Great Smoky Mountains National Park

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most visited national park in the United States. What’s funny is that we had lived in Memphis Tennessee for over three years and not once had ventured any further east than Nashville. We’d always heard great things about the Smokies and had the desire to go see them. But, like always, when you live close to something you always put off seeing it. I guess better late than never; we are glad we finally took the time to visit the park on this trip.

Asheville, NC via the Blue Ridge Pkwy

Saturday morning we joined the Blue Ridge Parkway just before the border with North Carolina. The Blue Ridge Parkway is a 469 mile long two lane stretch of scenic highway that runs along the Blue Ridge Mountains, a major chain of the Appalachian Mountains. The north end of the highway actually picks up where the Skyline Drive drops off. The road ends when it runs into the Smoky Mountains National Park, just west of Asheville. We’d done some reading on the Blue Ridge Pkwy and found out that the most scenic portion was right after crossing the North Carolina border, heading south. Since this road is narrow and quite hilly, we decided to skip the first 200 or so miles of it and jump on for the prettiest parts.