The Great Smokies

[rsc]

Does anyone know anything about visiting the Great Smoky Mountains and/or the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina?

The reason I'm asking is that jwg and I are going to be in Philadelphia for Thanksgiving, and in Atlanta the previous weekend, and are thinking about ways to use the intervening time and space. It turns out that there's a daytime train from Charlotte, NC to Philadelphia, so we had this idea of renting a car and spending part of Monday and Tuesday in the Smokies, and then spending the night in Charlotte in order to be able to hop on the train at 7:50 Wednesday morning.

Does anybody have any recommendations about more specifically where to go in (south)western NC? Are we crazy to be even thinking about doing this in late November?

Comments

Blue Ridge Mountains

[hgybear.livejournal.com]

My recommendations contains some serious qualifiers: I went through the Blue Ridge Mountains about 36 years ago with one of my brothers and my mom and dad. I was about 12. It would have been during the summer months.

I DO remember them as being pretty spectacular...the fact that I remember THIS is pretty significant. I remember GREEN, green and more green.

YMMV, and I have no idea what it would be like in November vs the time of year I was there.

Smokies

[magid.livejournal.com]

I went a couple of years ago, in the spring, so I don't know what it would be like in November. It was beautiful, with the season at different stages at different elevations. There were lots of hikes, things to see.

I was with my parents, who have a time-share, so we stayed west of the park, in Pigeon Forge (home of Dollywood; we didn't check it out). We had to drive through the intervening town (name currently in some black hole or another), which has a Ripley's museum, a zillion wedding chapels, and some lovely views.

But mostly we spent our time hiking, or doing a car tour of a flatter section (we saw wild turkeys!), admiring it all.

Hurray for Dollywood!

[chukspace.livejournal.com]

I've been to the Smoky Mountains two or three times. In car, not hiking. Dollywood will be closed for those days I think, but there is lots and lots of kitsch in the Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge Area. If you like snow skiing, they have that in Gatlinburg. They also have lots of mountain chalets for rent, some with hot tubs and such if you want a romantic getaway. This is all on the Tennessee side. I don't know much about the North Carolina side, except for the town of Cherokee, which is where the Eastern Band of the Cherokee (the ones that ran off into the mountains when the government tried to round them up and didn't go on the Trail of Tears) has a reservation. A couple of years ago I went to the Hermitage, Andrew Jackson's mansion, near Nashville and a few days later was in Cherokee at the museum there. The different spins on the Trail of Tears was amazing. I have been to this area around Thanksgiving, and there lots to see. I highly recommend it. I also suggest you try to contact Mary Ballard from soc.motss, she lives in the area and probably has more suggestions. I will be in Tennessee in the Nashville area from November 15th to December 2nd, visiting my family, so I might be able to meet you during that time. Who knows, maybe you can have a micro-con?

Re: Hurray for Dollywood!

[rsc.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the suggestions. Mary lives in Boone, IIRC, and I doubt we'll get that far north, but she might have some ideas at that. And I'm sure she knows what the weather is likely to be like. (Now if only I can find her email address...)

So far we're only looking at the NC side -- we're not going to have a lot of time. We thought we might stay Monday night in Asheville.

This all assumes that the reason Amtrak showed "coach sold out" for the train on Wednesday is because something is wrong with their reservations system (a not unusual circumstance), and not because the train is actually sold out.

[melosond.livejournal.com]

I would recommend Asheville. It's beautiful there and there's utterly fantastic dancing. Every Thursday night at Warren Wilson College. And I hope that since you're going to be in Philadelphia for Thanksgiving that you'll go to the Butterball Contra.

:)
-Contra fan

[rsc.livejournal.com]

We are in fact planning to stay in Asheville. We won't be there on a Thursday, and in any case with all the driving around we're planning on doing I don't think we'd have the time or energy for dancing there. I doubt we'll be able to get to a dance in Philadelphia either, if for no other reason than that we're coming home on Saturday in order to dance in Boston.

We are, however, looking into the possibility of a contradance trip to
Costa Rica in March. Stay tuned.