Yet again, the start to the day was a lovely City Cafe Diner breakfast across the road from the Read House Hotel. After that it was the 150 mile drive from Chattanooga to our log cabin the Smokey Mountains. First things first though, back to the Shopping Mall we visited yesterday to buy another suitcase and a quick visit to the Guitar Center to get a little parlour guitar i had seen the day before and quite liked. I mean, you can’t be out in the wilderness in a log cabin and NOT have a guitar to play can you? Unsure how i’ll get it home but we will cross that bridge when we get to it 😀

We were going “off piste” for this drive as Deb had found a scenic route on the internet, so, armed with some hand written notes and the Sat Nav switched off we hit the highway. Fortunately it was pretty plane sailing and we soon found ourselves heading off the freeway and onto more local roads. We passed through little towns and through sweeping valleys but the main reason for coming this way was the slight chance of seeing The Abraham Lincoln People. Sorry, thats a reference to Family Guy, the correct term is Amish. As we were still driving down pretty big roads the last thing i expected to see was a horse drawn cart carrying the Amish around doing their daily business but lo and behold it wasn’t long before we saw one parked up and then one riding down a dual carriageway.

Next up we found ourselves on US129 better known to as the Tail of the Dragon Highway. This highway boast 318 curves in 11 miles and is frequented by speed demons on Motorbikes and in Sports Cars. We saw lots of Harleys and stopped at a Harley Davison gift shop along the way. Bikes don’t do a great deal fro me though so i was rather chuffed when i saw a mini Porsche cruise on the route.

We turned left of US129 and headed onto the Foothills Parkway road which is the start of the Smokey Mountains and the road that would eventually lead us to Gatlinburg. Another nice, windy and narrow road through some stunning scenery and alongside the Little Tennesse River took us to our destination and home for the next five nights, the Bear Necessities log Cabin. The cabin is fantastic with a secluded balcony over looking the tops of the trees. We have a hot tub to chill out in and we have filled the fridge with beers and snacks. Not seen a bear yet but apparently they are in the area and the maintenance guy has just shown us pictures of bears he has seen on the road below us … and they are big buggers! We are getting visits from North American Cardinals ( beautiful red birds a bit bigger than a sparrow) and we have seen plenty of weird lizards with blue tails and fire flys. I shall endeavour to get some photos of the wildlife and really keeping my fingers crossed for a bear sighting

And a Cardinal has just landed on the veranda so have a dodgy picture – i shall try and get better ones 😀

And now some video of todays roads and the last one is the drive up to our cabin.