Two More Weeks at Pigeon Forge

As our first trip back on the road, we just wrapped up two more weeks in the Pigeon Forge area...we really do love everything there!  Unfortunately Aaron spent our first week getting over a cold, and then it rained for several days in a row, so we didn't get to do as many things as we had hoped (since all the things we want to do in Pigeon Forge are outside!).  So this just means we'll have to swing back through again in the spring :-).

We changed things up this trip and stayed in Sevierville instead of down in Pigeon Forge.  After all the nickel and diming of the place we stayed last time, this new campground was only slightly more expensive than the Passport America location we found before, and the thought of not having to drive the RV through the chaos of the Parkway area appealed to us.  We stayed at Ripplin Waters RV Park and got a site right on the river.  So, the pros: the sites here were slightly more spacious, the campground had nice facilities (bathhouse, laundry, playground, pool, and predictably staffed office/camp store), we had a river view, the management was great (no nickel and diming! also a thank you note after we left), and we did achieve the goal of not driving into the madness of Pigeon Forge with the RV.  The cons: it was far away from everything, and it just changed management and the rates are going WAY up compared to what we paid.  Now, obviously being far away from everything goes hand in hand with not driving through everything...but it bothered us more than we expected.  When we were 10 minutes from most things we wanted to do, we thought nothing of just hopping over somewhere for 30-60 minutes.  But at 30 minutes to Dollywood and an hour or so to the closest point on the Great Smoky Mountains...unless we were looking at a minimum of a half day somewhere we just couldn't get motivated to go.  So, I give a big thumbs up to the campground in terms of pleasantness of stay, but we probably won't be back because we really missed being in the middle of everything.

Our campsite at the back of the campground

A view of Pigeon River and the Smoky Mountains from the
back of the campground

The one unique thing we did this time was go see the Dolly Parton statue in downtown Sevierville - not much to it, but it was something I'd been wanting to see.

Dolly Parton statue in front of the courthouse in Sevierville

So the rest of the photos will be of Dollywood!  They were setting up for the Great Pumpkin Luminights festival when we arrived, and it started the last weekend we were there.  My parents came to explore the area with us on that Friday.  I was most impressed that they both did the Dropline and my mom rode a real roller coaster with us!  

Axe in the stump? (vs. sword in the stone)

Cool pumpkin/squash tree

They had a display of large pumpkins - this was the largest

Moonshine tasting with my dad at 
Ole Smoky Moonshine at the Island

With my parents outside the Pirates Voyage dinner show

With my parents at the main pumpkin tree at Dollywood

One of my favorite light displays at the festival - the strings 
change color as the display plays music

It was a fun and relaxing two weeks, and now we're going to head down south for the winter.  We'll be stopping at a couple new spots on the way down, stay tuned!

Back on the Road Again!

Well, it's been quite a while, and I thought I'd post a little something as we head back out on the road.  The remainder of the summer was a bit hectic as we stayed with my parents as my sister came and went with her family.  She moved to St. Augustine, FL over the summer, and this involved lots of stays with my parents as they were between houses for the summer.

After our last trip we came back to my parents' house where my parents were taking care of their grandchildren while my sister and her husband wrapped up their house sale in DC.  They joined their kids in Blacksburg shortly after we arrived and stayed for a while.  We taught the kids about emptying the RV's tanks!

Aaron helped his sister move to Richmond, VA for a few days while I visited extended family in Ohio.  I hadn't been to Ohio in a while and it was especially great to spend some time with my great uncle.  Unfortunately I didn't manage to take any photos!!

We spent the 4th of July with my sister at her in-laws' lake house on Lake Canandaigua, one of the finger lakes in New York.  We drove the car and left the RV at the farm since we had somewhere to stay.

Aaron watching fireworks with our nephews and niece

We took a long way back via Ohio to see several sights we'd been interested in - still in the car.  We checked another national park off our list - Cuyahoga Valley - the most interesting feature of which was the 'Ledges' hike, where sheer cliff walls put out cool air like air conditioning.  We stopped by Cedar Point so Aaron could experience several record breaking roller coasters, and then drove down to visit the Neil Armstrong Museum and the National Museum of the US Air Force - the latter houses the only remaining Valkyrie, which Aaron desperately wanted to see.

Part of the Ledges hike

Cedar Point!

This is the Gemini capsule that Neil Armstrong barely 
survived after one of the thrusters misfired

The Valkyrie - look closely, Aaron is standing underneath with
arms extended

Right after we got back from Ohio we drove the car for an overnight trip to Dollywood to see their summer festival drone show before it ended.  The show was absolutely incredible.

One of the many formations the drones made

Right after we got back from Dollywood, my sister & her family returned to Blacksburg so we stayed put to visit and help with the kids.  We were crazy enough to volunteer to babysit the four kids at the end of their stay for several days so my sister & her husband could get the new house set up in St. Augustine.  We had a good (and exhausting!) time.  

With my sister, her kids, and my aunt at Dixie Caverns

After returning the kids to their parents, I was thrilled to spend some time with my aunt's brand new golden retriever puppy before we took a quick trip to St. Louis to visit some friends there.  

With my aunt and her 8 week old puppy!

With our friends at Grant's Farm in St. Louis

To wrap up our summer, we took our first cruise since the pandemic started on the Carnival Magic.  Due to CDC regulations and last minute regulation changes in The Bahamas, the passenger count was only 1800 out of a possible 4500, and we thoroughly enjoyed our space.  Unfortunately a handful of COVID-positive crew members caused our shore excursion to be canceled in the Dominican Republic, but aside from that (which, honestly, we figured was a distinct possibility in the middle of the pandemic, so it wasn't too surprising nor upsetting), everything was awesome.

On the top deck of the ship, overlooking the water slides
and ropes course

All dressed up for formal night!  We made the masks in the 
craft activity that day and didn't actually wear them outside the cabin

Drinks and shade on a beach in Bimini!

We spent the week after the cruise helping my sister with the kids while my brother-in-law was away on a business trip, then dashed back to get the RV ready to get back on the road.  Time to travel in the RV again!  I'll start regularly posting our adventures again now that we're back in the RV, but figured one non-RV post was warranted given that I've been silent for a few months!

Warriors Path State Park

We just spent a few days at Warriors Path State Park to wrap up our Tennessee adventure.  This was a pretty amazing state park - it's the only one we've been to in Tennessee, so I don't know if they're all up to this caliber, but this one was awesome.  The only downside...I think we had the worst campsite in the whole park.  Most sites had a pretty large and private area for the picnic table, fire ring, and grill, but ours was one of the smallest and our grill was closer to our neighbor's RV than to ours - so much so that we didn't want to use it as the smoke would have gone right in their windows.  So, don't pick site 49 if you stay here!

Our campsite at Warriors Path State Park.  Aaron did an amazing
job of not capturing either of our neighbors in the photo

The park was so nice that we spent most of our time right there, with only a few excursions.  We hiked the lakeshore trail as well as an 'overlook' trail whose overlook was a little underwhelming.  These were both typical natural trails in the woods.

Lakeshore trail

Our favorite trail though - which, looking back, it seems I didn't get a picture of - was around Duck Island.  The park had paved a 0.6 mile trail around the edge of the island, with great water views all the way around.  Once we discovered this trail, we returned multiple times a day.  It was just a great simple walk (or bike ride!) we could do any time during the day.

In addition to this awesome trail, if you're considering this state park in the future...they also had a marina, golf course, disc golf course, multiple playgrounds, mountain bike trails, tennis courts, basketball courts, volleyball courts, horse trails and stable, a swimming pool (currently closed due to COVID), and lots of pavilions.  Perhaps the most unique thing we discovered though was the hammock campground, which looked fairly new - this had posts to hook hammocks up along with fire rings and picnic tables - cool!

The hammock camping area

We did make two excursions during our stay at the state park.  The first was to the Hook and Ladder Distillery in nearby Kingsport.  We did a small tasting here, quite tasty, and they had some unique flavors like honey!  The cool thing about this spot though is that everyone who works for the distillery is an active or retired fireman.  It seemed like a good business to support!

Decorations on the wall of the distillery

Our second excursion was to Bays Mountain.  This is part zoo, part nature center, part hiking area.  I suppose the vast majority of the grounds are covered in a massive network of hiking trails, but we spent most of our time in the zoo area.  We attended a wolf presentation wherein the speaker howled with the wolves - quite entertaining.  We did do a little bit of hiking across a dam at the lake and alongside a cliff.

Standing on the dam

The cliffside trail wasn't actually this close to the cliff...
apparently we had split off on a fake path, but Aaron was 
determined to risk life and limb to stay on the wrong path!

Wolf!

Bays Mountain was remarkably affordable and I'd highly recommend it to anyone.  They have several nature programs kids would enjoy as well.  The Planetarium is currently closed due to COVID but would make a nice addition to an afternoon at this park!

We were very happy with our last stop on our Tennessee trip!  Warriors' Path State Park is so convenient to I-81 and we so enjoyed the park that I imagine we'll return in the future.

At this point we'll be returning the RV to its parking spot on the farm in West Virginia while we spend several weeks visiting with all sorts of family in various locations.  We'll have a week or so in the midst of all that to try and get some last repairs done before heading out again in August or September (exact date yet to be determined).  Stay tuned!

Back at Pigeon Forge

As we continue our loop around Tennessee, we returned to Pigeon Forge for 10 days.  Gotta get our money's worth out of those Dollywood season passes!!  We returned to Walden's Creek RV Park as its price really can't be beat for Passport America members (though we did take a look at some other, more expensive, RV parks while we were there...just in case).  Our experience this time was much better than last time - I was able to catch up with our host the day after we arrived, and by not plugging in the car we avoided any unexpected charges.

Our second campsite at Walden's Creek - in the back of the
park this time

Our first order of business was to head to Dollywood to see Rebecca St. James, who was there as part of the Flower and Food Festival.  Aaron and I listened to her CDs a lot in college, so it was exciting to see her live at Dollywood!  

Rebecca St. James - live!

Out and about in the area we discovered that it was a LOT busier this trip than our first time through in May.  We did go on one hike in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park - Laurel Falls - but it was so busy (and hard to park) that it discouraged us from attempting any other hikes in the national park.

Laurel Falls

Aaron out on a rock in the middle of the falls

Unfortunately later that day Aaron's phone got splashed on a water ride at Dollywood and died - despite Apple's claim that that model could withstand being submerged under 3ft of water for 30 minutes without damage - so we lost his better photos of the falls.  So, PSA for you: don't trust Apple's water resistance rating!

Having not completely learned our lesson, we attempted to go back to the national park again - this time for the Cades Cove driving trail - we figured it was so far from Pigeon Forge and didn't require parking, so it would be ok...wrong!!  We went mostly to enjoy the drive and view all the old buildings on the route, but it seems that several people were there only to find black bears, and those people backed everyone up on the driving trail going ~1mph (slow enough it didn't register on the speedometer) around the 11 mile trail.  We gave up around 2/3 through and took the escape road out, and only stopped at one building because the traffic was so frustrating and we just wanted to get out of it.  We weren't the only ones with this problem...one of our favorite RV podcasts experienced the same thing in April...seems that with everyone vaccinated and schools out everything everywhere is just packed.  So, this time we did learn our lesson and didn't attempt to go back to the national park for any reason.

We stopped at this first log cabin on the trail

Cool thing I learned here - some log cabins
cut the logs at angles as you see here to 
route rainwater away from the structure

Fortunately we had reservations (read: guaranteed entry and limited crowds) for a couple of shows in Pigeon Forge.  We returned to our all-time favorite dinner show, Dolly Parton's Stampede, which we thoroughly enjoyed.  We tried out the Comedy Barn for the first time, and though it was fun, it wasn't to the same caliber as the dinner shows in Pigeon Forge, so we probably won't return.

Before the show at the Stampede

The patriotic end of show

Pre-show at Comedy Barn

Patriotic end-of-show at Comedy Barn

We discovered a couple of remote outside areas to visit away from the national park to fill our remaining 'nice days' time.  We drove up a narrow and winding road to the Bluff Mountain fire tower...I found this on Google Maps and it was well rated, and it was quite a baffling experience.  The fire tower was behind a wide open gate at a cluster of cell towers.  It was clearly commonly frequented based on all the graffiti, but there was basically NOTHING in the way of safety precautions on the rickety-feeling tower.  Aaron made it to the top but I chickened out halfway up.  You were supposed to be able to see for miles, but it was so foggy and cloudy (it rained most of the week) that we couldn't see beyond the mountain top.

Aaron at the top, unconcerned about the
risk as always. 

We also entered the Little Valley Mountain Resort to hike a nicely maintained, pretty, and relatively short Headrick Top Trail to a small waterfall.  The trail wasn't busy at all and we enjoyed the quiet and serene setting - and the beautiful resort that we drove through on the way.

At the small waterfall

And to close this out...just a handful of Dollywood pictures!

AMAZING cinnamon bread - classic
Dollywood eats!

One of the bald eagles living at Dollywood

This was a less fulfilling week at Pigeon Forge due to the rainy weather and extreme crowds, but we still really enjoyed our time there.  One more stop to go on our Tennessee trip!

Lookout Mountain and Other Things

We just finished up a lovely stay near Chattanooga.  We camped at Marion County Park, a nice little place on a peninsula in Nickajack Lake.  Being on a peninsula, at least half of the campsites (including ours) were on the lake.  Aaron was a bit sad that we didn't get a site further down the peninsula where we could see the lake from all angles inside the RV, but I thought our site was lovely.

Our campsite at Marion County Park

The park was located in a pretty rural area and we had about a 20 minute drive into Chattanooga.  The drive dipped into Georgia and crossed the time zone boundary - this last part took me a bit by surprise and I ended up rescheduling our Chattanooga activities near the last minute to be comfortably reachable for being based in the central time zone (Chattanooga itself is in the eastern time zone).

We only had one really nice day here and we spent the whole day doing various things on Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga.  We started the day at Ruby Falls, in a cavern underneath the mountain.  At the falls themselves you're 1000ft below the mountain peak!  Based on the 1930s-style advertising I was thinking Ruby Falls would be kind of cheesy...I couldn't be more wrong.  This cave had the most money poured into its improvements of any we've ever seen, with actual signs labeling formations, sound systems throughout, and even wifi hot spots!  Of course, the most incredible part was the underground waterfall itself.  Words (and pictures) cannot describe how awe-inspiring it was to stand at the base of the underground waterfall.  It didn't hurt of course that they had a sound and light show hooked up in the room to trigger your emotions.  But still...145 feet of underground waterfall (the tallest underground waterfall open to the public in the US) is beautiful, and the massively huge underground room the waterfall carved is awe-inspiring.  One of the most amazing things about this place is that it was discovered completely by accident.  They haven't found a natural entrance to the cave - it was only discovered because they were trying to build a new entrance to the already-known Lookout Mountain Caverns, and in drilling an elevator shaft to those caverns they accidentally drilled into the Ruby Falls caverns.  A few feet difference in drilling and this amazing site never would have been discovered!!

Outside the entrance to the caverns

Looking out at the Tennessee River and Chattanooga from the 
Ruby Falls tower.  The tower was constructed from the rock
blasted out to create the elevator shaft to the caverns 

The underground waterfall!  The photo does not
do it justice, this room is massively huge

After the falls, we took the Incline Railway to the top of Lookout Mountain.  The views from the mountaintop were amazing, and we walked the short distance to Point Park, part of the Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Military Park.  The appearance of Point Park reflects its earlier management by the Corps of Engineers, who constructed the entrance to look like their logo.

Looking out the bottom of the rail car

Crazy steep incline railway!  Note the cables visible in the right
track that haul the cars up and down

View from Lookout Mountain

Point Park - the structure is not historic at all, but was built
by the Corps of Engineers after it became a memorial park

Obligatory Aaron + cannon picture at a military park :-)

Risking his life on rocks at an overlook
in Point Park

We spent the rest of our trip in the central time zone, which was much easier to keep track of!  We explored all sorts of places near-ish to our campground.   First up: the corner where Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia meet.  Unsurprisingly, this was kind of a random point in the woods.  We parked at a cemetery (the nearest road) and followed a trail back to the point.  Unfortunately some very determined vandal had removed the marker from its concrete home, but fortunately a nearby resort had erected an arch so we knew we were in the right place.

Tri-State Corner - I'm standing where
the marker should have been

Next we stopped by the Nickajack Cave Wildlife Refuge, which had a well-maintained path out to an overlook of the cave on Nickajack Lake.  We finished up our tour of random small things near our campground with a trip to the Nickajack Dam.  This last stop was particularly fascinating because of the massive number of birds hanging out near the dam outfall, where the water was very turbulent.  I wouldn't have thought many fish would be in the area - what with the turbulent water - but the birds proved me very wrong, as we saw them catch several fish in the short time we were there.  We saw large numbers of black vultures, great blue herons, cormorants, and some kind of small songbird-looking bird.  We've never seen so many herons and cormorants in one place.

The overlook of Nickajack Cave

This black vulture posed very nicely for me.
The black vultures had basically no fear of us

This is kind of hard to see, but all the little black heads are cormorants 
in kind of a little whirlpool, in which they seemed to enjoy hanging out
perhaps because it didn't push them downstream so fast?  On the rocks
you can see a couple of the about 10 herons that were present before
we walked up close - it seems that herons are quite timid!

All the herons fled up to the railing on the dam when we came 
close.  Less obvious are the line of black vultures on the roof 
of the dam

After all of our fun little side trips, we headed farther out to the Russell Cave National Monument.  This cave was quite an archaeological find, with artifacts dating back over 10,000 years showing fairly continuous use of the cave.  They no longer let you walk through the cave, but it was neat to see all the same, and we got to get another stamp for our National Park Passport!

Close up of the upper cave, with a view of the archaeological
dig site.  This cave seems to have been more used, probably 
because it was less prone to flooding

Russell Cave, upper and lower sections

Our final day we went hiking at Foster Falls, a beautiful waterfall only a short (but steep!) hike from the parking lot in the South Cumberland State Park.  The picture doesn't do it justice, but the falls had carved out a massive basin in this tall and wide cliff.

The falls from the top - visible before you hike at all

A rather swingy bridge near the bottom

Foster Falls!

Aaron thought I looked funny climbing up 
the slick rocks on the steep path...

We had a lot of kind of unexpected fun in the Chattanooga area - I hadn't expected to find quite so many neat things to do!