RE: Great Smokey Mountains National Park (RV Lifestyle Trip Highlight)

Great Smoky Mountains National Park!

View this email in your browser Hi Folks, In this week's trip highlight, we're covering the Great Smoky Mountains National Park!   As we get into October, the leaves are starting to turn for prime fall foliage across the country. Veteran "Leaf Peepers" will tell you that there are few places in North America as stunning as the Great Smoky Mountains National Park when it comes to the most beautiful, breathtaking displays of autumn color. The problem though is getting there at peak color time and before wind and rain quickly drops the painted leaves. A few years ago in mid-October, we couldn't have timed it any better. The leaves had turned, the winds were calm, the skies were clear and bright blue. And we were in the Great Smoky Mountains hiking and taking photos. To get there, we drove down through the crowded touristy towns of Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg off I-40 right on the Tennessee/North Carolina border. Even midweek in mid-October, the traffic was horrendous and we crawled along until hitting the park. But it was all worth it as soon as we entered the park, one of the very few National Parks that has no admission charge, a stipulation of old John D. Rockefeller, who donated much of the land that makes up the 522,400-acre park. It goes back and forth with Grand Canyon National Park as the most visited national park in the country. But traffic was tolerable the day we visited, though it sometimes took a minute or two to find an opening in the steady stream of vehicles when you attempted to reenter the main road (US-441) from a scenic turn out. US-441 runs about 31 miles from the north to south boundaries and that's where we found all the color, right off the road. We took the seven-mile drive off 441 up to Clingman's Dome, the highest point in the park at about 6,400 feet. After a steep climb up from the parking lot along a half-mile long paved trail, you come to an observation platform perched high in the air that offers great views of the mist-shrouded mountains. While you're there, a couple of great activities to check out are taking a train ride deep into the Nantahala Gorge, exploring the "Road To Nowhere", and white water rafting on the Nantahala River! There are lots of great campgrounds in the area and around Gatlinburg, TN and in Cherokee, NC to the south, as well as the park itself. Even this time of year, reservations are advised. You'll also find plenty of dispersed camping spots in the Nantahala National Forest. In fact, we enjoyed the Great Smoky Mountains so much, we've had a few meetups there over the years. Check out this video from an RV Lifestyle Gathering we did last August: Are you making a trip to do some "leaf peeping" this fall? Where do you think the best fall foliage is in the US?  We'll see you on the road! - João & JoAn Silva ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Mike Wendland <info@rvlifestyle.com> Date: Fri, Sep 20, 2019 at 10:12 AM Subject: Great Smokey Mountains National Park (RV Lifestyle Trip Highlight) To: <joaoa.dsilva2019@gmail.com> --  Mike & Jennifer Copyright © 2019 RVLifestyle, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in via our website. Our mailing address is: RVLifestyle 145 S. Livernois Rd., #165 Rochester Hills, MI 48307 Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.