The Great Smokey Mountains

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Fredricksburg has become somewhat of a tourist attraction due to the number of Civil War battles fought both in the town and in the surrounding countryside. Over 100, 000 Americans died in the immediate area surrounding Fredricksburg through the Civil War. As a bit of a Civil War nerd, it was time to inflict some revenge on Fiona for all those pointless hours spent standing outside of a changing room holding clothes, or the many hours spent watching her try on shoes. So with little remorse, I inflicted about seven hours of battlefield tours upon her. Unfortunately, she actually enjoyed it. The State Parks had done such a great job of preserving the battlefield sites and presenting information that it was really quite easy to understand what had happened and picture it all happening on the ground as we walked around. After hours and hours of driving and walking from one key site to another, Fiona was really enjoying it.....life is just not fair!

After a day of some serious war history, it was time to take in some of the natural beauty of the US. The Blue Ridge Parkway is a 470 mile stretch of road through the Appalachian Mountains which connects the Great Smokey Mountains and the Shenandoah Valley National Park. It is blessed with amazing views and a winding road which is often compared to the Great Ocean Road, and even better, we were traveling in Autumn when all the deciduious trees are changing colour. We drove for about 2 hours before picking up the trail and slowly winding south through the tight bends which followed the ridge line of this impressive mountain range. The views across the Shenendoah valley were pretty spectacular - we now understanding the song 'Country Road'!! Unfortunately time was against us and before long the sun began to set behind the towering mountain ranges and we were faced with driving a winding mountain road littered with wildlife and road kill. Before long, common sense prevailed and we headed of the track on down onto an interstate to save and bit of time and travel in a safer environment. After finding a hotel in Salem, we realised that we had completely underestimated the time it would take to drive the Parkway, and we resigned ourselves to about four hours on the interstate in the morning before re-joining the parkway in North Carolina.

The next morning we rose very early - we had accommodation booked that night in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, about 800 km drive from where we were, and we wanted to fit in as much time on the parkway as we could. Road closures on the parkway pretty much guided our hand as to where we would be able to drive, so we hit the Interstate for the first four hours before reaching Asheville in North Carolina. Asheville is probably most famous for being home to the Biltmore Family estate - a French Chateau comprising of about 250 rooms on some 500 hectares in the middle of the town. Some of you might recall that we visited the Biltmore Holiday home in Rhode Island which was extremely flash, so with a limited time line, and being tight asses and not wanting to pay the $50 entry fee was tried to check out the place without paying. Unfortunately the ninja like Biltmore Nazis were all over us and we had to leave without catching a glimpse of capitalism in its finest hour. Oh well, no loss because before long we rejoined the Blue Ridge Parkway to traverse its highest region which tops out at a little over 6000 feet. With hingsight, we selected an amazing part of the parkway to visit. Not only were the views more spectacular due to the altitude, but for some reason, the higher we were, the more colour there seemed to be in the trees.....

Now for some reason I missed the Botany class of my Arts degree (Hywel - maybe you could've helped), so I'm not really sure what the scoop is, but I have never seen anything like this in my life. The country side was just a patchwork of colours. The deciduous trees had started to turn, and they had become the most brilliant colours I have seen in nature. Looking across the mountain ranges, the canopy was a wash of colours; deep green fading in light green, bright yellows and oranges mixing in with fiery reds and earthy autumn browns. In some places the red was so brilliant it seemed as though the trees were on fire. While standing atop one of the mountains overlooking a sweeping vista of valleys and ridge lines Fiona described it best saying that it looked like a boquet of flowers. We have tried taking photos, but unfortunately they just cannot capture the beauty and colour of what we saw, it was simply amazing.

Each lookout seemed better than the last, but eventually we made our way into Gatlinburg, our home for the next few days. Unfortunately this town has gone the way of many American small towns located on the edge of a major tourist attraction, it had become the home of such a large array of kitsch that only Ian could love it. Ripley's Believe it or Not's, next to lame arsed theme parks, next to Guinness World Record stores are all competing to cash in on the tourist trade bought by the Great Smokey Mountains. Even as I sit here writing this blog I am looking across the town at a tacky 'Space Needle' in the style of Seattle, competing with endless Neon and Hollywood style 'Anti-Aircraft' lights which swing in sweeping arcs across the skyline. It is almost sad that an area of such natural beauty can be polluted by such cheap tackiness, but I guess that is the power of the dollar.

The next morning we had a long sleep in before lazily heading down for a hearty breakfast at the Gatlinburg favorite, the Pancake Parlour. After stuffing ourselves silly, we decided it was time to burn it all off and headed back into the National Park to take on one of the more difficult hikes in the park. Although only relatively short at almost 7km, the hiking guide described it a strenuous - this left us wondering if maybe we shouldn't have had those extra pancakes at breakfast.....

We set off on the trail and it was absolutely beautiful. The trail followed a shallow bubbling stream which created small series of picturesque cascades that invited a few photos. It wasn't until about halfway through the walk that it started to get somewhere near strenuous as the gradient started to steepen a little. Finally we reached the top and realised why it had been labelled strenuous....the final hundred metres to reach the summit of the trail involved scaling some pretty steep rocks with a 30 metre drop on either side - with a little bit of wind blowing, this was a pretty intimidating climb. After convincing Fiona that the view would be worth we scaled the rocks like large, pancake stuffed and awkward rock spiders. Finally we made it to the top and the view was certainly worth it. We were met with sweeping views of the park in all directions, and as the climb was pretty intimidating and demanding, only a few people managed to make it to the top, so we had the summit to ourselves for a short period of time. After laying in the sunshine and enjoying the view, we decided to head back to tackle our next trail. Unfortunately the trip back down the rocks proved a little more difficult, but we made it back down and took off towards Clingman Dome, the highest point in the park.

At about 6,500 feet, Clingman's Dome was a natural magnet for tourists, and being a long weekend after the leaves had turned, it was absolutely chocka's. The hike here was a little more friendly, only about 1.5km up a paved path to a Jetson's style observation deck which provided 360 degrees views across the entire park. It was quite an amazing view, but the bitingly cold wind which was whipping over the mountain quickly forced us back to the warmth of the car. With the sun setting it was time to say goodbye to the Smokies and head back to Gatlinburg for the night. The next morning was our last day of the holiday, and we started it by visiting the Gatlinburg Arts Festival which was a display of artists work from all through the Southern States of the US. There was a huge range of different art, from painting, wordcarving and metal work through to textiles and pottery - Fiona was really having a great time wandering around. Fortunately for me time was limited and we were soon back in the car heading for Pidgeon Forge, and Dolly Parton's world famous theme park, Dollywood! For me, the only inviting thing about Dollywood was seeing the giant sixty odd foot Dolly Parton at the entrance - seeing a 30 foot high rack was enough to get me out there, but unfortunately the park was hidden well out of view from any public roads, so there was no giant boobs for me.

This pretty much ended our holiday, but it really was a diverse and enjoyable trip. The history in Philadelphia was really worth seeing - it really opened my eyes to how young democratic states are, and that when America achieved independence, it really was an experiment to see how democracy would work. And the fact that it has survived challenges like slavery and civil war really put in perspective how important the history in Philadelphia is not only for Americans, but everyone who lives in a democracy (jez I 'm starting to sound like a yank......scary). The natural beauty of the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Smokey Mountains was incredible - Fiona kept saying throughout the trip that you would think that photos of the trees would be fake if we hadn't seen the colours for ourselves. It was a part of nature that we hadn't seen before and it was pretty amazing. Although I don't think the drive compared to the Avenue of the Giants in Northern California, it was strikingly beautiful.

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Photos

The Stonewall Jackson Monument
This monument marks the spot where one of the best Generals in the Confederate Army, Thomas 'Stonewall' Jackson was accidentally shot and mortally wounded by his own troops.

The Blue Ridge Parkway
Here's Fi at the very beginning of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

The Shenandoah Valley Overlook
This is an example of the meadows that were dotted along the Virginian section of the Parkway.

Seeing double?
Here's Fi (twice) at an overlook along the road.

The Changing Colour of the Trees
This is a shot from the side of the road on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

The Highest Point of the Parkway
When we got into the higher regions of the drive we were often shrouded in cloud, even though it was a pretty clear day.

Grassy Knob Tunnel
Apparently there's two knobs in this picture.

The Summit
Here's Dan celebrating reaching the summit of the Chimney Tops.

The Jetson's Lookout
Here's the abomination that sits atop the highest mountain in the Smokies.