Sweet Potato Pancakes again this morning. Second time, just as good. Straight from there I hit the highway heading to Gaitlinburg. Drive was terrible. First, those fucking trucks. They love to get next to each other on a two-lane highway and see how even they can keep their speed. Then between Nashville and Knoxville it poured rain, so that slowed me down. Soooooooo ready to get out of the car.
This is sort of how things go. Between the interstate and the Smokies, there's three areas. Sevierville, Pigeon Forge, and Gaitlinburg. When I was choosing a place to stay, I was leaning towards Pigeon Forge or Gaitlinburg, Sevierville was just too far away. Pigeon Forge had a few places that would have been a better deal, but Gaitlinburg was so much closer to the Smokies that I had to pick that.
Thank. God.
Sevierville is indistinct. A bunch of strip malls and gas stations, progressively more souvenir shops as you move towards the mountains. Pigeon Forge is retarded. All I knew about Pigeon Forge was that it was home to the Dollywood amusement park. But Pigeon Forge is basically five miles of one road that is ALL amusement park, lit up like an arcade, crowded as an Indian market. Why on Earth is this place so crowded? Is it all for Dollywood? I had no idea, didn't care to know, I just wanted to get through it, and it took forever. Driving through, I noticed that people were setting up chairs on the side of the road, pointed at the road, and just sitting there talking to each other and staring. I could not understand why. And this was always the case. When I first came through it was the middle of the day, they were there. Had to go in later because it had the only grocery store I could find. They were out then too. Didn't go back in until I left two days later, but they were there then too. I was thinking, “Does Dollywood put on periodic fireworks displays throughout the day? Is something incredible going to happen on the skyline here soon? Or do these people just travel to Pigeon Forge to sit on the side of the road and watch other people travel to Pigeon Forge?” (I found out later that there was a car show going on, which I assume was Forge-wide. I guess that explains it? Kind of? Not really.) I was really scared that Gaitlinburg was going to be the same way.
About a six mile stretch between where Pigeon Forge traffic ends and Gaitlinburg becomes recognizable. Gaitlinburg is no small mountain entryway, it's definitely a resort town with plenty of tourist traps. It kind of reminded me of the Canada side of Niagara Falls. A lot. A bunch of Ripley's museums, famous car displays, stores full of crap that nobody wants but buys because it says Gaitlinburg on it. Anything to take your money. So, it was busy, lots of people always walking around and crossing the street with total disregard for moving cars. (Look, I understand that cars are supposed to stop at the crosswalks for them to cross in this town, but to just jump out into the middle of the street without so much as glancing to see if a car's on the way is still dumb.) But a MILLION times better than Pigeon Forge. (Though from what I understand if you want to go to the Smokies without any of those distractions, you stay in Townsend. I couldn't find any open rooms in Townsend, and didn't get a chance to check it out, but if I went back I would try for that.)
This hotel was kind of a funky place and I pretty much loved it. It feels old. Not mountain old, but architecturally outdated. Loved it. It's been so long since I've been in any kind of lodging that was not based around corridors, either on the inside or outside, where you enter the room from a hallway or balcony and have windows on the opposite side of the room. The room I had in this place, the windows faced the center of the hotel.
I know that's not a really rare thing, but it was such a change for me that it made me giggly. Entering the room, another oddity I encountered, most rooms I've stayed in have the main bedroom which goes into a sink area and then is separated by a door to the toilet/shower. This one had no separation between the shower and the sink, and seemed wide open to the bedroom. I actually didn't notice until the second day that there indeed was a door between the sink area and the bedroom, and I spent that day thinking it would be extremely awkward to be staying there with anybody. But yeah, there was a door. I'm an idiot. That's how distracted I was I guess. No coffee maker in the room, that was a disappointment. Especially since every description I read, from hotels.com to the hotel's own website, advertised a coffee maker. I got to have my decaf before bed or I'm incomplete!
Kept the BBQ train going by stopping in at a nearby place called Bennett's and getting a sandwich. Meat was good but unremarkable, but I really loved that they put it on garlic bread. That was very tasty. More sandwiches should be put on garlic bread.
Oh yeah, this was my birthday. Didn't think about it much. Mission accomplished. But I went and got some ice cream to have my own mini-treat. Blue Bell Snickerdoodle. It was really good. Ate that while catching up on Sons Of Anarchy and went to bed.
Day 7: Smokies Day
They love pancakes in this area. Like, combine the amount of Wal-Marts and McDonalds that are in our area, and that probably comes close to the number of pancake houses between Pigeon Forge and Gaitlinburg. But my room came with a free breakfast buffet, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Well, it's about as good as you'd expect from a free breakfast buffet. French toast sticks, eggs, bagels, bread, stuff that could be made en masse and wouldn't wither under heat lamps. A couple things I actually liked. The gravy on top of biscuits was good. And for some reason I have never gotten bad bacon on a breakfast buffet. It always a great compromise of crisp, firm, and chewy. Nevertheless, I decided the next day, I'd hit a pancake house.
Heading to the Smokies to take a hike. I wanted one that was going to keep me occupied for a while, moderately taxing, but most of all offering scenery. From the descriptions I'd read, the hike to Charlie's Bunion fit the bill. About 8 miles round trip, high elevation, and opportunity to touch rocks.
First was a drive to Newfound Gap. Starting to realize that any time I get in the car in this area, I'm going to be irritated. The problem here is that it's a very winding road going up the mountain, obviously, and there are people with trailers driving up there, I guess heading to campsites or something, and despite signs that say, “Slow Traffic Move Over And Let Other People FUCKING PASS YOU” I guess nobody considers themselves that slow. Maybe if they realized they're towing loads and it's slowing them down, but I think they're just trying to look over the side of the mountain. While driving. Jackasses. An extremely long 8 mile drive up the mountain.
All redeemed as soon as I stepped out of the car. When I got in the car at the hotel, I think about 9 in the morning, it was already muggy and warm out. Stepping out at Newfound Gap, I would say it was in the low 60s, overcast, breezy, absolutely the most gorgeous air I've felt since early last spring. It was almost shocking to get out of the car and feel that, just hadn't anticipated it. Very thankful I had thought to bring a flannel in my backpack. Made me so comfortable. So, off I go a-hiking. I had brought my mom's camera on the trip to take whatever pictures I could come up with, but this was out of control. A mountain is such an expansive thing, the way I imagine it, I would expect that you get a picture of one view, that's going to be the view for a while. Didn't seem like the case here. Every time I would pass one tree or make a slight turn, it felt like I was getting a whole new perspective on the scenery. The amount of pictures I felt like I had to take was getting ridiculous and eventually I realized I was going to have to change my goal from getting great pictures to just getting enough pictures to remind me of the experience later, or else I was never going to complete this hike.
Just beautiful. Enhancing the feeling was that I chose Ys to soundtrack it. I swear to God, that album just takes any great experience and amplifies it immeasurably. One of the overwhelming thoughts in my head at the time was that I'm really not sure why I ever try to find new music when this album is sitting there available for me to just listen to forever as many times as I can fit in. But the trek was longer than the album, next logical step was to go to Have One On Me for the remainder. And I realized that was probably the first time I've given that album a real concentrated listen. And now I plan on giving it a lot more listens, because it's remarkable.
The hike to it was a real delight, and the Bunion was a lot of fun. The hike feels like you're walking on this shelf that's attached to the side of the mountain. A lot of being able to look right off the edge on a downward slope. Not trying to suggest a straight drop down, but if you jumped off and hit that slope with some velocity you'd slide for a while and have a hard time trudging back to the trail. Lots of fun, very green and shaded. Then the Bunion is like a culmination, because you suddenly hit an open area and bare rock.
And what do you do with bare rock? You climb on it. And it reaches out over that slope, so it's a little thrilling. You have to watch your grip, and of course you naturally want to know just how far out you can go before the whole thing drops out. It doesn't, you can pretty much go out as it goes out and down, and eventually you have to stop yourself and realize you better go back before you're stuck. Especially when there's no one there to insist you're going too far.
And here's some smoke:
And that was sort of it. That fulfilled all my plans for the trip. But I still had two days left. First, went back down the mountain and straight to Corky's BBQ for my last sandwich of the trip. Corky's is a chain now that started in Memphis. They also apparently sell frozen ribs in supermarkets. Sandwich was pretty good, the star here was the sweet potato fries. First or second best I've ever had. So hard to get sweet potato fries the way I like them. Normally when I get them they are soggy and pretty greasy. These were crisp. Just like regular fries, but made with sweet potatoes, which is exactly how I love them. Only ones I've had to compete with them, oddly enough, I got at a greek restaurant in Lewiston, NY with a Beef on Weck. I might give those the slight edge. Didn't do much with the rest of this of this day. Walked the length of the tourist area of Gaitlinburg and went back to the hotel to make plans for the next day. I decided to split the trip home in half by stopping in Bedford, VA, closest town to Peaks Of Otter where I spent a lot of vacations as a kid.
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