USA (Part 4) - The push north

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Pigeon Forge

So on October 27th we drove from Nashville to Pigeon Forge (yes that´s the name of the town), at the edge of the Tennessee side of the Smoky Mountains. Driving into Pigeon Forge gave the same feeling as driving into Las Vegas, a bit of ooh, aah, and what the hell? All kind of Vegas without the casinos, but with some of the bling and all out cheese. You can´t miss the new Titanic museum which is a big replica of the boat itself right on the side of the road. I did actually miss it with the camera though owing to the pelting rain and 3 lanes of traffic in between me and it. So the picture of the weird Worderworks attraction will have to do. The traffic in the area was awful, giving us a bad omen for the drive ahead.

But anyway, rather than sampling any of the disneylike delights in the area, we went instead to the outlet malls and I bought some new hiking shoes and handbag at Fossil. Quite restrained I think given the so cheap prices here.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park

According to the US National Park website, the Great Smoky Mountains is the most visited national park in the US. It kind of seemed it at Pigeon Forge and the traffic on the 33 mile Newfound Gap Road certainly confirmed it. We´re not big hikers so most of our time spent in this park and on the Blue Ridge Highway would be just driving from lookout to lookout with the odd stop to go for a little walk. Which suited me just fine as this is where we felt the weather change from warmish, to definite ´fresh´(English code for damn cold).

But the drive itself was actually beautiful, despite all the people. This would be one of the busiest periods in the park due to the autumn leaves, and it was so picturesque with all the colours from the still green, to yellows, oranges, and reds. Gorgeous.

About half way through we crossed over the state border to Virginia and thankfully it got a little quieter then as most of the drivers turned around to head back to little Vegas.

After the 33 miles we started on the Blue Ridge Parkway through similar autumn scenery to Asheville. The highlight of Asheville being the motel we stayed in even provided dinner (as well as the usual breakfast), nothing fancy but certainly making it the best value motel we´d been in.

Now the plan had been to drive the entire Blue Ridge Parkway, all 469 miles of it. But given the 35 mph speed limit and the stopping at all the lookouts, we realised that we´d be driving about 10 hours a day to get there. So this day we bailed out and took the freeway from Asheville at mile 380 on the Blue Ride Highway to Roanoke at mile 120, cutting down our trip by a day. After driving about 90 miles of it the the previous day we realised that although it was incredibly beautiful with all the autumn colours, it was pretty much all the same after a while!

Back on the Blue Ridge Parkway

At Roanoke we rejoined the Blue Ridge Parkway and had the intention of doing maybe a walk or 2. Given the winding roads it still took us 5 and a half hours to drive the 120 miles, with only a 45 minute stop to walk around some lake (which wasn´t very interesting really). Again, lovely drive and really makes you appreciate how much land there really is in the US when you´re surrounded by trees and can only see trees for miles and miles. They really have done a great job of preserving their national parks here.

Shenandoah National Park

They also sometimes charge a nice amount for the pleasure of simply driving through their well preserved national parks. Ok, so it´s probably our fault for not actually using the parks to their full advantage but its amazing that they can charge you just to use a road!

This would be the Skyline Drive that we would drive 105 miles to our next destination. We did actually try to do a proper hike this time to a waterfall, but not being good prepared boy scouts we didn´t bother getting information on how long the hike would actually be, so after about 25 minutes continually walking downhill and not stumbling across any water whatsoever, we contemplated how long the walk back up would be if we went any further, and promptly turned back around again back to the carpark to eat our lunch! We gave up on any further walks from then on and satisfied ourselves with the lookouts along the road itself where I could just jump out the car and back in again!

If you´re big hikers I´d certainly recommend the area, especially at this time of year, and you´d probably see some wildlife too if you walk more than a mile from the road area!

With that we headed to Winchester to watch the Sunday NFL (bit later this week though) and stuffed ourselves on a Chinese buffet, not bad for 8 bucks.

Arlington

So back on the city trail we headed towards Washington, D.C. stopping first at Arlington Cemetery. Bit of a history lesson here so bear with me. The estate on which the cemetery now stands was owned by George Washington´s adopted grandson (the grandson of George Washington´s wife and her first husband), George Washington Parke Custis. His daughter married Robert E Lee, and they inherited the estate. Robert E Lee was with the US army when, in 1861 at the start of the civil war, Virginia joined the confederacy. Torn between his allegiances, Robert E Lee resigned from the US army and was named as major general in the Virginia forces. Union troops then occupied Arlington in defense of the capital and began burying their dead in the grounds, both being practical and symbolic against Lee.

We saw the area where some of the earliest military were buried as well as some of the newer parts. The place is absolutely massive, apparently over 300,000 people are buried there. There were so many tourists there though so it really didn´t seem like you were walking around a cemetery next to people´s graves, which is a shame really as it doesn´t seem that respectful. We had a look at JFK´s grave (and his family, including now both brothers) and watched the changing of the guards ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns which was very precise and military, not surprisingly. We only managed to lose the crowds when we walked through the eastern parts to get to the Marine Corps War Memorial, otherwise known as the Iwo Jima Memorial (raising of the flag). The thing is enormous and pretty impressive to see.

We left the cemetery and drove on to our very centrally placed hotel on the waterfront in Washington, and then wandered around for ages trying to find something to eat and eventually went to the impressive looking Union Station food court.

Washington, D.C.

I´ve been to Washington a few times now, although this was the first time for Patrick. I love all the memorials and magnificent buildings along the mall between the State Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial, but I´d never managed to get into the Archives Building because of the queues. Well luckily on this trip there was no queue at all, so we went in to see the famous documents in the rotunda. This is where the originals of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights are held, in a beautiful part of a great building. The Declaration of Independence, the document declaring the independence of 13 colonies from Great Britain forming the United States of America on July 4, 1776, was in great condition where you could see George Washington´s signature clearly. However the other two documents were a bit faded as a result of them being carted around the country too much during the civil war days and thereafter before being finally protected. The Constitution (1787) sets out the scheme of government (i.e. senate, house, etc) and the Bill of Rights (1791) sets out amendments to the Constitution to include freedom of speech, religion etc. Both documents driving law and judgments to this day. There were further exhibits in the building that sounded quite good but we´d only come to see the important stuff really, so on we went.

After a bit of lunch we headed down Pennsylvania Avenue towards the White House, bumping into the Old Post Office on the way, where you could take an elevator up the tower to see views of Washington. The views were pretty good from up there, and there were very few people visiting, so totally recommended if you´re ever in Washington and can´t be bothered to queue at the Washington Monument (which we did try and do anyway the next day, more on that later). We headed further down and walked around the White House, from the grand front, to the more recognisable back, and joined the rest of the tourists taking photos. We were actually here on election day (for the senate and house) so I´m sure President Obama was there somewhere!

With light quickly fading on us we rushed it down to the Washington Memorial, through the WW2 memorial, and down to the Lincoln Memorial. The Lincoln Memorial is my favourite in Washington. Not sure why but it´s a very grand statue of Lincoln sitting in a chair, surrounded by walls engraved with his famous speeches. A very grand memorial for the great man of history. After a quick look at the Vietnam War Memorial we headed to Dupont Circle to the Brickskeller Bar, which touts itself as having the largest selection of beer in the US. Indeed when we arrived it took us about 10 minutes to look at the beer menu and make a selection, although it transpired that they don´t actually stock all the beer on the list at a time, as I think I finally got a beer after 5 tries. Pretty cool bar for something different though.

The next morning we headed for the Washington Monument where I thought I had been clever in getting some tickets online (tickets are free but given out on first come first serve basis for different times, $3 is charged online) but when we arrived at 11am we found there were still queuing for the 10am tour. As we were there they also announced that the elevator had broken down so no one was going up anyway. We did go back a few times in the day but it had still not been fixed. Oh well, next time!

So we wandered down again towards the Lincoln memorial to take in the Korean War memorial, which is really a very forgotten war in our history, but the memorial is lovely. We then headed to the US Holocaust Museum. We were there for 3 hours in the end, and we had to rush around it a bit. I would highly recommend anyone see this, it was a fantastic place starting with Hitler´s rise to power, and through the war and persecution of not only the jewish but other non Aryan people, to the camps themselves, and the post war release of the prisoners. There were some very graphic film clips and it made me feel quite physically sick at points, but it was definitely worthwhile to see.

So for a little lighter amusement we walked down towards the State Capitol which is an amazingly grand building, and popped briefly into the American Indian Museum which is another fantastic museum although we were a bit museumed out by then. So we ended the evening at the Thunder Bar at Union Station which we´d found a couple of nights before because of an impressive drink and food happy hour. Another healthy dinner of wings and nachos!

That ended our historical part of the trip and we were headed for some classiness at Atlantic City which Patrick will bring you next time.

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Photos

View on the Blue Ridge Parkway
One of the highest points so fir trees at the top with the autumn colours at the lower elevations in the distance

Lincoln Memorial
Including ducks!

In the American Indian Memorial
Quite the quote before the complete displacement of the Indians from their land

JFK grave and flame
Arlington House in the background

View from Arlington House
Right to left, Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, State Capitol