Day 27: So Many Curves
Looking up directions to the next campground, the “RV friendly” route our GPS gave us was 4 hours vs. 1.5 hours for the route from Google Maps. There were no signs warning or prohibiting RVs or other long/tall vehicles, so we decided to take the shortcut.
It turned out to be the most challenging driving day by far. The distance was short, 40 miles, but the first 8 miles were so windy and narrow that it felt like a full 5 hour drive day. After a detailed look at the route for today I passed the honor on to Rob.
A few turns into the single lined (there wasn’t enough width on the road for the white line) curved road next to steep rock cliff edges, and I was a nervous wreck, but also so thankful Rob took one for the team and drove this stretch. It seemed like there were many more right turns than left, which are more difficult due to the visibility. A few times we had to come to nearly a complete stop since we couldn’t see far around the corners and people driving the other way were over the yellow line, leaving us even less room.
This crazy road was the Newfound Gap which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful drives here in the Smokies and it didn’t disappoint. We followed along a river in these beautiful trees nearly the entire drive.
We stopped at another visitor center to get some calls done before tackling more windy roads to our campsite.
At the top of the pass we stopped for a view break, which unbeknownst to us was also the top of the pass and the Tennessee/North Carolina state line. We found a piece of the Appalachian Trail there too. One of Rob’s college buddies did the entire 2,150 mile trail so we thought of him as we conquered about 5 feet of it.
We were in good spirits as we arrived at the Cherokee Great Smokies KOA, our next home, for 3 nights. They’d just closed their outdoor pool for the season, but the indoor pool was still open, so the boys were able to sneak in a swim between school meetings and homework. Both are now jumping in off the side and able to swim a handful of yards on their own. The improved swimming skills may be the best unintended consequence of this trip yet, since the closed pools back home made this their first chance to practice swimming all year.
We had a small panic at check-in, since we were expecting five packages, our first delivery since leaving almost a month ago. We arranged for them to arrive 2-3 days before we did, just in case there were delays. Well, it turns out they just leave the packages on the front porch due to COVID (supposedly). We found one (our license plates, but not the others, so we assumed they’d been stolen. It turns out only two others had arrived and they contained the toilet paper, which we only bought to meet a minimum free shipping threshold for the part we actually needed. We had our fingers crossed that the other two would arrive before we left, especially the one with the the school materials and clothes my mom so nicely picked up and shipped to us, but also the part we needed to fix the sewage system.
We ended the night with our first attempt at campfire hot dogs, and they were delicious. We picked up some difficult wood at the last site, and the wood here also seems to be really hard to ignite. The fire took a bit to get started, but with some light cheating in the form of fire starters, we were up and roaring.
Hot dogs were followed by our 7th night of s’mores on this trip. I love s’mores! It is the second night that we have tried them with a peanut butter cup instead of chocolate. The family is once again split 50/50 on which they like better.
