Day 37: Great Smokey Mountains, TN to Nashville, TN 238 miles

We wanted to get an early start this morning to get to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennesse. It was so peaceful at our Boondockers welcome, that we slept in. I wanted to make a good breakfast and use some of he food we have been bringing along. Tad managed to squish our raisin bread so I made Squished Raisin Bread French Toast. We used eggs from our Twinholm hosts in Canada and ate the rest of the cantaloupe from our hosts a few days ago. A great cup of coffee and Kasey was ready to go in his bright floral shirt. So I had to wear mine. 

Gatlinburg is near one of the entrances to the Great Smokey Mountains NP. Don't go that way. It is like an amusement park with a road down the middle. We found out later that Dollywood is not far. 

We checked out the visitor center. It had some displays and a movie we watched about the park. The Park is an international biosphere due to its diversity of flora and fauna.

 The movie explained colonial settlement and the devastating effect that the demand for lumber had on the park. Trees as old as 150 years were becoming rare. There were people that rallied to help save the area and establish the national park. The effects from logging washed vital soil away before the park was preserved. About 25% of the park is undisturbed old growth.

 In the western US, we are raising the same concerns. Interesting how the same battles for our environment occur across our country. 

We took the tour route through some settlement areas. I had to chase a butterfly around the field to get a picture.

It was a Pipeline Swallowtail. We took the dogs for a quick swim to cool off and get a drink. 

They are not allowed in many places in the park so they stayed in the car. They were good sports. We headed back to the motorhome and thought we would just scoot through Gatlinburg since it was not too bad earlier.

The traffic was horrible. We should have taken the slow windy route out of the park to the west of Gatlinburg. There was a car show in town and gear heads were everywhere. Slowly, we made it out. Headed for Nashville and my nephew Charlie (Chris's brother that we visited in Michigan a few weeks ago) and his wife Amy's house. They just moved to Nashville in July from San Francisco.

We had to get gas as both vehicles were very low. 

One thing we found in the northern states is very few garbage cans. You must pick up after your dog, but there is no garbage collection in some places. A pack in pack out mentality. But we are travelling and need to unload our trash every so often. And poop bags are no fun to pack around in the motorhome. Or empty dog food cans. We did a lot of recycling at the Treman State Park in Ithaca, NY but have accumulated more items with no convenient place to recycle. Usually, we get rid of trash when we get gas but we forgot so we are "still packing." Correction, we were still packing. 

We stopped at a rest area just past Cookesville TN to give the dogs a break and us. We got stuck in traffic again.There must have been an accident as traffic was at a stand still. Since we were just before a exit, we road the shoulder to exit and wound our way to the next freeway entrance where the traffic was so much lighter. 

We arrived at Charlie and Amy's at 8 pm and ate dinner, sampled a few beers, and had great conversation. Their next door neighbor, Christian, came over. He is a brewer and owns his own brewing business. How serendipitous for Charlie and Amy. 

We got the tour of their house

 It is a gazillion times bigger than their San Francisco apartment. Charlie has enough room to give the "kids" their own room.

 Overall, a big win for them even though they are now much further from us.We couldn't be happier for them. 

We look forward to being a tourist in Nashville with them for a few days.