A Soggy Sojourn in the Smokies
Where to go, where to go, where to go was the mantra my wife and I were singing a month or two ago. Should we go to the beach again for our fall getaway? How about going to a big city like New York or Montreal? They both sounded intriguing. Or perhaps we could take another swing down south? That sounded like fun too. So what shall we do?
We eventually mentioned our quandary to some friends and they suggested, “Why don’t you guys try going to the Smoky Mountains? You can rent a cabin and go back to your roots!” They had done that very thing a few times in the past and really enjoyed it.
Judy and I gave the idea some serious thought. We’d never really booked a cabin in the woods before. Well, we had, but it was a bare-bones place a long time ago back when our son was little and it wasn’t a whole lot better than the tents we had used for camping up to that point. But this cabin would be different. This one had a full kitchen, whirlpool bath, hot tub, king bed, big-screen TV and other various nicer accoutrements. It would be more like a higher-end hotel room but rustic and in the mountains.
It sounded very interesting.
We used a booking agent that our friends had used in the past and soon we were the “owners” (for four nights at least) of a neat lil’ cabin in the woods! It was situated about five miles outside Pigeon Forge Tennessee. To further identify all of this booking agency’s cabins, they all had a name.
Our cabin was “Call of the Wild”. Pretty cool, eh?
I’d been following the weather forecasts for Pigeon Forge for a couple weeks before our trip, and they all looked poor. Rain, rain and more rain. But we had hopes that the forecasters might have been mistaken this one time, so we made sure we had our umbrellas and set off.
The mapping program on my computer at home said it’d take about 7 and some hours to make the drive and I knew to add a couple more for various stops along the way – food, restroom, stretch our legs, see the sights, etc. So I was guessing about 10-ish for the trip and I was pretty much right on the nose.
We rose early and were clicking down the road around six a.m. A bit chilly and dark, of course, but the road was clear and dry and we were on our way!
The rains started just about the time we crossed the Ohio River at Cincinnati. They were steady and quite heavy at times. The strong rain and the ever present spray from traffic ahead made driving miserable most of the time and even dangerous during the worst of it. My phone even squawked flood warnings a few times, but most of it died down as we got into Tennessee and it was somewhat drier when we got to the cabin.
Our cabin was as advertised, clean and ready for occupation. I was a bit disappointed to find out there was no wi-fi available, but doggone it, this was a cabin in the woods. I guess I could rough it for a few days, eh? The TV was satellite and unfamiliar to me, so I had to fuss around a bit to figure it out. But finally we had TV and were able to watch most of what we wanted.
After a trip back into town for supper – a fish and chicken place – we returned to our rustic abode and hit the hay. We were pretty secluded, so this was new territory for my wife and I. We’re quite used to the sounds of the small city we live in so cars, trains, sirens and various other sounds are quite normal. But now we were in the woods! We heard various thumps and bumps and rumbles and hisses and knocks as the night passed. Bears? Racoons?
Oh God, not Bigfoot?
It was amazing how colorful our imaginations could be while we were cowering under our blankets in a dark woods.
Eventually the black night passed (Did I tell you it’s DARK in the woods, folks) and the gray light of another rainy day dawned. The weather reports on TV said rain most of the week, which was sad but not unexpected. We cleaned up and headed back into Pigeon Forge for some breakfast. We noticed we were starting to get comfortable with the twists and turns we had to make to get from the cabin to town.
Breakfast was at a pancake cabin along the main drag. It was a chain and there must have been a dozen of them.
We had planned to drive into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park sometime during our visit, but were hesitant to do so now because of the rain. We decided to do it then anyhow, rain be damned. The park entrance was quite a ways out of town. The mapping program had said about an hour to get there and they were right. Finally we drove through the main gate and were in the park. The area we wanted to visit was called Cades Cove. There was a loop road at that part – one way – that was where everyone wanted to go. It was supposed to be THE place to see wildlife. Uh-huh. Supposed to be… On a sunny day I was guessing. Anyhow, we drove it, along with hundreds of other cars. I wondered aloud about how jam-packed that drive might be in July on a warm, pretty day. This was about as gloomy as it gets and still there were LOTS of folks out and about. Anyway, we saw a small herd of horses and various flocks of turkeys as we made the journey. No deer. No bears. But at the very end of our time in the park I spotted what MIGHT have been a wolf. It was next to the road. Darkish and dog-like but definitely NOT a dog. The nose was not pointy like a coyote either. Only saw it for a second or two, but doggone it, I’m going to say it was a wolf!
We took another route back to “civilization” – Gatlinburg – that was the curviest road I’ve ever driven. It followed a mountain river and had places you could almost see yourself coming and going as you rounded another 300+ degree curve.
Lunch was at a Mexican restaurant and was quite good. We returned to the cabin for a while that afternoon then visited one of the many museums along the main drag. This one was called "Alcatraz East” and was all about crime and criminals. Quite well done and we got great discounts there for me being a veteran. After that we went to a Sonic and had hot fudge sundaes. Mmmm! Lunch was late and large, so we weren’t very hungry. Then it was back to the cabin in the dark. The mountain roads are QUITE a bit more challenging at night!
Tuesday morning we had breakfast at a Cracker Barrel – a large meal. My seemingly never-ending off-and-on stomach problems were on again this week, so I had some belly difficulties for some hours after eating. Next we drove to a huge knife store up in Sevierville, a little north of Pigeon Forge. We wandered around it for an hour or two and - wait for it - bought some knives! What a stretch, eh? Never saw so much knives in my life. And in the lower level, a large kitchen store with – wait for it again – oodles and oodles of kitchen knives! Wowser! Quite an interesting place.
We’d purchased tickets for a dinner theater the day before, so after the knife place we went there. It was called “The Hatfield and McCoy Feud Dinner Theater.” Never mind how incongruous the title was and how the real feud took place hundreds of miles away, it was fun. It was a huge theater with tables on tiers above the stage. They served a nice lunch before the show – fried chicken and pulled pork, mashed potatoes, cole slaw, corn-on-the-cob, rolls and butter. It was topped off by your choice of banana or chocolate pudding. The show was part country music, part funny stuff and all family-friendly cornpone. The famous feud was the cornerstone of the show of course, but the performance ended up with a large pool of water on the stage with the actors diving into it along with diving dogs and silly skits. It was a nice high point for the day and, albeit somewhat expensive, still a fun couple of hours.
Supper was a Shoney’s and I had just soup and salad. Again our mid-day meal was large and I wasn’t very hungry. We returned to the cabin around 8 and had some wine. Wanted to watch some TV on FX, but we didn’t have FX there.
We are really roughing it this week!
Wednesday was our last full day in Tennessee. Heavy rain was forecast for all day. Yesterday we actually had a little sun peeking out in the afternoon, but today we were back in the soggies.
Went to a place called Mel’s Diner for breakfast. It was modeled after a diner in a 70’s TV show called “Alice” starring Linda Lavin. It was a small, stainless-steel sided diner, 50’s decorations on the walls inside with good diner food and cantankerous waitresses. They seemed to be busy every time we drove past the place. We ate and enjoyed the shenanigans going on, then ventured out again into the deluge.
Next stop was the Hollywood Wax Museum. Yes, I know. Wax museums are kind of the low end of any tourist area, most kind of tacky, but it was a rainy day and… Hell… Anyhow, we went. Actually it was one of the better ones. The wax figures were mostly very good likenesses of the people and most of them had props you could hold or wear if you wanted to take your pictures with them. It was actually kind of fun. The building itself, on the outside, was a replica of the Empire State Building with King Kong climbing it! Very noticeable from a long way away. Then it was souvenir shopping and a stop at another area to go through a candy store (yeah, we bought some), a pottery (beautiful stuff – had to force myself not to spend some real money) then a stop at a distillery. There were many distilleries in the area, but this one was where we were, so… We sampled some various flavors of the local moonshine – apple pie, blackberry, cinnamon, banana’s foster, chocolate and other yummy ones. You got six tastes for free and we enjoyed them all. We then adjourned back to the cabin for a rest. We MIGHT have been a bit woozy from the moonshine! Supper was at an upscale Italian place and the servings were enormous. We ate like troopers, but were, in the end, stymied by the amount of food. Back to the cabin afterward to finish the wine and hit the hay early. Another early day coming up tomorrow.
Thursday was our travel day. Doughnuts and decaf were our motivators that dark and rainy morning as we headed north through the monsoon. It was just as miserable as the drive down had been with moderate rain interspersed with very heavy downpours. From Lexington north, however, the rains had stopped and those hours on the road were dry and pleasant, albeit quite cloudy. We returned home in the late afternoon.
It was cool, dry and we were finally back.
