From Knoxville we drove through Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. Pigeon Forge seemed like a summer vacation with your kids kind of place with Dollywood amusement park there.
Gatlinburg is partly a small, quaint old town squeezed in next to the mountains. For the other part, sprinkle in trinket stores, chain restaurants and lots of tourists. We stopped at the Smokey Mountain Winery that’s been there since 1981 and continued on with a couple more bottles of wine.
The Smokies are beautiful mountains full of trees and wonderful foliage in the fall.
We stayed in the Smokemont Campground on the east side. There were trees but not much privacy, most sites were flat.
It was cold so we started our fire early and invited our neighbor to join us.
We continue to meet lots of great people.