Monday, September 25, 2006
Day three of our vacation leaves us in a little Days Inn in Ridge, TN. We drove through the Smoky Mountain and the Appalachian Mountains; the scenery was incredible. Our only problem was the road constriction on Highway 441 which made the final eleven miles unbearable. As a result, we missed Clingmans Dome which was closed. Thanks Tennessee!!
We drove through Tennessee, North Carolina and Georgia and saw two National Forests: Nantahlia and Chatahoochie. The strange thing I noticed was the eerie green ivy growing over the forests like the Martian Red Weed from War of The Worlds. It covers the grass, blankets the trees, crawls up utility poles and along power lines, and engulfs abandoned cars and buildings. It makes the trees look like huge bulking green ghosts. I don’t know what this crap is but if it is not stopped, I can see it doing much damage to the forests.
Word to the warning: stay out of Gatlinburg, TN!! It is nothing but a tourist trap. We wanted to eat lunch so we stupidly went to Gatlinburg but had trouble finding a free place to park. If I am paying to eat at your restaurant, I’ll be damned if I am going to pay to park. I have standards. I don’t pay a cover charge to enter a bar either. Why would I pay to enter a bar and then pay them for drinks too? I will never understand why idiots pay cover charges. If nobody pays they will have to let you in for free.
Anyway, enough of my ranting; I hope you enjoy these pics from today’s adventures.
A slow running stream.
The Great Smoky Mountains
The eerie green ivy
The beautiful "Burning Tree"
BTW: I fixed the broken links from yesterday, so you can now click and view all the pictures at full resolution. Sorry about that.
We drove through Tennessee, North Carolina and Georgia and saw two National Forests: Nantahlia and Chatahoochie. The strange thing I noticed was the eerie green ivy growing over the forests like the Martian Red Weed from War of The Worlds. It covers the grass, blankets the trees, crawls up utility poles and along power lines, and engulfs abandoned cars and buildings. It makes the trees look like huge bulking green ghosts. I don’t know what this crap is but if it is not stopped, I can see it doing much damage to the forests.
Word to the warning: stay out of Gatlinburg, TN!! It is nothing but a tourist trap. We wanted to eat lunch so we stupidly went to Gatlinburg but had trouble finding a free place to park. If I am paying to eat at your restaurant, I’ll be damned if I am going to pay to park. I have standards. I don’t pay a cover charge to enter a bar either. Why would I pay to enter a bar and then pay them for drinks too? I will never understand why idiots pay cover charges. If nobody pays they will have to let you in for free.
Anyway, enough of my ranting; I hope you enjoy these pics from today’s adventures.
A slow running stream.
The Great Smoky Mountains
The eerie green ivy
The beautiful "Burning Tree"
BTW: I fixed the broken links from yesterday, so you can now click and view all the pictures at full resolution. Sorry about that.
posted by DarthImmortal at 9:14 PM
2 Comments:
nothing to apologize for silly. not for the link or the frustration you expressed..one that i and Cuppojoe shared more than i can ever express in Vancouver. not only do you have to pay parking for restaurants there but throughout all downtown, no matter what you are going to..we ran out of batteries, we needed to stop in a drug store and guess it was paid parking there too..no where near downtown..in the middle of nowhere..their reasoning is that the prices for living and land are so over the top they must charge for such a treat...yikes...
in Calgary, here, downtown has lost most of their clients from any of the evening and wknd for it is beyond expensive..it pays to get a parking ticket of 25 dollars than to pay their dumb fees for parking..they are in the middle of raising the parking tickets as this is a big problem and everyone chooses that route..not that is dumb!
thank you for more wonderful pictures. i love them. i laugh at how quickly you move from one place to another..here, if you look at a Canadian map, you see it takes many, many, many hours to drive from one city to another and from one province to another..lol...
keep on enjoying your trip and oh so many beautiful places..what a great adventure you guys are on..
loving the pics...spectacular views..
I love those green monsters. They remind me of Where The Wild Things Are. I've thought about writing a children's book with them. They die in the winter, or at least back off. I've never known them to cause any problems. When we lived in GA they grew all over the place.
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