We started out the week near Memphis desperate for showers. Luckily for us, February 9th was National Pizza and Bagel day and Planet Fitness was inviting anyone to work out at their gyms and get free bagels in the morning and pizza in the evening. We took full advantage of both times, getting two free workouts, bagels, pizza and WiFi to watch the Ducks get their revenge against Arizona State.
From Memphis, we drove to Little Rock, Arkansas, where we took advantage of free scavenger hunt tickets we received though the Let's Roam app we used in Austin. We walked all around the town, seeing sights and learning a bit about Little Rock history.
Little Rock Capitol Building
We ended the day in Hot Springs, AR. There we visited Hot Springs National Park. It got a bit cold that night and made for a really cool looking fountain at the park.
After visiting our 11th National Park, we headed west towards Oklahoma City to try and catch up with a friend of Kathleen's from the Peace Corps. We took the scenic route through the Ouachita National Forest and into Oklahoma. We decided to pass up the Ozarks, even though we heard they were beautiful. They'll be going on our "places we didn't get to, but would still like to see someday" list. We're eager to get to Big Bend and the large cluster of National Parks in that area and want to keep moving.
On Sunday we wrapped up Great Smoky National Park and drove towards Knoxville to get another oil change. Monday was mostly a driving day with a stop for a great hike at the Twin Arches. We also wanted to make sure we ended the day somewhere we could catch the Ducks take on UConn in the evening. We tried an Applebees but they didn't have ESPN, so we ended up at a sports bar called Sidelines. We met a bar tender from Seattle who spent time living in Portland. We wanted to talk with her about how she ended up in Kentucky but didn't get a chance. It was a great game, with the Ducks making a statement win, handing UConn its worst loss in their current arena.
In trying to keep up with our schedule of being up to date with blogs before we go into the next national park we spent all of Tuesday at the library, before going into Mammoth Cave National Park for Wednesday and Thursday.
On Friday we woke up to a snow! It can get cold in the RV when the weather is bad because our heater doesn't work, but luckily we have lots of warm blankets and the RV warms up quickly if we start cooking or driving. We've had several freezing nights, but this was the first time we saw snow since early October. And the only time we've woken up to it.
On Friday we drove back to Nashville to catch back up with Natchez Trace because we wanted to see the Lewis Memorial, which was further north than we got on the trace the first time. Both times we stayed on the trace we found great free campgrounds. They had flush toilets, nice spots with grills and picnic tables, and nice hikes.
From this second campground we could hike down to the Memorial to the explorer Meriwether Lewis. After he returned from exploring the west with William Clark in 1806, President Jefferson appointed him governor of the Louisiana Territory in 1807. He was traveling up the Natchez trace to Washington to check in with President Jefferson about disputed payments when he is believed to have shot himself on October 19th 1909. Although there are still people who question whether his death was in fact murder.
The official position of the NPS is that it was likely suicide, which is reflected in the monument design. The monument is a column with a broken top, depicting a life cut short.
The weather that day was nice, in contrast to the snow of the day before, so it was a perfect day for a hike around the park. It stayed sunny for our whole drive down to Memphis where we ended the week.
While we were hiking in the Great Smokies we came across a nice group that lived in Tennessee and knew lots of hikes in the area. We used that opportunity learn about other places in the state they enjoyed, especially because we wanted to find hikes that Aiden might be able to join us on. Their recommendation was Twin Arches in the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area. It was an awesome recommendation, despite a very gravely road in.
There is a .7 mile hike down to the arches from the parking lot if you're not feeling super active. It isn't an easy walk, and there are some very steep stairs.
But the arches are pretty spectacular. The north arch is 62 feet high, with a clearance of 51 feet and a span of 93 feet, while the south arch has a height of 103 feet, a clearance of 70 feet and a span of 135 feet. As such, they are very hard to photograph because it is hard to get far enough away without your view being obstructed by trees.
Since we were looking for a hike, and Aiden hadn't been able to go hiking with us the last two days, we decided to tack on the 4.6 mile Twin Arches Loop trail. The start of the trail was a steep descent into a river valley. It was a lovely hike, not all that different from hikes that we might do at home.
On the way back up out of the valley, we experienced a bit of how the arches were created. They were made by erosion working on both sides of a thin ridge until they broke through to create the arch. On the way up there were several other eroded indents, like shallow caves. They were all different and interesting.
Aiden loved the hike, because she always loves hiking. But she extra loved the hike because she snuck in a swim.
Overall it was a great way to see more of Tennessee, and to let Aiden get out and stretch her legs.
It had been quite a long time between national parks, unless you count Los Haitises in The Dominican Republic but we ended our drought with the most visited national park in the country! Last year they saw a record 12.5 million visitors. We're still not entirely sure how that number is calculated but it seems to have to do with cars entering the park. The park does not seem to be built for that many visitors. The parking lots are not large enough, and they don't have a bus system. We were glad we were visiting in the off season.
We came in on the North Carolina side so we started with the Oconaluftee Visitor Center. The weather had been questionable and they were thinking of closing the main road through the park if it made a turn for the worse so we decided to not spend too long on the southwestern side and instead headed straight through to Tennessee.
The drive through the park was gorgeous. The road was completely clear but there was snow building up on the sides and it was gorgeous. The views from the road seemed like they would have been spectacular if we had been able to see them, but unfortunately the visibility was low and we couldn't see much.
On the Tennessee side we went to the Sugarlands Visitor Center. From there there was a short hike out to Gatlinburg that Aiden was allowed on, so we started with that. Even though the path largely followed the road it was still lovely.
While at the visitor centers we asked rangers for hiking recommendations for the next couple of days. On Saturday we chose to do the Grotto Falls hike. In the summer this hike is very crowded, but very few people do it in the winter. This is partially because the road that leads to the trial head is closed in the winter, adding an extra five miles to an otherwise two mile hike. It turned out to the perfect hike for us for the day, and was a great recommendation. Although it did start snowing while we were hanging out at the falls.
Apparently there is also a lodge further up the trail that uses pack llamas. We were incredibly curious but unfortunately it wasn't llama string season, and was a little too far to hike up the lodge.
On Sunday we were planning to go to the Alum Cave Bluffs. The weather got better and the view is supposed to be stunning from up there. Unfortunately the road through the park was temporarily closed again so we had to pick a backup plan. A ranger told us that the Laurel Falls hike was the most popular hike in the park and that it is absolutely mayhem in the summer. So we decided to take advantage of the relatively empty park and check it out.
In the parking lot for the trailhead we ran into a super friendly group of five older adults who live in the area. They said the short walk to Laurel Falls is completely paved and a bit of a disappointment but if you go past the falls you can go another 3 miles up to Cove Mountain. We were hoping there would be a good view from the mountain, but it was still pretty heavily treed. There was an observation tower but you couldn't climb it. We're glad we took their recommendation and went up, it was a lovely hike.
There are a ton of hikes in the park that we didn't get a chance to do. We can also see how the park would be amazing in the spring and summer with wild flowers and new growth or in the fall with leaves changing colors. We hope to come back and do some of their view hikes in a shoulder season. However, it honestly didn't seem spectacular enough to for either of us to want to fight our way through millions of visitors in peak season. We seem to have come at the right time.
After coming back from the Dominican Republic, we spent a few more days in Atlanta with Andreas's family. The only other thing on our Atlanta to do list was a brief visit to the CDC museum. It was an interesting history of the CDC and a great exposure to the concept of public health. It was again further confirmation of what we learned in DC, museums are slightly less interesting when you already have a degree or two in their subject area. But we always enjoy seeing how different groups present the information.
We were all poised to leave on Saturday, but our faucet started leaking. We were worried something may have broken during the sub freezing temperatures Atlanta had while we were in the DR. However, when we disassembled it, it seemed like a o-ring somehow got out of place. Putting it back together made it stop leaking. The whole thing took just long enough for us to decide to wait until Sunday to head out.
On Sunday, we stopped at a disc golf and dog park along the way. The off-leash area was tiny, but we got a good walk in with Aiden, who hadn't been getting much exercise. It seemed like a nice park, but inexplicable there were no dogs allowed on any of the trails outside of the disc golf course.
In the evening, we found a a place in Hayesville, NC to watch the second leg of the women's basketball Civil War. We knew we were in the right place because they had an Oregon Ducks flag hanging! One of the owners even threw an O while we were trying to sneak a picture of it.
It turned out to be a very emotional game because of the tragic and sudden death of NBA great Kobe Bryant, who had been to several duck games, met with the team and even built a friendship with Oregon's star player, Sabrina. The Ducks were able to play through the heartbreak, pulling away in the fourth quarter.
We spent that night at a lovely campground in lovely, remote forest.
The next couple days we spent working hard on getting this blog up to date. We told ourselves that we would not go into Great Smokey Mountains until that was done. So, we spent a few days in Robinsville, NC near Lake Santeetlah, which had some free camping sites along the lake. It was absolutely gorgeous there in the mountain town.
On one of the days, we went to the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest on recommendation from a very friendly librarian in Robinsville. We enjoyed the short, 2 mile, figure-8 hike through the forest before returning to our work.
After getting all of our overdue blog posts written, we finally went on to our next national park. Right outside the park, on the Tennessee side, are the towns of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. Both of these towns are incredibly touristy. The latter made us think of a family friendly Las Vegas with tons of arcade like activities, fair style rides, and hotels galore. We took a short video driving through Gatlinburg:
We stayed at the Cracker Barrel in Pigeon Forge and even ate there one night thanks to a gift card we got for Christmas from Hubert and Emily, Andreas's brother and sister-in-law.
This past week has been a lot of fun. It's good to be on the road again without holidays or international trips just around the corner. We do wish it were a little bit warmer though. Looking forward to the southwest.
