How We Spent Our Summer Vacation - The Second Week

Since the fishing at Creekwood wasn’t great and Fontana Lake didn’t pan out, we needed to try something else. So this time we headed north to Hot Springs, also nearly into Tennessee. We talked to the Forestry guy there and then went to the French Broad River as he suggested. We found a great place and put the lines in the water. Julian had a couple of strikes early on, but wasn’t able to cash in on them. We continued to try, but had no luck at all. Here’s proof that we did try!

We finally had to give in to the fact that the fish weren’t biting. We drove around the area for a bit and found a state park where we had our picnic lunch. It was also a great place to let Heidi roam a little bit. She’s a great little traveler and loves to come with us as often as possible.

After eating, we headed home – but by a different road. We really prefer to take one route on the way somewhere and then find a whole different way to get home. This time it really paid off. We saw some terrific scenery on the gravel roads we found ourselves on. There were times we had to take off our sunglasses because the tree canopy was so thick. Fabulous country!

OK, fishing wasn’t working out, so it was time to do something else. We decided to get onto the Blue Ridge Parkway to see what everyone is talking about. Everyone says it’s gorgeous. Everyone says it’s a “must do”. Everyone is right!

So we drove south to Balsam where we entered the Parkway. We drove the 26 miles or so to its end at Cherokee. It was every bit as beautiful as we had been told. And it was becoming quite evident why these mountains were named the Smoky Mountains.

Once off the Parkway, there was more beautiful scenery at the top of the pass between Tennessee and North Carolina. We continued on to Gatlinburg, TN, where we walked around the town and did some shopping and general sight-seeing. We had a great lunch at an Italian restaurant.

As is our custom, we took a different route to get back home. We headed east out of Gatlinburg and eventually got onto the Foothills Parkway. This was only about six miles long, but was filled with marvelous views. This picture was taken as we were nearing the end of the Parkway into a town.

Creekwood Farm is located in a valley on the outer edges of the Smoky Mountains. I don’t think there was one morning while we were there that fog wasn’t present. And even though it usually lifted by 10 or so, we never saw really clear, crisp, sunny skies like we experience in Florida all the time. This is not a bad thing, just an observation.

It did, however, make it more difficult for me to jump out of bed. I tend to get up with the sun and that just wasn’t happening. We made the best of it and still found time to get in a walk of two to three miles several mornings each week. One has to keep up with one’s exercise.

Among the regular activities at the park was Bingo twice a week. The price was right, so we joined in on the Tuesday night sessions. We played each of the first two weeks there and Julian won, each time. It wasn’t a huge winning, but it paid for our entry fees. I, on the other hand, couldn’t even get close. But it was fun.

Oh, and did I mention that there is a casino in Cherokee? It was about 35 minutes from our site, so we made it over there more than once. Anyone who knows us won’t be surprised by that! We didn’t have any good luck, but we did have fun.