Duelling Banjo Country

Oliver Springs, Oak Ridge and Knoxville, Tennessee

Tuesday came around much too quickly and we had to farewell Peggy and take off for Oliver Springs near Knoxville, Tennessee and continue the holiday with Don and Linda Palmer. Don is a former school chum of Howard’s.

Our drive took us out of South Carolina through North Carolina again, back over the Appalachian Range, along the edge of the Great Smoky Mountains and into Tennessee. The drive over the mountains was supposed to take only about three and a bit hours but as always, with traffic, small towns etc it took nearly five. We stopped for lunch at a newly constructed rest area, beautifully landscaped, beautiful amenities block with the ever present “vending machine” room. I personally don’t get the thing where nearly everyone has to always have a drink cup, bottle or can. Have even seen baby strollers with cup holders! Anyway, I digress. The road we were on - Interstate 40, had been closed for three months earlier this year after a massive rock/land slide and luckily for us it was nearly repaired now but for one lane on our side, while the remainder of the cliff face was still being stabilized.

On the highway was the usual tussle with trucks driving way too fast and I still can’t get used to traffic in the left (fast) lane just sitting there and not passing you at 150km/hr. Semi trailers here are longer than those back home by about 20% and the cabins on the prime movers are two bedroom homes instead of the 1 bedders back home, whereas those in Europe are more compact - in fact everything in Europe is more compact; space is important and they make much better use of every space. Peggy had enlightened me on the large cabins on prime movers, there are often team drivers and one is resting while the other drives.

We had no hiccups finding Don and Linda’s thanks to Peggy and Google and here the hospitality continued. Next morning we were taken on a drive through hill billy country, Oliver Springs, Don pointed out a property nearby where the house had burnt down when the occupier’s crystal meths lab blew up. Another was burnt down because they couldn’t afford the mortgage and wanted the insurance money (?) and Don suggested that folks here might just as happily take care of someone they didn’t like as they did in the old days. This was country where if you weren’t born here folks wouldn’t understand your speech, and proved it when we went to the post office and couldn’t make out what some people were saying. Luckily, the post mistress spoke English! We sent home a parcel of stuff to make room for more stuff we’d picked up on the way. At this stage Howard has only collected about 2kg of rocks - I could be wrong, the bag feels quite heavy to me.

There is a lot of American Indian history in these eastern states although precious few surviving people. There is a Cherokee Indian Reservation bordering the Appalachians near here. I never knew that the Cherokee were farmers, living in harmony with their land. They also had a written language.

Our drive took us out to Norris Dam where we had a picnic lunch before taking a lovely riverside loop walk which wound back uphill but through the usual lovely forest land we’ve come to expect here.

I’d asked about Dolly World and the Great Smoky Mountains, so as a compromise Don and Linda took us up into the GSM National Park. We drove alongside Little Pigeon River, took another lovely, very popular walk up to Laurel Falls, saw a bear (maybe a year old) up in a tree foraging, not at all perturbed by the many people stopping to ooh ahh. On the way back we saw either the same bear, or it’s sibling further down the track, again with lots of people happy snapping and getting too close. Park rules here stipulate that if there is interaction between bears and people (i.e. the bear scratches or bites someone who got too close or startled the bear), the bear is euthenased. Very unfair! Another picnic lunch and a drive up to the top to New Found Outlook for a 3600 over the entire area. Looked over Mt. Le Conte, the third highest mount in the Smokies at 6360ft. As a concession to me, we drove through Pigeon Forge in Sevier County (Dolly territory), not unlike a smaller Las Vegas but turned away at the car park gates to Dolly World - the car park seemed to go on forever! We stopped at a casual and friendly Vietnamese café for dinner and arrived home tired but happy. Another great day out.

Friday was a rest day. How lovely to just hang around, although when Howard and I aren’t driving, we feel as though we’re just hanging out anyway. There was a rather loud and gusty thunder storm late afternoon/evening. Howard and I didn’t pay much attention but the rain, hail and accompanying winds brought down a lot of leaf and branch littler. I doubt it helped much to brag about the horizontal rains we have back home.

Oak Ridge This town was one of the sites for the Manhattan Project, where the first atomic bombs were developed during WWII and still has a big research facility. Before retirement, Don worked at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Check out the Manhattan Project on the Net for history and present day information.

Saturday is shopping day - but not before we drive through Oak Ridge to take an exercise walk along the Melton River where the rowing courses are laid out. Linda and I go shopping while the boys go to Home Base!! I don’t know what they took home but we left some money at Penny’s Ladies wear department as well as the Pharmacy!
That’s all folks. We return to New York for our flight to the West Coast and the last month of our epic journey. It will take two days to drive back and then we will have one more day in the Big Apple, which I won’t object to at all. See you all soon.

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