Lewis Falls Before leaving the Big Meadow area, we took one last hike from the picnic area to Lewis Falls, a 3.3 mile loop. Trail Posts & Flowers The trail posts are pretty clear. There is a metal band around them stamped with trail places, direction arrows and mileage. Tony is using the CalTopa app…

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It rained off and on all night and into the morning. Nothing heavy or stormy, so that was good. But I wanted to do something different from another waterfall hike, particularly if there were lots of slippery wet rocks after the rain. Riprap Trail to Chimney Rock Riprap Parking is at milepost 90 and has…

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Our daughter Lauren and her partner Bonnie live in Ames, about a half-hour north of us and home to Iowa State University. Bonnie grew up as a youngster in Virginia before she moved with her family to Iowa. She gave us some travel suggestions that were near her former home and along our way to…

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Everyone I talked with about this trip said a visit to Asheville was a must, with the last person saying hopefully the Hurricane Helene recovery was going well. After our visit today, we can attest that recovery is still ongoing, but everything looks good from our perspective of just a little slice of town driving…

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After a leisurely morning of sleeping in, we had a relatively short drive to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. One big difference between this park and Shenandoah is the crowds. The Smokies park is the most-visited park in the US, and we now believe it. Shenandoah was peaceful and we were often on the…

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New-ish Parking Pass System Apparently, National Parks do have some leeway to do their own thing; the Smokies have instituted a parking pass system in which one is free to drive through the park, but required to have a pass to take up a parking spot for more than 15 minutes. Everyone seems to be…

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Today we cross the park and spend the night in Elkmont campground on the Tennessee side. Thomas Ridge Trail We stopped at a pullout on Thomas Ridge to do a morning hike in the woods. We had the trail to ourselves which was lovely! The plant diversity that the Smokies are known for was on…

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We headed out of the Smokies today (only to find ourselves briefly back in it later in the day). Fortunately, we left the national park early enough that we didn’t endure the mile+ line of slow moving cars heading to Gatlinburg that we had witnessed the day before. Gatlinburg – Gateway to the Smokies The…

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We drove through Knoxville on our way to the Cumberland Mountains, but didn’t stop. Looks like some cool things to see there, but we were ready for a hiking day in a park again. Tony snapped the following pictures from Usain’s copilot seat. Cumberland Mountain State Park Cumberland Mountain State Park is on the Cumberland…

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I’ll preface this post by stating that Lisa and I are generally not fans of country music. With that said, we both thought it would be interesting to visit the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. When in Rome, right? We left Cumberland Mountain early and had an easy 2-hour drive to Music City USA. We…

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