Autumn in Rocky Top (October 15 – November 9, 2020)

On Thursday, October 15^th, we left Mt. Airy, NC and drove 136 miles to Blountsville, TN, where we spent a night at Rocky Top Campground.  This small 55+ campground had a nice, level pull-through site for us, although it did require us pulling through an unused back-in site to reach our site.  Other than doing our laundry, we didn’t do anything the rest of our stay.

On Friday, we drove 100 miles to Sevierville, TN, where we spent three nights at Duvall in the Smokies campground.  We had been advised a few weeks earlier that this Saturday was the campground’s 3-year anniversary and they would be having a big celebration.  We discovered that many of our fellow campers had attended previous anniversaries and, as a result, book this weekend a year in advance.  Saturday’s celebration began at 10:15 am when we all boarded a double-decker tour bus.  The temperature was in the upper 40s when we departed, which made for a chilly experience for us on the upper level.  After driving through Sevierville and Pigeon Forge for an hour, we stopped at a local park for lunch.  After lunch, we headed down scenic Wears Valley Road toward Townsend.  The Smokies are a very popular destination in October and the traffic was bumper-to-bumper for the next couple of hours.  When it became apparent that the remaining 2.5 miles would take over 45 minutes to complete, and since there hadn’t been a restroom stop since we left the campground, it was decided that they would turn the bus around.  This was not easily done since the road was only single-lane in each direction and there were no shoulders.  The driver attempted to back the bus into a driveway by pulling into the oncoming lane.  Unfortunately, as the driver was blocking both lanes of traffic, the transmission would not catch in reverse.  When the driver was finally able get into reverse, the passengers on the upper deck could see that he was headed into a ditch.  Finally, to the relief of our passengers and the other drivers on the road, he got us turned around.  We then headed to an ice cream shop and we were all treated to anything on the menu.  By this point, it was five hours after we had left the campground and a trip to the bathroom was everyone’s highest priority.  Unfortunately, they only had single-occupant men’s and women’s bathrooms so the lines were quite long.  After ice cream, we returned to the campground and arrived around 4 pm.  That evening, we had a cookout, followed by a country band who performed for a couple of hours.  It was a very long, but enjoyable, day and was very generous of the owners.

After relaxing on Sunday, we moved again on Monday.  We drove 25 miles to Anchor Down in Dandridge, TN where we spent a week attending the fall DOG (DRV Owner’s Group) gathering.  We had attended this gathering in 2019 but had only been able to stay a few days then.  We attended a meet-and-greet dinner hosted by our dealer, RVs for Less.  Jason arrived that evening and spent six days with us, working from our living room for the rest of the workweek.  Anchor Down is a beautiful campground and our site (#132) gave us a great view of Douglas Lake from our living room.

On Tuesday, we drove to Pigeon Forge and did some shopping at the Eddie Bauer store at Tanger Outlet.  On Wednesday, we washed the rig and our cars.  On Thursday, we took the scenic backroads to Smokie Mountains National Park and drove the 6-mile Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail.  The fall leaves were in full color.  We saw five black bears near the road.  Although this was fortuitous, it was also frustrating, since the cars in front of us would just sit where they spotted a bear and there was no opportunity to get around them.  Once the bears disappeared, the traffic moved along more steadily.

During our drive from Sevierville to Dandridge on Sunday, we had passed a sign for a business that sold honey.  On Friday, we returned to this business to buy some honey.  One of the owners encouraged us to walk around their entire site, which we learned included 34 storage sheds containing antiques, crafts and gifts.  It appeared that, although the owners were primarily in the business of selling storage units, they had also a sizable business selling other “stuff.”  We ended up buying some honey, jelly and a braided throw rug.

On Saturday, Jason was able to join us for some sightseeing.  We drove to Gatlinburg and, after fighting the heavy traffic, we decided to drive through McDonalds for a quick breakfast.  It didn’t quite work that way.  We got into the drive-through line at 10:30 am and crept along.  It took over 30 minutes just to reach the point where we could order and, by then, the menu board had already switched to their lunch menu.  We did manage to order three sausage biscuits but, by the time we had paid, it had taken 45 minutes.  Our next stop was at the Gatlinburg Skylift Park.  After waiting in very long lines, we boarded one of the yellow ski lift cars for a ride to the top of Crockett Mountain.  At the summit, we walked across the 680’ pedestrian suspension bridge, the longest in North America.  Midway across the bridge, we walked over glass panels 140’ above the ground. 

After the skybridge, we drove the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail again and saw another black bear.  We stopped a couple of times for photo ops, including a stop for lunch at one of the old homesteads. 

After breakfast on Sunday morning, Jason left for his drive back to Nashville.  We spent the rest of the day getting ready for moving on.  On Monday, October 26^th, we drove 40 miles to Heiskell, TN where we spent the night at the Escapee’s Raccoon Valley RV Park. 

We had reserved a site at Gulf State Park in Gulf Shores, AL for the months of November and December.  However, Hurricane Sally hit Gulf Shores directly in mid-September and this resulted in the park’s closure.  In addition to severe damage to trees in the park, many of the electrical pedestals had been submerged and needed to be repaired to ensure their safety.  On October 21^st, we learned that our reserved site would tentatively be open on November 1^st.  However, on October 26^th, we learned that, due to the contractor’s inability to obtain the parts needed to make the required repairs, we would not be able to occupy our site until November 12^th. 

On Tuesday, we arrived at our dealer, RVs for Less, for a list of needed repairs.  Although most of the items on our list were relatively minor, there were several that really needed to be addressed right away.  The weather forecast called for two days of heavy rain, making it uncertain when the repairs could be completed.  A few issues were addressed on Tuesday but rain on Wednesday resulted in no further progress.  The weather improved somewhat on Thursday and Ken Rife, the General Manager, told us they should be able to finish the repairs that afternoon.  Since we were required to be out of our rig while work was being done, we left for a road trip.  We drove down Wears Valley Road, then took the scenic Foothills Parkway and continued on to Maryville.  Jan had found an article listing the best communities in Tennessee for retirees and Maryville was one of them.  We liked what we saw and will check it out further in the future.

Unfortunately, on Friday morning, we learned that we would need to wait for some parts that were scheduled to arrive later in the day.  We decided to take a road trip to Farragut, TN, another recommended community for retirees.  It was also very impressive, although the houses we saw with the greatest wow factor would never be affordable by us.  When we returned to the dealer, we learned that the parts had arrived but had not yet been installed.  We agreed to spend the weekend on the lot, with the expectation that the remaining work would be done on Monday morning.

On Saturday, we drove to Norris Dam State Park and hiked the 3-mile Observation Point loop trail.  The trail led to an overlook with a view of the Norris Dam and the Clinch River.  The dam’s construction in the mid-1930s was the first major project for the Tennessee Valley Authority.

On Sunday, we drove to Knoxville and hiked a 3.5-mile loop within the William Hastie Natural Area.  The loop consisted of the View Park, Yellow Jacket and Sink Hole trails.  The trails zig-zagged repeatedly and required frequent checks of the GPS to keep us on the desired route.  The three trails are popular with mountain bikers and are all rated as “very difficult.”  Although there were no viewpoints along the trails, there was a 20’-deep sink hole on the Sink Hole trail.

The final repairs were completed on Monday but, when the bill hadn’t been finalized by 3 pm, we got approval to spend another night on the lot.  We finally got back on the road on Tuesday morning and drove 125 miles to Old Mill Camp at Cummins Falls in Cookeville, TN.  Tuesday was election day and we were anxious to see the results that evening.  Since we knew the campground was heavily wooded, we were unsure whether we would be able to get a satellite signal.  After analysis of the online campground map and the Google Earth app, we reserved the site that appeared to be most open.  When we arrived, we raised the satellite dish before unhitching to make sure we could get a clear signal.  After circling around for quite a while, the dish finally locked in on the satellite and we knew we could proceed with getting set up.  We stayed up until after midnight watching election results but, when it was obvious there would be no final decision that evening, we went to sleep.

Our campground was located across the street from Cummins Falls State Park.  On Wednesday, we hiked a 2.5-mile loop from our campsite to Cummins Falls, with its 75-foot drop.  Our return took us past some dilapidated structures from the John Cummins estate.  John Cummins acquired the land in 1825 and built two water-driven mills on the property.  The land stayed in the Cummins family for more than 180 years before being acquired by the Tennessee Parks and Greenways Foundation.

On Thursday, November 5^th, we drove 94 miles to Goodlettsville, TN, where we spent four nights at Grand Ole RV Resort.  The campground had expanded since we were there in the spring.  Due to uncertainty of the length of our stay at RVs for Less, we had waited to make reservations.  This resulted in us being assigned to a pull-through site along the entrance road.  Although not an ideal location, it served the purpose and wasn’t as noisy as we feared.

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Jason joined us for dinner on Friday night.  On Saturday, we drove to Camden and had a catfish lunch at Country & Western with Sheila Gaskin.  On Sunday, Jason and his housemate, Steve Lilly, joined us for dinner and the warm weather enabled us to eat outside.