Week ending Nov 29, 2018 Williamsburg, VA to St. Augustine, FL

Black Friday morning, now that we are leaving the Comfort Inn, we won't hear the fire trucks and ambulances from the station a couple of blocks away.  After another good breakfast, we loaded up our stuff and took it out to the truck.  Then we tried to start it.  It was very reluctant, however Joan got it started.  Unfortunately, when she put it in gear so we could load the back of the truck that was up against the hotel dumpster, it stalled.  Then we couldn't get it restarted again.  We called Trev for some ideas, and he told us to cycle the glow plug warmup process a few times. Still no luck.  We figured the problem was that the front end of the truck was higher than the fuel tank.  The front desk called a tow truck from Send Towing who arrived in about half an hour, pretty good for a day off for most people.  He tried starting it a few times with a powerpack to boost it.  Still no luck.  Then he pulled it up onto the street, hoping this would fix the problem.  Still no luck.  After about half an hour he called his truck repair guy (he has a diesel as well) who wouldn't be working until Monday.  We were about ready to figure out what dealer to tow the truck to, if we even could on a holiday.  The tow truck driver figured our fuel pump had probably failed.  That gave him the idea to pump the fuel pedal a few times before trying one last time.  It fired up!  Thank heavens.  We thanked him profusely and paid him for his services.

We had been planning to go to the Mannassas Civil War NHP, just west of Washington, but decided, we needed to take the truck on the full trip to our next stop, Williamsburg, VA, to make sure we got the batteries (2 of them) charged up again.  After an uneventful trip, we arrived at the hotel. 
Then we walked the 1.3 miles into Colonial Willamsburg to view the sites.  Being the Thanksgiving Weekend, there were quite a few people enjoying the restored village here.    Many of them had bought passes($41 adult, 20.50 for youths) to go into the various venues, but we were happy to just wander through the streets admiring the architecture for an hour, with the end of the trip being the Governors Palace. 

Governor's Mansion

Coke-Garret House

On Saturday, we drove south from Williamsburg through Newport News, Hampton, then through the tunnel under the James River to Norfolk.  We avoided a toll road with our new GPS, following an older road that goes the same way but through the towns along the way.  At the end of the toll road, we arrived at a Welcome Center in North Carolina, where we picked up maps for NC, Georgia and Florida.  They didn't have South Carolina because they just elected a new governor and aren't sending out any new maps until his picture is on them.  We had a nice long chat with the hosts at the Welcome Center who are locals that do a lot of traveling with a small camping trailer. They headed for Alaska last summer, but turned back when they got to Glacier Park and she found out they were still only half way to Alaska.   They gave us information which led us to Kitty Hawk, on the outer banks, to visit the Wright Brothers National Memorial.  It was interesting learning the the improvements they made in 4 different flying machines,

bi-plane

looking at the historical markers representing the distances for 4 flights,

Flight distance markers

and climbing Kill Devil Hill to the memorial marking where they made initial pre-flight trials.

Wright Brothers Memorial

It started to rain just after we left the Memorial, so we parked in an outlet mall lot to have some lunch.  Then we drove back inland across the inter-coastal waterway over Croatan Sound, across the Alligator River (with its nature reserve).  We saw signs in the nature reserve to watch for bears, and for red wolves.  We noticed a Red Wolf Recovery Program.  For informaton on red wolves see
https://owlcation.com/stem/Places-to-see-red-wolves-in-North-Carolina

We carried on until we got to Washington ('the original Washington'), North Carolina.  We saw on TV news that there were tornado warnings around the area.

On Sunday morning we went looking for breakfast since the hotel breakfast wasn't open until 7, and we were ready to go about 6:30.  The nearby McDonalds was being renovated, and the Burger King didn't open until 7 either, so we just got some coffee at the hotel when we got back to it.  We noticed that the service station across from the hotel had all of its diesel pumps out of service.  That made us wonder.  
We headed south on highway 17.  South of New Bern, around Maysville, we began to see evidence of the hurricane in September.  There were a lot of houses with tarps on the roofs, and several with piles of wood and garbage bags ready for removal.  We also saw a 'disaster recovery' crew with machinery removing debris from along the ditches


When we got  to Jacksonville  we filled up at one of the slowest pumps ever.  It was so slow, that we couldn't hear the nozzle stop when the tank filled.  We got talking to a guy across the pump, and mentioned the lack of diesel in Washington, NC.  He said that could be why the diesel pumps were running slow here too, since the tornado had gone through the area the night before, so maybe the diesel trucks hadn't been able to make deliveries.   He told us that one house had the roof ripped off, and that it had landed in the middle of the highway 9 miles away.  Wow!

In Wilmington, we saw a lot more evidence of hurricane damage. 

Tarping due to hurricane

From Wilmington, we crossed into South Carolina where we stopped at a Welcome Center to pick up some information on Myrtle Beach and Charleston.   When we got to Myrtle Beach, we had lunch at a Red Robin, one of the first we have seen for quite a while.  After getting set up in the hotel, we drove down to the beach, where we walked along the boardwalk for a while.  Then we went down to the water, took of our shoes and socks, and waded a bit, before returning back along the beach.  We probably should have had lunch in one of the beach restaurants to look over the ocean, and watch ships move by, but we do like Red Robin.

Myrtle Beach

Shore birds

Monday we drove from Myrtle Beach to Charleston. About 15 mi north of Charleston, we started seeing little roadside booths, advertising sweetgrass baskets.  None of them were occupied.  Our first stop was Fort Moultrie National Historic Site across the river from Charleston. On the GPS, this also lists as Fort Sumter.  We found out that Fort Sumter is on a small island in Charleston Harbor, and you need to take a boat to get to it.  We toured around Fort Moultrie.

Fort Moultrie

This was a fort, in various phases of construction from its first use in an encounter with the British Royal Navy in 1776, reconstructed in 1798 while England and France were at war, destroyed by a hurricane in 1804, rebuilt in 1809, abandoned in 1860 for the newer Fort Sumter, modernized in 1885.  Newer guns were added during World War II to protect the area from German submarines.

From there we drove to Middleton Place, a plantation.  We had looked at doing a tour there, but we are too cheap.  The minimum entrance fee is $46 each for a guided tour.  We were on the way to Savannah, and are too cheap to spend that much on a tour, but we stopped in to try to get a few pictures and buy a postcard.  However, you can't see much from the parking lot.

House on Middleton Place (not the main house)

Further on we stopped in the parking lot of a church in Orangeville, SC to have some lunch.
Then the sun came out, as we drove south to Savannah, Georgia.   We had booked a kitchenette efficiency in Suburban Extended Stay with a queen bed and sofa bed.  However, they didn't have a sofa bed in the room they assigned us.  When we pointed this out they said they had a room with two twins.  The cards they gave us wouldn't open the room, despite the clerk setting them up twice.  The second time, he gave us a card to call if we still couldn't get into the room.   We couldn't, so called the number, which was for the general manager.  It went to an automatic system that asked us for the extension of the person we were calling (not on the card).  We went back to the office and told them we wanted to cancel (our non-cancellable reservation), since they didn't have what we reserved.  They reversed the charges for us.  We drove a couple of miles back to the Quality Inn, part of Choice Hotels program we have been using, and booked two queens in a much nicer room, but with no kitchenette.  Better room for the same price. 

Tuesday  morning, we told the desk that our heater blew cool all night.  A while later the maintenance man came by to put in a new heater.  This isn't the first time we have had problems with the heaters not working correctly, but the first time we reported it.  We will be more proactive next time we have an issue.  We went to the market in the morning.  After lunch, we headed into downtown Savannah

Driving to downtown Savannah

and walked through the river district.

Stairs down to river walk

Waving Girl

Trolley lines

There was a woman making 'roses', woven from palmetto leaves .  They looked really good she told us that they were originally made by the negro women for the Union soldiers to thank them for not burning Savannah. 

Wednesday, we took I95 south.  Along the way, we saw a high load, house?, stuck under an overpass.  It must have been close, because it was almost through.  We stopped at the Florida Welcome Center to pick up some literature and hotel coupons.  Then we headed east to the coast on route A1A, which follows the coast south. A little disappointing, as you still can't see the ocean from the highway, unless you are crossing an inlet. At one point, the GPS directed us to St Johns River Ferry.  This was only because a) we don't have it set to avoid ferries, and b) we had it set to the shortest route.
After coming off the ferry, we saw a cruise ship which looked like it was on land from a distance. 

Cruise ship on intercoastal waterway

At the time, we were on our way to Fort Caroline National Memorial in  Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve.  This fort was established in the Timucuan tribes area of northern Florida on the St. John's River estuary east of Jacksonville.  It was built by the French in 1562 in an attempt to establish a foothold in America to gain some of the benefits Spain was enjoying in the new world.  It was also used as a colony for Huguenots to escape persecution in France.  A few years later, Spain heard of the colony and sent ships from a base in St. Augustine to destroy it.  It was a massacre, with only about 60 women and children being spared, and about 40 to 50 of the 200 people escaped by ship back to France.  Their ship was wrecked not far away, and the Spaniards found them and killed them.  A few years later, in retaliation, the French sent a force to Florida to massacre the defenders of two Spanish forts.
  

Timuacan shelter

After seeing the replica of the triangularly shaped fort build by the French,

Fort Caroline from the water

we did a half hour nature trail back to the visitor center.

Nature walk

We continued further south on A1A along the coast to St. Augustine Beach. One stretch of the highway goes along a dune ridge, where we got occasional glimpses of the Atlantic between the houses.

Thursday we went past the lighthouse, the oldest one in Florida.

St. Augustine lighthouse

 to the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument.  St Augustine is the oldest settlement in the USA.  The fort was a critical point on Spain's gold routes from North America back to Spain.   The fort has an interesting shape, designed to make it almost impregnable by allowing artillery file in all directions, including along the walls from the corners.  Very different from the triangular shape of Ft. Caroline we had seen yesterday.  The information on the history here is very well done. 

Shape of Castillo de San Marcos

After the Castillo, we walked around the main district of St. Augustine. 

Oldest wooden school house in USA

Oldest wooden schoolhouse in the USA

There are some beautiful buildings in St. Augustine.

Flagler College

Cathedral of St Augustine, for the parish which dates from 1565, is the oldest Catholic parish within the USA. The cathedral was built two centuries later in 1797.

Cathedral Basilica of St Augustine

Week ending Nov 22, 2018 Gatlinburg, Tennesse to Washington, DC

Friday morning broke nice and clear, but with a heavy coat of frost on all of the vehicles.  We checked the National Park, and found that the Newfound Gap from Gatlinburg through the park was closed due to ice and snow.  Instead, we had to follow 321 parallel to the park across to I-40, then across the Appalachians into North Carolina.  We got occasional glimpses of the tops of hills covered in snow.

Snow capped hills

The tallest hills in the park are about 6600 feet.  We stopped at a Welcome Center in NC to pick up some information, particularly on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Fall Colours

Then we headed into Asheville, to find the 12 Bones Smokehouse.  The GPS took us right past it on the Foundy Rd through the River Arts District studios, but couldn't see it.  Their website had an alternate address in case GPS didn't work well, so we went there, and still couldn't find it.  We asked a delivery guy if he knew where it was, and he pointed out a sign, parallel to the road.  We walked around in that direction, and found the restaurant on the next corner.  In our defense, their sign was easier to find walking than driving by.   Joan had figured this was the place when we went by the first time due to the number of cars around.  We picked up a half rack of ribs, a couple of small containers of smoky potato salad and sweet vinegar cole slaw to take back to our hotel in Canton, about 15 miles back up I-40. The ribs were quite good, and the potato salad had a nice bite to it.

12 Bones

Saturday morning we woke up to a heavy frost on the truck, as it was in a fog bank, in sub-zero(C) temperatures.  We checked the Blue Ridge Parkway map to see that it was still closed.  We got the truck all packed and cleared off and headed to Chimney Rock State Park.  The road to Chimney Rock, although US Highway 64, is a fairly narrow windy road with several areas of switchbacks.  Eventually it gets into the Broad River Valley (broad may be a description of the river, but not the valley).  From the entrance to the Park, we climbed another set of switchbacks up to the parking area.  Climbing wasn't too bad, since about 9:00 AM, most of the traffic was going the same direction. At the parking area, you have several choices.   You can take the elevator, or the 499 steps.  We opted to take the steps.  There are choices even on this route.  You can take the Vista option, or go past the Grotto through the Subway (somewhere between 4 and 5 feet clearance).  There is also a bat cave you can climb a few feet down into (no bats).     The drive back down the hill was a bit more exciting, as there was a good amount of traffic coming up at 10:30 on Saturday morning.  Either we, or the traffic coming up had to stop to allow us to get around the switchbacks.  People were pretty good about allowing us enough room.  Back down at the bottom of the hill, we continued on 64 until we got to Bill's Creek Road, then Cove Road and Sugarhill Road until we got to I-40.  A strange little road through the hills.  Then we got back to I-40, then north on I-77 to Jonesville, in the northwest area of North Carolina.     

Lake Lure from Chimney Rock

On Sunday morning, we awoke to another coating of frost on the truck.  We checked the Blue Ridge Parkway site to find it still closed, and called a recorded message for Shenandoah National Park. The road through it was still closed due to snow and ice. So we headed up I-77 to I-81 to  then north to Staunton, near the south end of Shenandoah.   Our GPS went into a loop starting up, getting to the 'accept' mode of travel, then restarting again after about 6 seconds.   We stopped at Walmart and picked up a new GPS.  We got to the hotel in time to watch the final Nascar race of the year.   

Monday morning, Shenandoah was still closed so we carried on north on I-81, using our new GPS.  This one had more flexibility on preferences, so at New Market, we told it to go the shortest route, instead of the fastest.  This took us across the mountains through the park.  We could see why it was closed along the ridge of the park, as there was still  quite a bit of snow, although none on the crossing road.  We stopped at Thornton River Farm market to pick up some apples.  In Warrenton, we were surprised to see a Safeway so we stopped in to pick up some things for lunch and other meals.  We carried on this highway all the way into Washington to a Comfort Inn in downtown Washington.  It is about a 20 minute walk from the White House, and 25 minutes from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.   We had to park on a driving lane while we unloaded our stuff from the truck so the parking valet could park it.  He was more concerned with the height of the truck than the length, until he found out it was too long for their parkade.  He was able to park in the alley in front of their garbage on the side of the building. Since we are within walking distance from everything we want to see, it will stay there for four days except maybe to let the garbage truck get at the dumpster.

Tuesday morning we checked to see if we could get tickets for the National Museum of African American History and Culture.  Entry is free, but they limit the number of people in the museum.  All of the current day slots (don't know how many the keep open) were gone by 8:00.  Advanced bookings are closed until Dec 5, when they open the lottery for bookings in February 2019.   We need to get on-line at 6:30 tomorrow when they open the current day slots to see if we can get one. 

About 8:30 we headed out to do west end of the National Mall (the strip from Lincoln's Memorial in the west end to the Capitol on the east end), and return to the museums in the center of the Mall.  Our first point of interest was Lafayett Square at the north end of the White House.

White House

We got a glimpse of the Christmas Tree across the park to the west side of the White House.   We missed the presidential pardon of two turkeys. 
We came to a pond on the National Mall.  It's inhabitants were Canada Geese (on their way south) and 3 cormorants.

Cormorant

Beside the pond is the Reflecting Pool, which stretches from the World War II Memorial,
to the Lincoln Memorial.   Only about 80 steps up to the memorial, significantly less than Chimney Rock.

Lincoln Memorial

From the Lincoln Memorial, we headed south east along the Potomac River to the Maple Grove, 150 trees donated by Canada on its 150th anniversary. 

a few of 150 maple trees for Canada's 150 celebration

Then to the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial,

Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial

the Franklin D Roosevelt Memorial,

FD Roosevelt Memorial

a rest on a bench beside the Tidal Basin to have a muffin,
and the Thomas Jefferson Memorial ( a few more stairs, but not as many as Lincoln. 

Jefferson Memorial

You can see the Washington Monument from almost anywhere in the downtown area, but this was one of the better views. 

Washington Monument

From there we headed back north to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, 3 stories of descriptions and pictures of the rise of the Nazis, and their persecution of the European Jews and Roma (gypsies).  There was quite a crowd there, a high percentage of them wearing a uniform of light blue shirts.  If we stopped to read all of the exhibits, we would have been there for hours. 
After the museum, we sat on a bench along a park on the Mall before returning to our hotel.

A total of 12.25 km in 4h48m.  We were tired.  
 
On Wednesday, we tried to get tickets at 6:30 without any luck.  After breakfast we picked up a few things from the market a few blocks east before heading out for the day.  Then we headed back toward the National Mall.  We went by Ford's Theater, then down to the Canadian Embassy.  They even have the pair of red chairs like the ones in the national parks. 

Red Chairs at Canadian Embassy

Interesting that the Canadian Embassy is the only one near Capitol Hill, .5 mi, while the British Embassy on Embassy Row is 4.0 miles away. I guess that is due to the longest friendly border we share with the USA.

The Spirit of Haida Gwaii - the Black Canoe

From the Capitol,

Capitol Building

we walked west along the mall to the National Art Gallery.  The highlight mentioned at the information desk was the portrait of Genevra de Benci by Leonardo da Vinci.  They also have a large collection of other old masters from Europe.  When we were done there, we were ready to pack it in for the day, so walked back up the hill for  lunch at Maddy's Taproom, a couple of blocks down the street from our hotel.  Good burger and veggie sandwich with fries. Nice selection of draft.  Our waitress was surprised to see that the name on the credit card was the same as her grandfather's.
Only 6.7 km in 3 hours today, but still tired even though we did a lot less than yesterday.

Thursday morning, Thanksgiving Day, we got up early again, and this time managed to get tickets to the National Museum of African American History and Culture for 1:00 PM.
This morning is the coldest Thanksgiving Day in 20 years here and the coldest ever for the New York Macy's Parade.  We headed down to the museum in time to arrive just after 1 PM (they won't let you in before the time on the ticket, but you can be later).  We toured the 3 stories of the museum, which started with the original slave trade from west Africa, and continued through to Obama's presidency. It turned out to be a good day to do the museum, although the reasonable amount of people may be due to Thanksgiving. We spent about 2 hours there, and skipped the post Martin Luther King Jr era, as we had absorbed enough by then.  One comment on the museum indicated that many people take 6 hours to go through.  Way too much for us.  In addition to the write-ups and displays, there were many videos being run. 

National Museum of African American History and Culture

On the way back up to the hotel, in the wind, we stopped at Starbucks for a break. 

Week ending Nov 15, 2018 Abilene Texas to Gatlinburg Tennessee

Friday more getting ready to do our Washington side trip, doing a load of laundry, and booking our first Choice hotel stay, and getting everything ready for an early departure to the RV service shop. 

Saturday, we dropped the trailer at Hanner RV, then headed east toward Dallas.  At a rest stop about halfway to Dallas, we saw a cute note about a horned toad being put into a time capsule when the Eastland County Courthouse was being built 1897.  When that courthouse had to be replaced in 1928, they opened the time capsule.  The horned toad was still alive.  Nearly a year later, it died of pneumonia.  In Dallas, we had to do a bit of a side trip there, as I-30 was closed for a section, so we followed an Englander Transport truck who was also doing the detour.  This took us past the stadium where the Dallas Cowboys play.  There were a bunch of marching bands in the parking lot, presumably practicing for Sunday's game.   From Dallas we headed north-east to stay in Texarkana, on the border with Arkansas.  We got a picture of a 'thief' in the parking lot of the hotel.  The only other raccoons we have seen have been dead on the roads. 

Sunday we continued northeast on I-30 to Little Rock. We were surprised that the Arkansas River is large enough here that it has barge traffic on it, similar to the Mississippi.

Arkansas River

There we picked up a few groceries before carrying on I-40 to Memphis. This was one of our stopping points on the Mississippi on our 2015 trip, so we just stopped at the Welcome Center to pick up a Tennessee map and some info on Nashville, our destination for the night.   The highway message boards were interesting here.   The message was that 'game day drinking and then driving is not a smart play'.  We're not sure whether there was a game here today, or just a general Sunday football day message.  Definitely a different message than Texas's one about 2872 deaths on Texas roads in 2018 so drive safely. 
About 150 miles east of Memphis we started going through hills in the Tennessee River valley.   These were the first significant ones we have driven through since we got to the US on this trip. We have been getting hints of colorful fall foliage all the way from Dallas, but no bright yellows, and only a few dark reds.

About 4:00, we arrived at our hotel in Nashville where we are staying two nights and started looking at things to do.  One thing Joan had seen was the Bluebird Cafe, which frequently has famous songwriters performing.  However, when we looked at details, we found they only had evening events, too late for us old-timers. 

Monday was a rainy day, but it was our day to spend time in downtown Nashville.  As we entered the area, there were a lot of police vehicles.  We had planned on going to the visitor center downtown, but couldn't find parking near it.  We found a lot a few blocks away, only $10 for 6 hours (cheap compared to downtown Calgary).  From there we went to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.  It is a bit pricy, just under $50 for the two of us for a self-guided, non-audio visit to the museum.  They have a lot of displays on the history of country music from its roots in 'hillbilly' music in northeast Tennessee, to its spread all over the south, to current artists.  It does bring back memories of a lot of artists we have enjoyed over the years.

From there, we walked up 4 St. toward the capitol building.  Along the way we encountered a lot of people heading toward Broadway.  It turned out that there was a Memorial Day parade coming down Broadway.  We actually crossed just a couple of blocks ahead of the advance police motorcycle squad leading the parade.  

Veterans' Day Parade

We continued up to the capitol, to take a few pictures, then down through the military square below the capitol building.

Tennessee Capitol Building

We headed to Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville Restaurant to dry out, and enjoy a lunch of ribs and fishless tacos, which the waitress tailored from their menu to accommodate Joan's meatless diet. The margarita and beer were quite good too. Huge amounts of food. We had enough food to take home for two more meals each.  Like most of Nashville's venues, there was live entertainment.  In this case it was a duet called Stone Silo .   They were good background music. 

After lunch, we headed to Best Buy to get Joan a new computer.  A few days ago, her current one decided that it didn't have a bootable disk anymore.  Weird.  That is both our computers with hard drive issues in the last month or so.  We got Joan's computer up and going after we got back to the hotel.

On Tuesday, we headed east to Gatlinburg.   The fall colors are nice along the way.

When we got to Knoxville, we found, with some difficulty, a GMC dealer to see if they could check the transmission fluid, and top it up if necessary (the mechanic in Vulcan said the transmission plug was leaking, and John had seen some fluid under the truck a few times).  They were too busy, so we continued to Sevierville where the Chev dealer couldn't do anything because the diesel mechanic was off for a while since his daughter was in the hospital.    We continued to Gatlinburg, where we are staying for 3 nights.  It is on the edge of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.    The traffic in Sevierville and Pigeon Forge, north of Gatlinburg was incredible.   Apparently, this time of year is busy here.   Dollywood is in Sevierville, and Thanksgiving is just a week away.   And, the national park is the most visited park in the USA.

On Wednesday, we went to the visitors center in the park, and decided to do the Grotto Falls hike, a moderate 2.6 mile hike.   The route follows the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail, a narrow winding road that one way only for the second half.  There were tons of cars at the main trialheads along the way, but we were lucky to find an empty spot at the trailhead for the Grotto Falls trail.   There was a lama trailer parked there.  The lamas are used to carry supplies up to a back country lodge.  We headed up the trail

Tree roots on the trail

until we got to a creek crossing.  It was a tricky spot, with lots of water, so Joan couldn't make it across the creek safely. 

 crossing

We returned back to the trailhead by a different route.  The walk through the forest here is quite beautiful despite not being able to get to the falls.  There were warnings about bears in the area, but we figure it was too busy for bears to hang around the popular trails.  From the trailhead down, we stopped at a couple of points of interest.   When the park was created in 1934, there were quite a few people living in it.  They kept the buildings and structures intact when they moved the people out.   We stopped at one site which was an old two room cabin, with barn and pigsty.  The farm had 30 acres of cleared land, and about 42 of woods.  

We passed another stop with what looked like a mill on the creek.   Further on we came to a beautiful waterfall.

When we got back to the hotel, we called the Chev dealer and booked an appointment to check the transmission fluid on Thursday afternoon.

On Thursday, after breakfast and a session using the fitness center equipment, we walked along the main shopping area of Gatlinburg.  Close to the hotel is a neat little church. 

The shopping area has an amazing number of shops in about a mile stretch.  They are dominated by candy and fudge shops, wine and moonshine shops, restaurants.  There are also a lot of activities available such as Ripley's, mini-golf, a ski hill

and the space needle.  It is an extreme tourist area.   They also have many little pumpkin head figures along the street. 

We figured out why the creek crossing was a problem.  The water levels in the creeks look a lot higher than normal.

high water

In the afternoon, we headed into Sevierville, where they determined our transmission fluid levels are good,  comforting to know.