Pigeon Forge, TN... Official Turn West

 

SMILE BREAK:

A veterinarian threw a party and invited some of his friends. One of his friends was an exotic pet store owner who came as a turtle, carrying a woman on his back. The veterinarian asked him who the woman was, and he replied... this is Michelle.

If you're having to think about it, you missed the punch line.

Heading to Tennessee was the official turn for the west and home base.

Look familiar, we passed through this tunnel once before, its the Big Walker Mountain Tunnel. We had to back track quite a distance to get to the highway that took us to Tennessee.

This was a familiar sign since we saw it several years ago when we wintered in Tennessee, not far from where we were headed this time.

Believe it or not, Pigeon Forge is a tourist town to rival others. The street from the highway was pretty congested with other visitors and locals. Our campground was in town off the main thoroughfare, and down by the river.

The other side of the river was a walking/biking trail, well used, but not by us.

JUST WATCHIN' THE WATER

What would you suspect comes with water...

These guys were no strangers to humans, I was probably within 18 inches of them. The other reason I know they were not strangers to humans... they like hand-outs.

The first time I fed them they were on the grass, a little later they were standing at the door for more... which I provided, then told them no more, and closed the door.

Here were our other visitors.

I guess the operators of the park are not big fans of the geese, they don't want visitors feeding the geese, but it is ok to feed the ducks.

We thought about doing some sightseeing but the traffic is crazy L.A. rush hour style, filled with jeeps. I unluckily made reservations for the weekend of a jeep rally in here. The closet excitement we had was a drive to Sam's Club in Knoxville, and a run to the Ford dealership for routine maintenance.

With the lack of sightseeing God entertained us with nature at the river. We saw a Majestic Blue Herron, and a Great Egret.

MAJESTIC BLUE HERRON

GREAT EGRET

Did you here about the kidnapping at a school... it was ok, he woke up.

This was a morning view of the river:

SAME GROUP, TWO PHOTOS

With the Jeep rally goin' on, we decided to stay close to home, so our splurge was at a 50's diner walking distance away... no, we did not walk up, we drove.

(Photo courtesy of Michael Palmer)

Two-thirds of the place was diner, the other third was a gift shop. Carol and I are firm believers in dessert first, to ensure we don't miss out.

The desserts this trip were 50's style milkshakes.

Carol's was a Reese's peanut butter cup and vanilla ice cream, topped with whipped cream and a cherry. Mine on the other hand:

A chocolate milkshake spun with hot fudge and a chocolate brownie, drizzled hot fudge inside, and topped with whipped cream, Hersey chocolate bar, and a cherry. Then there was a brownie, drizzled hot fudge, whipped cream, and more Hersey chocolate bar. You may have noticed a waffle at the top of the glass, it held the straw. It isn't necessary to eat the waffle.

The main part of the meal was burgers and fries, so lets talk the diner.

Because of this Jeep rally we were presented with these two rubber ducks by our waiter.

In front of the diner were two vintage cars, one dressed to honor the Jeep rally this weekend.

After dinner I took a part of my milkshake for a walk, and finished it at home. Carol drove home.

This was it for Pigeon Forge, we were now going to head to a heat wave in Alabama, where the humidity won't matter, because it will still be HOT.

******

A woman woke up and found her husband was not in bed, so she walked downstairs to find him at the kitchen table with a drink, sobbing. She asked him what was wrong. He asked, do you remember when we met 20 years ago, she replied yes, pleasantly surprised he remembered.

When you were 15 do you remember us in the back seat of my car, she said yes smiling and tearing up, and sat down beside him.

Then he asked if she remembered the time her father stuck a shotgun in his face, and told me I could either marry you, or go to prison for 20 years, she said yes… well, today I would be getting out of prison.

Get off the floor.

See you in Alabama.

West Virginia... Really???

 We were a bit anxious about this stop. I didn't pay attention to the name of the place, "Ashland ATV Resort". We figured we would wait to form our opinions of this campground. 

BIG WALKER MOUNTAIN TUNNEL &

EAST RIVER MOUNTAIN TUNNEL

The Big Walker Mountain tunnel was the longer of the two, and this was what it looked like going through them:

The longer of the two tunnels was probably close to 3/4 of a  mile through the mountain, the second was about a 1/2 mile.

Most of the drive was good, Garmin followed the directions the campground staff texted us.

They did however forget to mention the many miles of winding roads to get to the campground, starting from the time we got off the main highway. They did not mention that the office moved recently, so we ended up driving even further on the winding roads, then decided to give them a call and provide our location. We did find the office and got checked in.

The campground is relatively small, mostly cabins and tent sites, with a few RV sites. It had rained here the day before, so the site was a bit muddy getting setup, but we were successful. Behind our site was a small creek that actual had a tiny bit of water running through it.

We had to deal with rain during our short stay. We were going to drive into a little town to visit the store, but after the winding roads Carol was happy to stay home. One of the days I headed into town to get fueled up for the next leg of the journey. While I was in town I hit the local grocery store for a couple of needed items to make chaffles.

On the way back up the mountains I was able to enjoy the clouds on the mountains.

The bottom photo is on the road back up, and the top is at the campground.

Because we didn't go anywhere, I played Suzie Homemaker and made parmesan chips and chaffles.

TOP: PARMESAN CHIPS

MIDDLE: PEPPERONI CHAFFLES

BOTTOM: CHOCOLATE CHIP CHAFFLES

Something Carol and I noticed was the abandonment of the area after the mining companies left. The few people that still live in the area appear to be a tight-knit community of small unincorporated towns. When we were leaving we saw a neighborhood working together to built something for one of the residents.

This visit to West Virginia was the final state needed to finish our trip through New England and Mid-Atlantic regions.

The only states left to complete our map are Oregon, Washington, and Alaska.

Before we left we had a visitor come and enjoy our presence, or more likely our truck's presence:

We made a decision to leave the campground a day early, not being ATVers there wasn't much to do without driving down the 15 miles of winding roads. Our solution was to call our next stop and see if they could get us in a day early... prayer answered... so we packed up and headed to Tennessee.

This was a nice campground, especially for ATVers.

Is It Natural or Imitation

 We took our leave of absence from Powhatan and headed west to Natural Bridge, VA.  Our next stop was a KOA in Natural Bridge, about four miles from the bridge.

Our site was at the front of the park, but in the next few years to come, it will be in the middle of the park. There is a large expansion happening toward the front of the property, adding about forty more sites.

This campground is near a lot of attractions, but we will probably visit a couple. You can tell when gold has been struck in a tourist location. One example was the Safari Park, just down the street a couple of miles; to get in the park it cost $26.00 per person, not car, per person. The one attraction I wanted to see was the Natural Bridge at Natural Bridge State Park. 

From the Visitor Center there were about 134 steps to get to the other check-in/gift shop, if visitors survive the steps, the natural bridge is only another 200 yards. In our conversation with the counter worker we mentioned that Carol would not be able to make that decent and ascent, and I would be taking a lot of photos for her. Her response was that we could drive down to the lower check-in station, then Carol could enjoy the bridge and waterfall too. She let the people down below know that the "Blue Beast" was coming down.

A little background on the bridge, it stems back to Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was so impressed with the bridge in 1774, that he bought the bridge and 157 acres around it, for 20 schillings, or roughly $200.00 today. His desire was for the Natural Bridge to remain in a "public trust" as a park for all to enjoy. Unfortunately his debts did not allow for that dream to come to fruition, and in 1833 after his death his heirs were forced to sell the bridge.

Later in the 19th century the bridge did become an attraction, and a hotel was built to accommodate visitors. The current hotel was rebuilt in 1964 after a fire destroyed the original hotel.

Now we headed off to the natural bridge.

COMING            LEAVING 

PASSING UNDER BRIDGE

We were talking with the ranger on site, and he explained that SR-11 runs on the natural bridge. 

What was cool was there was more to see than just the bridge. The bridge was created millions of years ago by water erosion from an underground river. Today Cedar Creek runs under the bridge.

TWO PEOPLE TRYING TO FIND THE BRIDGE

CEDAR CREEK

This was our first point of interest on the trail to the waterfall.

SALTPETER CAVE

Thomas Jefferson found nitrates in the cave and decided to lease it out for saltpeter production, a major ingredient in making gunpowder. Saltpeter from this cave was used during the War of 1812, and the Civil War.

From the Saltpeter Cave we left in search of the Lost River.

WHO KEEPS PHOTO-BOMBING MY PHOTOS

Here it is:

"THE LOST RIVER"

This "lost river" was found around 1812 after the workers in the saltpeter cave heard water behind a limestone formation. They blasted an opening in the rock with black power explosives. The workers created a piping system to supply water to the cave, helping the extraction process. Some of the pipes can still be seen on the walking path. The river was lost until 1990 when non-toxic dye was used to locate the river's source.

From here we continued up the creek "without a paddle", to the waterfall.

About a 3/10th of a mile up we arrived at the falls.

BLUE HERRON FISHING

THOMAS JEFFERSON'S PROPERTY LINE

After a few relaxing minutes at the waterfall we headed back down the trail to the gift shop.

NATURE AT ITS BEST

On the way back I appeared to have picked up a hitchhiker on the way down the trail.

SYCAMORE TUSSOCK MOTH CATAPILLAR

I didn't know what it was at first, then I asked the rangers at the Visitor Center, and they didn't know either, but found out for me. The one item they didn't know was that the hairs on this critter can cause skin irritation, or even a rash.

BACK AT THE BEGINNING

(I made this into a puzzle)

After we finished our 1.6 mile nature walk, we returned home to rest.

The next day I went for a tour of the Natural Bridge Cavern. Carol stayed home and enjoyed laundry... ha, ha. 

Having completed the tour, Carol would have had some trouble because of slippery areas and major steps.

The cavern was discovered around 1880.

The desire was to make it a tourist attraction early on, but it was too difficult to get down to the cavern. The solution was to create an opening that provided easier access. This cave stays at a constant 54°, and the bats love it in the winter time, in the summer they hang out in the trees.

The left is entrance front above ground, and the right is into the cave. I refer to the original cavern entrance as the emergency exit.

Once visitors enter through the new entrance, they can now walk down stairs. These were the easy stairs, some were slippery with a low overhead.

MAIN CATHEDRAL

TWO PLATES OF EARTH SEPARATED BY AN EARTHQUAKE

UP A FEW HUNDRED FEET

PERSONAL POND WITH DECORATIONS

BOULDER FELL FROM ABOVE AND GOT WEDGED IN PLACE (BEFORE MY TIME)

We passed under this boulder on the tour.

SUPPOSEDLY THEY'RE EDIBLE

ELEPHANT SKIN TEXTURE 

(tough to see)

STEEP STAIR CLIMB

(left is bottom/right is top)

300+ BELOW GROUND LEVEL

Our guided tour ended here, but there was still more cave to be explored.

FOR THE SKILLED CAVE HIKERS

Now all we had to do was get back to the surface. This was a small cave, but fun to visit. A little pricey because it is privately owned.

UPHILL CLIMB TO ORIGINAL ENTRANCE

There you have our stay in Natural Bridge, VA., now it was time to think about moving to West Virginia.