNF’d the first one we attempted. It was all I could do to talk Donna into looking for the second one because in is #2 on our Most Hated Style Hide List, the guardrail magnetic (the lamp post skirt hide is #1.) We had kind of a rough day, 4 finds and 3 DNFs, but we made the four count, one in each of the counties we wanted.

I don’t know exactly how many miles we traveled today, because I didn’t reset an odometer, but the Google Maps loop I did last night said 268 miles. When we got in the Purple Whale this morning the nifty miles to empty meter read just over 250 miles and the gas gauge was reading one segment over half a tank. We figured we might have to buy a gallon or two of gas in Georgia so we could make it back to the Kroger in Aiken to take advantage of the $1 a gallon off we earned by buying a stove. As the day wore on it looked more and more like we might make it home without having to pay the higher price for gas in Georgia.

We figured we were home free when the miles to empty read 80 miles and the sign said Augusta 41 because Aiken is only, at most 25 miles from Augusta. When the low fuel light came on as we entered the southern part of Augusta I was unconcerned as I figured that meant we had a couple gallons left which was more than enough to make it back. At about 5 miles from Kroger, the Miles To Empty display flat-lined. The last number I remember seeing was 38 a few miles back. We were right near a gas station, briefly considered pulling in, but didn’t. Let’s summarize: the low fuel light has been one awhile, the Miles to Empty display is blank and now the last LCD segment of the gas gauge has started blinking. Visions of the car stalling at the very last light before Kroger were taking form in my mind.

Well, we did make it the Kroger, even waited for a pump to free up with the car still running. I filled the tank with 17.5 gallons of gas and it cost $38.38 or $2.19 per. We had traveled 502.5 miles on that 17.5 gallons so since the last fill up the Sonata got 28.7 MPG. While I was outside filling the tank Donna was inside trying to see exactly how much the car’s tank would hold, turns out it is 18.49 gallons. All that worry about running out of gas and I could have traveled over 28 more miles. As long as all 18-1/2 gallons are usable…

Beach View = No Internet

We took Friday off and drove down to HHI for a “working” vacation geocaching along the way. We managed to grab 5 caches on the way down, not many, but they were quality caches towards our Georgia Geo Challenges as they counted for 3 counties and one DeLorme page. The second half of the day was rained out so we headed to Hilton Head instead of looking for the other two caches in 2 Georgia State Parks. We figured we would get them before heading home on Sunday. Of course when we made it to the condo it was sunny.

This turned out to be a good thing in two ways. First, it allowed us to take pictures of 4 of the 5 condos that needed updating, freeing Saturday morning for a nap. And second, we found out when we got home on Sunday, we would have never found the cache in Fort McAllister State Park because it had been moved and I still had the old coordinates loaded.

The whole time we spend on the Island we had beautiful weather. Saturday morning we got in nice long walk on the beach and for most of the return trip we shadowed a dolphin as it fed in the surf. The above mentioned nap. Takeout lunch from Gruby’s NY Deli on the balcony of the condo. The last set of condo photos was taken in between one set of folks checking out, the clean up and another set of people checking. DTCQ took us out for a nice dinner at the Skull Creek Boathouse where we ate and watched the Kentucky Derby on about 12 big screen TVs. (How is it that someone who lives in a horse town could have no clue that the Derby was being run that day?)

Sunday morning we got going early as we wanted to get to Skidaway Island State Park near Savannah when it opened. There was a bonus cache we were eligible to find that was tide dependent. It needed to be sought at low tide because you had to cross tidal marsh to retrieve it. Low tide this morning was 06:51, the Park opened at 07:00 and we made the trail head by 07:10. And although we were only like 30 minutes past the listed time for low tide, it was a little scary crossing the marsh. Being total landlubbers, we understood the principles of how tides worked, but were not too sure that the sine wave profile usually shown for tides was 100% accurate and wondered if it was more digital looking (i.e. on|off|on|off) and we might be washed out to sea at any moment. In spite of our worries we did make the find and get back to dry land safe and sound. To say the official State Park cache was a let down after the bonus cache is not an exaggeration, but it was still an awesome cache in its own right with marsh views, palm trees, Spanish moss and a close encounter with a white tailed deer.

We then headed home to the usual Sunday evening drudgery of washing clothes, grocery shopping and getting ready for the work week ahead.

Today we drove the Miata to work and for the first time ever it seemed small. Tonight the big car got a bath for tomorrow’s appointment with the optometrist for some sunglasses (windows are getting tinted.)

Georgia State Park Geocaching

On the trip back from Robbinsville, North Carolina today we knocked off three more Georgia State Park caches, along with 2 Georgia Counties and one DeLorme page. We walked a little over 6 miles total in the three parks and in one place I thought for a minute we were in an Enchanted Forest. The trail kept going up and up and up, so it seemed like they had figured out how to make a loop trail uphill for the whole length.

We’ve had the Sonata now for a whole three days and there are 731 miles on it, 702 of which are ours. At this pace in the first year of ownership we will accumulate 88,938 miles.

Today’s “Holy Crap This Car Is Big” story came at a driver exchange in a Burger King parking lot in Commerce, Georgia. At the previous driver change when Donna gave up the driver’s seat to me, she didn’t move the seat at all and I had to squeeze in. So this time she thought she would do me a big favor and move the seat all the way down and back. Trouble was, once she got the seat in that position, she couldn’t reach the door handle anymore to let herself out.