April 10-11 - Tsali Recreation Area, Robbinsville, NC. This is a National Forest campground on the south side of Lake Fontana across from the Smokies. It's redbud and dogwood season - beautiful! Our first night there were only a handful of campers but Fri. everything filled up. This area is best known for mountain bike trails (about 42 miles). It's also not far from the Nantahala Gorge where the Appalachia Trail crosses. Fun place to hang out to see the hikers come through. There was also a slalom course for kayakers in the river. In our poking, we checked out Deep Creek CG in the Smokies and still liked Tsali better. A propane leak in the hose and finding out the refrig won't run on DC overnight w/out killing the batteries nudged us to keep moving north.
Apr. 12 - Cracker Barrel, Abingdon, VA. We spent a casual morning traveling west around Lake Santeetlah to the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest, walked the 2 mile trail which was beautiful w/the trillium in bloom and discovered a half dozen dispersed camping sites along the lake on Joyce Kilmer Road. Bookmarked for another trip. This meant we had little choice but to drive the "Tail of the Dragon" around the Smokies to get to Rte. 40/81. This section of Rte. 129 has 318 curves in 11 miles and attracts all sorts of motorcycles, sports cars and other revved up beasts especially on a Saturday! Although the max speed limit was 30, most hit it in 1st gear doing wheelies. The cops were several miles beyond the end seemingly waiting for a crash. If all this doesn't raise the hair on your back, watching the kayakers going down the rapids in the river beside the road will! Ellen, don't try it!
Apr. 13 - HOME! Seventeen hours and 836 miles made this our longest run and for the most part pleasant and uneventful especially traveling on a Sunday with less traffic and no construction. Driving in the dark at both ends of the day is always a concern with deer on the roads. What we didn't expect was a car driving SOUTH on Rte. 95 N in Providence, RI on our last leg at 8:45 p.m. He came right at us passing in the lane I had just moved out of! This was where 195 splits off to the right towards the Cape and 95 to the left. We were at the top of the funnel with more room to move and could only keep going. The outcome behind us could not have been good but the police were already heading down 95 S. I haven't been able to get info on what happened but for us seconds made all the difference between getting home tonight or not! Time to get off the road and settle for a while.
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