It's Wednesday June 4th, day 34 of our 2025 summer adventure. Debbie & I got a walk in at the city park. The sunrise was pretty along the "blue ridge" of the Smoky Mountains!It's the opening day of the TN Good Sam's Rally. So, we headed up to enjoy coffee with friends.
Later, we took Jim & Debbie on a drive on the Foothills Parkway. It's a scenic 33-mile drive that follows the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains.
It's part of the National Parkway system and offers stunning views of both the Great Smoky Mountains and the Tennessee Valley.
While the parkway was initially planned to be 71 miles long, only sections have been completed. That makes it the oldest unfinished highway project in Tennessee.
The official mandate for the creation of this parkway, allowing for donations of land from the State of Tennessee to the Department of the Interior, came from Congress in 1944, calling for “construction of a scenic parkway to provide an appropriate view of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park from the Tennessee side of the park, and for other purposes.”
Construction on this “Foothills Parkway” got underway early in the following decades. The project, which envisioned a 72.1-mile drive weaving through the foothills on the northern side of the Smokies, was split into eight main sections, designated alphabetically from 8A through 8H. By 1968, some 22.5 miles of the Parkway consisting of sections 8A, 8G, and 8H—including the southwestern and northeastern ends of the route, and the access routes into Great Smoky Mountains National Park known as the Spur and the Gatlinburg Bypass—had been finished.
Funding issues, plus an increasing awareness of (and federal legislation requiring) environmental protection, slowed progress on the Foothills Parkway. So did the topographic and geologic demands of the route, which did, after all, run through some pretty rugged flanking terrain of the main range of the Great Smoky Mountains. Major progress was made in 2018 with the completion of 16 miles of the Foothills Parkway. The sections were 8E and 8F. But for us visitors, it is the section between Walland and Wears Valley.
We stopped at the Look Rock Lower Overlook. It is a natural observation ledge that overlooks The Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Look Rock is located on Foothills Parkway and is the highest point along the 18 mile road. There is also a picnic area and a campground at Look Rock. We had reservations there for September, but after the "hard pull" we had up the parkway, Charlie wanted to find somewhere else to camp!
There is an observation tower that is open to the public. To get to the tower you must take the 1/2 mile hike. The visibility from the tower is a 360 degree panoramic view of the Smokies. You can see up to 40 miles on clear days. On hazy days the visibility is much less, but the view is still one of the best around. Jim & Charlie were not into a walk and I think I walked Debbie too much this morning!
We enjoyed lunch at the Smoky Mountain Brewery. Jim & Debbie enjoy a beer once a day. Usually around 2pm, it was only 1:30pm, but Jim said "close enough!"
The opening ceremonies were this evening at the campground. The small but might Tennessee State Staff have done a great job getting this all set up! They played a portion of the Memorial Day events in Washington DC before they started all the formal stuff. It was very nice. Interesting point... as each service anthem was announced, the Veterans in attendance stood. For the Army, there were only three Veterans that stood and all three were ladies! That does not happen very often!
Stay tuned for more Two Lane Adventures!
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