July 3-July 6th, 2021 Road-trip Report (Detroit- The Great Smoky Mountains, Tenessee-Nashville-Detroit)-1520 Miles
I’ll break this report and pictures into a couple of posts. Here is
#Part 1
We were planning a short vacation (4-days) during the July 4th, 2021 weekend and multiple locations came to mind. Since ,we covered almost every nook and corner of Michigan, Upper Peninsula (UP) which is our favorite in-state destination was not really on the radar as typically we scout locations and end up traveling north as nature cannot get any prettier than U.P.
As for these short vacations, I generally prefer road trips and drivable distances. We thought of Chicago (been there multiple times), Niagara Falls (visited twice) and been to all major cities in and around in Ohio, we were literally scratching our heads where to vacation. It was already July 1st and no decisions taken. Then late night, was talking to a dear friend and he suggested Smoky Mountains which they visited in April 2021 and was praising a lot of this National Park.
We started looking for hotels and were taken aback as nothing was available below $300/night as Smokies is a very popular destination and these nightly rates were terribly expensive. Again we swayed between few other locations and finally decided on the “Great Smoky Mountains National Park” in Tennessee.
After a lot of research, we ended up booking 3 nights (2 Nights in Smokies and 1 night in Nashville) for total of $800. I wanted to visit Nashville as some of my friends mentioned the vibe there is crazy and being an ardent music lover, I had to visit the “Music Capital” of US to know what’s the buzz about Nashville is all about.
We headed early morning (4:30am) on July 3rd , 2021 and really enjoyed our drive to Gatlinburg which was 550 miles away. We crossed Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and finally into Tennessee. I was floored by the beautiful landscape of Kentucky and Tennessee as last 150 miles was through some beautiful green landscapes and winding highways. I always thought of these southern states as being dry and unexciting but, I was pleasantly surprised.
We reached the Smokies by 1:00pm and luckily got an early check-in and freshened up and headed straight to skylift to take a ride on top of the mountains for some glorious views and walk on the bridge (with some sections have glass floorings that provides beautiful views of landscapes below).
Spent the whole afternoon and late evening at Gatlinburg which was so lively, it felt like entire US had descended there for their vacation. We spent late evening enjoying some live country music in a distillery and headed to our hotel after dinner around 11:00pm.
After a restful night, we got up early and decided to head into the mountains where we planned to do a loop of 11-miles of scenic points called “Cades Cove” which was wonderful as we were driving along with many other fellow vacationers who were also driving this loop. We spotted a baby bear cub (100 ft away which we enjoyed watching through our binoculars) and spotted another bear suddenly cross our road in the mountains. It was fantastic to spot the bears since Smokies is a bear country and we were lucky to spot them. Unfortunately, no pictures (have a few zoomed phone pictures that are not worth sharing here). Then we headed even higher up in the mountains stopping every few miles at multiple view points.
The scenery is like Goa, Munnar and Himachal all rolled into one. With clear water river running on one-side and green mountains on other side. It was fabulous scenery and not to mention the roads were buttery smooth and extremely curvy and winding that put the BMW to full test. These roads were almost on par with the “Ohio Triple Nickle-555 Highway” minus the elevations. I had a good mind to drive on “Tail of the Dragon” which is another popular winding road which was just 50 miles from the point we were but, I had other plans and due to limited time, had to skip it.
We stopped at one place that was the state line crossing as Smokies span across two states (Tennessee and North Carolina) and we crossed into N.C and went up to one of the most gorgeous spot that I ever been called “Cling man’s Dome” which where we parked our car and enjoyed the views from up there and this place was ~ 7000 ft in elevation. It felt like we were in the clouds.
From the place we parked our car, there was a 30-minute hike up to the actual dome and this is where I struggled with my fitness. I almost gave up half-way as the entire road to the dome was highly elevated and I stopped at multiple places and finally made it to the top. The 30-minute hike was totally worth it as the view from the top of dome was surreal. We saw clouds moving, weather up there was chillingly cold and we spent a good half hour enjoying the views from there before making it back to the parking (downhill was also tough as it was steep gradient and had to use my leg- brakes to control the speed of going downhill…LOL!)
We drove the 35 miles downhill and reached Gatlinburg and enjoyed a nice American dinner followed by another drive for about 10 miles to Pigeon Forge, another city where we enjoyed spending time at a beautiful musical fountains, Giant Wheel and other activities which was lively until late in the night.
Next day, we got up early and checked out of the hotel and did a 3-mile hike before driving towards our next destination, Nashville (275 Miles away).
Trivia: The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most visited National Park in the US with 11 Million visitors each year. The beauty of this area is the great mountain landscapes, lots of greenery and many fun activities for the vacationers. It’s a must visit for folks visiting or living in US.
Sharing some random pictures and will follow up with details and pictures of our next leg of our journey in the next post.
P.S : All are mobile phone pictures. Please click pictures to view the full size