We have been planning to stay in Bristol and take in the Nascar race coming up, but we were unable to score an rv site within a reasonable distance. RV sites go for about $200 a night with a four day minimum at the one campground we found space in, in addition to the cost of tickets. Nah...we'll pass.
Traffic was held up for a time due to an accident where a towable trailer flipped and blocked a lane.
After a turn onto I-40 eastbound, we turned off onto US 321 and wandered into Gatlinburg. We're staying at the Twin Creek RV Resort just north of town a mile or so. We have a nicely shaded site in an older park that is well kept. All the interior roads and sites are paved, the utilities are good, and, with some fussing with non-compatible connectors, we were able to hook up the cable tv. Nice place, but only about 1/3 full, maybe due tt being later in the summer.
We arrived early enough to take a short six-mile ride along the Roaring Fork auto tour. This loop runs through forests of pine, oak, tuliptrees, hickory and ash, chestnut, magnolia, maple, birch, and black locust. With a thick carpet of rhododendron below, this apparently tangled mess thrives with abundant rainfall and a prolonged period without frost.
Periodically an opening provides a view of the Lower Appalachians.
And then back to the Green Tunnel.
Numerous turnouts are scattered along the route, and we stopped at most of them. At one stop we were enveloped in a cloud of butterflies. Only two stayed still long enough to get a photo!
The community of Roaring Fork was settled about 160 years ago by people in search of new ground to farm. In the 1830's this was the frontier, but by the turn of the century some two dozen families lived in Roaring Fork, along the banks of the creek with the same name. Life was hard in Roaring Fork, with only a rough road down to Gatlinburg. The mountains above have names that say something: Piney, Brushy, Rocky Spur, Scratch Britches.
The road was built with hard labor, where men turned out with pick and shovel to level high spots, fill ruts and move rocks. This was done year after year, but somehow the rocks never got fewer! No one when anywhere unless they really needed to. The only means of transportation were simple: foot, animal back, wagon or sled.
This old cabin wall follows the contour of the chimney. Or is it the other way around?
These logs measure 17 inches wide. Imagine felling large trees and cutting the logs, then placing them in the proper place!
Ephraim and Minerva Bales raised nine children in this small two room cabin. Called a Dog-Trot due to the space between the large living area and the kitchen that was at one time closed in to protect the family dogs and provide additional sleeping space. "Eph" and "Nervie" owned 70 acres of rocks and cultivated 30 of them. The rest were kept for firewood and construction use.
It's such a beautiful place....what happened to Roaring Fork? Where did the people go?
When the national park was established, the residents had to leave. A few were given lifetime passes to stay due to age or illness. A few were given special permits to stay and farm, but that didn't work out very well because regulations wouldn't allow them to farm in the ways they had learned in childhood. They couldn't cut firewood, The couldn't hunt and fish. Life became almost impossible and most left. We are left with the bones of their hardscrabble lives as a reminder how impossibly courageous our pioneering families were.
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