Day Ten - A Summer of Bluegrass, Camping and Friends - Tuesday 5/7/2024

We enjoyed a quiet night at Pigeon Forge Gatlinburg KOA. Naturally I enjoyed my morning walk. I had hoped to walk on the riverwalk, but Mother Nature had other plans. She had washed out part of the walkway, so it was closed to all foot traffic. 

I walked around the park and into Patriot Park, where the trolley station is. I walked to the bridge over the river by the Mill restaurant. You can see the water was still rushing pretty fast!

We planned to take Route 411 to US 25 to Route 70. We were driving on the East Tennessee Crossing Byway and soak in the richness of the Tennessee landscape with over 83 miles to discover the Clinch Mountain, Cumberland Gap, the Dixie Highway of the Civil War period and Thunder Road of moonshining lore.

We went through the town of Newport, Tennessee. The City of Newport has a rich history dating back to the origin of Cocke County in 1783, when frontiersmen began moving westward from parts of North Carolina and Virginia into East Tennessee.  The early settlements were along the Nolichucky River. The first settler at the site of Newport, was John Gilliland.  It was Gilliland who donated fifty acres of land in order to build present day Newport.  The first town of Newport was laid out in the year 1799, two years after the establishment of Cocke County.

We crossed the French Broad Scenic River several times. The French Broad is one of the oldest rivers in the world, dating anywhere from 260-325 million years old. The river's headwaters are in Rosman NC, from there it's one of the few rivers that flows North instead of South. Over 4,000 miles of streams and rivers feed into the French Broad River. 

We crossed from Tennessee into North Carolina. The dead giveaway that we were crossing the border was the old "State Line" Grill sign. Them I saw the welcome to North Carolina sign.

Hot Springs, North Carolina is located at the confluence of the French Broad River and Spring Creek. A natural hot spring is also located here, the only such spring known in North Carolina and in much of the southeastern US. Oregon, Utah, Colorado, Montana, and New Mexico contain several dozen thermal springs each. The other thermal springs are scattered through 12 States, of which Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina contain one spring each.

We traversed through downtown Ashville NC and enjoyed some of the wall art! Yes, if we could make through downtown Nashville, we should be able to do Ashville!

We crossed under the Blue Ridge Parkway before we arrived at our overnight stop. Excuse the dirty windshield!

We arrived at Ashville East KOA on US 70, our home for the night.

#TwoLaneAdventures