THE GREAT
SMOKY MOUNTAINS
We drove
north from
Cummings, along secondary roads, through the southern Appalachian
Mountains. Beautiful green countryside,
quaint rural towns, blue rivers and lakes greeted us at every turn in
the road. We stopped in Hiawassee for
Sunday dinner
and had fried chicken, mashed potatoes, baked apples, green beans and
dessert
for $4.50.
By late
afternoon we reached
the entry to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
We drove through the pass at Newfoundland Gap and on into
Gatlinburg,
the site of our next home exchange.
Now I must
diverge into some
information about the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The park was authorized by an act of
Congress in 1926 after the states of Tennessee and North Carolina,
groups of
private citizens, and schools contributed money to purchase private
lands to
prevent them from falling prey to commercial logging.
After being in these mountains, I can understand why, even
in the
hard times of the Great Depression, people were moved enough to donate
some of
their scarce funds to preserve the beauty and diverse plant and animal
habitats
found here.
In this
park can be found
1500 different flowering plants, more tree species than in northern
Europe, 200
species of birds and 60 of mammals.
History of man can be found everywhere in the park. This is truly a unique and breathtaking
area.
We had
been enjoying the
green Georgia countryside, little backcountry towns, miles and miles of
nothing
but rolling, forested hills, and then…..we came to Gatlinburg. Yikes!
I was totally unprepared for a Funnel Cake/Mini Golf kind
of place, but
that’s what Gatlinburg is.
As usual,
I freaked out and
wanted to leave as soon as possible. I
decided then and there if our exchange house was set amid this
environment we
would just stay the night and leave the next day.
After
pulling out the
address and checking the map we made our way up the hillside.
Switchback to the
right, switchback to the left, switchback to the right, etc., etc. Soon we passed a sign indicating we were,
once again, within the boundaries of the park.
Turning on to Campbell Lead Road we continued driving
uphill. We came to a detour, and took the
gravel
road around a bend and almost missed our street, just to the left as
the road
turned right.
Don drove
over the crest of
the rise and the road down was so steep he could see neither the road
ahead nor
the side of the road. We hoped we were
actually going to be on the road, and not driving over a cliff, as we
slowly
continued forward. Lucky for us, Don’s
aim was good. We followed the steep,
narrow road down and down.
At the
bottom of the hill we
found 3 cabins amid the trees, Bearadise, Logger’s Delight and Nature’s
Bounty. The setting is lovely and
peaceful. Our house was Logger’s Delight. We entered the code into the lockbox, got
the key, and moved into our new house for the week.
The cabin
is very cute. It is decorated on a bear
theme and there
are little touches of bear décor everywhere—lampshades, rugs,
wall hangings,
statues, teddy bears in a row, etc.
There is a nice eating/sitting room with pleasant views of
the forest, a
living room, kitchen, two bedrooms and two bathrooms.
We chose the upstairs bedroom with the big king bed.