Day 19: Thursday, July 3, 2003
From Charlotte it was west on US Highway 74 toward Asheville, North Carolina. However, As the US 74 freeway takes a jog to the south, I decided to ride the more direct US 64 and Alternate 74 from Forest city to Asheville. I much prefer the old two-lane highways to the freeways in most cases. I'm glad it took this route through the western Carolina hills, because it took me through some of the most beautiful country I have seen anywhere.
As I rode through the foothills, headed toward Asheville and the Great Smoky Mountains, I started to see houses with a unique architectural style. I don't know the name for these, but they are a sort of cabin style house generally surrounded on all four sides by wide wooden porches, sometimes covered, but more often not. There are many rustic split-rail fences. The country itself is lush and green, with rampant growth of the non-native vines like the ones they call kudzu in Georgia. I don't know if they are called by the same name here. Then as the highway wound its way through the hills the view suddenly opens up on Lake Lure, one of the prettiest little resort lakes ever. The towns of Lake Lure and Bat Cave are neat and clean -- touristy, but at least on this Thursday in July, right before the big Independence Day weekend, not overrun and overpopulated like many of the other resort areas I've encountered. I stopped to take some pictures. Amazingly, the number of bugs was low. Altogether a very attractive area that got me thinking about what it might be like to retire here.
After Asheville, I headed toward Waynesville via Interstate 40, and from there US 441 northwest through Cherokee and into Great Smoky Mountain National Park, which was every bit as beautiful as I remembered it from my trip in 1996, when I was headed in the opposite direction, down from Gatlinburg.
After passing through the National Park and Gatlinburg, at Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, I decided to try to make a quick visit to Dollywood, Dolly Parton's trademark amusement park, to see if I could pick up some kind of neat souvenir, possibly a T-shirt. Unfortunately, Pigeon Forge, and from there the rest of Highway 441 up to Knoxville was an incredible traffic mess. The parking lots at Dollywood were full, and visitors were riding shuttlebuses from outlying lots. I stopped at a roadside souvenir shop in Pigeon Forge, but there were no Dollywood souvenirs. Apparently only park visitors can get them, if they exist at all. And it was a very hot day. I tired of all this congestion and baking in the sun, so rode on up to Knoxville and from there westward again via Interstate 40.
By evening I made it to Nashville. I rode around town for a while. There were great crowds around the riverfront and a bandstand set up to celebrate the Independence Day holiday. A firework exhibit was scheduled for later on that evening. I needed to find an affordable motel, however. Eventually I headed west from the center and found a compfortable inn on the outskirts and dinner at a nearby restaurant. After dinner I was able to connect online via dialup to check and send emails from my room, then turned in for a good night's sleep.