Showing posts with label Smoky Mountains. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Smoky Mountains. Show all posts

Saturday, 9 July 2011

The end of the road

Allright folks, we're almost there... this is the last post from our road trip, and in one fell swoop also the last post from the States. Thanks for hanging on! (Is anyone still reading this anyway?)

Aight... this is Thursday, June 9th, and we've just woken up to a crisp clear day at the Buckhorn Inn in Gatlinburg. Srsly... I don't think I've ever had breakfast with a more stunning view.



Though the breakfast itself was also a thing of beauty... sigh.

We took the Newfound Gap road, which crosses the Smoky Mountains national park from the Tennessee side to the North Carolina side.




Once we had crossed the park, we drove through North Carolina, South Carolina, and eventually reached Savannah, Georgia, almost at the Atlantic coast. Savannah is still a major seaport, and used to be a center of cotton export. It's full of beautiful pre-civil war houses and squares shaded by old trees.




Spanish moss hangs from the trees, giving the whole city an eerie, mysterious feel. No wonder so many people think Savannah is haunted.



Despite the immense heat and humidity, people sit outside in Forsyth park, drumming the day away or participating in a knitting circle, like the ladies in the background.


This is Mercer house, the house where the murder happened on which John Berendt based his book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Savannah is full of these beautiful, lavish 19th century houses.
Though from time to time, something seems to be missing...






This was our room at Peacock house, a beautiful one-bedroom bed and breakfast run by Anthony and Mais, one of the most welcoming and authentic couples we've ever met.
In the afternoon, we stopped briefly at Bonaventure cemetery, one of Savannah's best-known attractions. What else would you expect from a self-proclaimed ghost town? But seriously, even in the broad daylight, the place feels eerie... after a quick walk, the heat and discomfortable feeling drove us back to our our-conditionad car and back on the road to Atlanta.





On Kobe's last day in Atlanta, we took a stroll in Piedmont park, my preferred spot for running in Atlanta.
We admired the size of the southern magnolias.
And the Central Park-esque view.
We had a refreshing lunch at Jason's deli... and then I took Kobe back to the airport.

On my last day in Atlanta, I decided to get my geek on and do a segway tour. Yes, it looks absolutely ridiculous... but it's fun! Ok, and it feels totally weird in the beginning to steer a machine using nothing but your balance.
One of the last stops of the tour was the Varsity, one of the very first drive-through restaurants in America. We had a few minutes to get a snack but it didn't take long to discover that the offer for vegetarians is, well... limited, if not nonexistent.

That night, Team Awesome played trivia at The Vortex, a bar where the first page of the menu is a set of all their rules, which can basically be summarized to "just because you are a customer, doesn't mean we'll be taking bullshit from you". Gulp. But we showed them Vortex people by getting a perfect score at trivia. Ha!
Boy, I'll miss Team Awesome, and Atlanta. Hope to be back soon!

Saturday, 2 July 2011

On the road, pt.III

Or maybe 'on the trail' would be a more appropriate title. Not too much road on the fourth day of our road trip, but lots of hiking in the Smoky Mountains national park.

There are worse views to wake up to.



Our little red chevy in front of the Buckhorn Inn.




Hiking along the Roaring Fork Motor trail, near one of the original settler's cabins.


My new desktop picture. I could fill a post with just pictures of picturesque little mountain streams surrounded by greenery. (Lucky for you, Mom, I decided to select just the one. You're welcome.)

The settlers had running water in their house - ingenious!




Allright, a little bit of driving was involved, but that is inevitable in America, land of the road, home of the car.




Eating an excellent packed lunch by Grotto falls.


An old black bear in one the local thrift stores. Apparently black bears are quite abundant in the area, but since we didn't get up at the crack of dawn to spot them, we, well, didn't spot them. Not a live one, at least.
I wouldn't be a proper capricorn if I didn't insist on some rock clambering in one of the mountain streams.

Way up in the mountains is a little cemetery. Really eerie, just in the woods like that... especially when you realize that most of the gravestones are so tiny because they belong to infants and toddlers from a time when child mortality was still high.
The sky started to turn dark by the time we reached the cemetery, and the thunder was rolling in, so we turned back and pretty much speedwalked back to the car.
We made it back just in time to see the heavens pour down on Gatlinburg and the Smoky Mountains.
Fortunately, later that night the skies cleared up again sufficiently for us to see a beautiful mountain sunset.
Night, y'all...