Left
Staunton for Knoxville, Tennessee and en-route stopped off at 'The Natural
Bridge', which as you can see is absolutely stunning. The bridge was
formed naturally during the ice age and currently has a road running atop
it. We then returned to Interstate 40 to resume the course in CB for
beginners and to play 'Roadkill bingo' which was becoming increasingly more
difficult as some of the roadkill we wouldn't recognize before it was flattened.
The Skies were full of eagles and hence today was pronounced 'Eagle Day'. Today's lunch was the 'healthy option' of a sandwich from Subway. Unfortunately Jef, in an over-exuberant fashion decided to order a "footlong" with everything on it... just watching him try to eat it was amusement enough.
Today's CB highlight was from a rather large black truck that we had been passing back and forward on the way. He announced over the CB that he was going to 'catch himself that li'l red Z' and challenged the other trucks to catch him. We don't know what the hell he had under the hood but he reeled us in pretty quick, passed us, blew his air horns and took the next exit. The are a funny breed.
Discussion
on the journey led to the idea of stopping at Dollywood (Dolly Parton theme
park) for a picture outside that we could put an X through. Traffic was
hideous on the way up so we followed the road up to a little town called
Gatlinburg. Gatlinburg can only be described as Disneyland for Rednecks
and the sign to the right sums up the local visitors. The place was full
of tattoo shops, wedding chapels and arcades and reminded us of Skegness but
without the class! We finally got some T-shirts printed for the trip, Jef
is modeling front and back at the bottom of the page. While we were
waiting for the T-shirts and wandering the streets of Gatlinburg we were
approached by a young lady from one of the local shops who pointed to a whole in
the seat of her pants and asked whether or not we could "see my
butt". Despite wishing to riposte in a witty fashion we just said
that her T-shirt covered it. As you can see above, nothing was playing at
the Sweet Fanny Adams theatre.
We found the local microbrewery called 'The Smokey Mountain Brewery" and sampled all of their offerings. None were excellent, but we'd recommend the porter over any of the others.
Front of
T-Shirt
Back of
T-shirt, Jef is Co-Pilot, Chris is Pilot
The fancy
digs...
With plush
appointments