2019 Summer Trip

Friday-Drive to Chapel Hill NC June 28 Heading to Chapel Hill was a bit hairy, I mean hilly. There was one stretch of road as we were leaving Pisgah National forest that had a 6-mile, 6% down grade.   It is the first stretch of road I can recall that had three runaway truck ramps in a row and at one point lights you passed under that flashed if your speed was too high as you were heading into a curve.   It is just for instances like that we have turned off the verbal warnings on our GPS.   It is worse listening to her telling you "Speed Warning" over and over and "Sharp Curve ahead" than just reading the signs and driving responsibly.   Although with 13,000 pounds pushing you down the hill Tony's hands do sweat a bit.   The integrated brake controller and exhaust brake on the new truck do help a lot too. There were ridges full of pale pink rhododendrons, majestic magnolia trees, and roadside stretches of day-lilies in peak bloom.   I am sure the plen...

Tuesday- June 25 - Travel to Asheville North Carolina With only a two-hour drive ahead of us today we had a leisurely morning, I cooked a big breakfast and we took our time leaving Pigeon Forge.   We are not sorry to leave here.   Though the Great Smokey Park was nice but there is soooooo much traffic in Sevierville, Pigeon Forge, Gatlinburg, and in the Park that we will be glad to be moving on down the road.   And as we moved on down the road heading east of the Smokey Mountains, which are a sub-range of the Appalachian Mountains and past the Cherokee National Forest we came around a corner out of a curve to see a building with a picture of a can of Bush's Beans on the building.   Not one to pass up a novel experience, and  seeing they had a HUGE parking lot we figured it was worth a stop and this place probably had clean restrooms if nothing else.   Well it seems we had stumbled upon the Bush's Visitor Center in Chestnutville, Tennessee. ...