Inland sojourn

So we picked up the Enterprise rental car and started our two-week land trip, having lunch at a Vietnamese sandwich shop (yes, you read that right) in Charleston which we agreed was really yummy.  Springs rolls with peanut sauce, then very flavorful meats with crunchy vegetables in a toasted bun.  

Then we headed west and north through northern South Carolina, southern North Carolina and then northern Georgia (maybe not in that order!).    We noticed right away that fall had come.

 On the drive north through Georgia, we saw a few fields of cotton, something I normally don't see.



Tom found only small scenic roads for the drive.  We took two and a half days to drive about 8 hours over to the Smoky Mountain National Park.  Leaves there were past their peak, but we saw some pretty ones.
When we got to the Smokys themselves, I learned that you may only go into them a few ways and then, unless you're camping, you drive out of them the same day.  

We drove up to the highest part of the Smokys, Clingman's Dome, where there is a tower.  It started to sleet and we didn't climb it.

These berried trees were in many places at the top of the drive.  I should know what they are - a type of hawthorn?

You can see the sleet here - little white slashes.

We had just started down from that high part when Tom pulled over into a trailhead for the Appalachan Trail.   We saw that it was just 1.7 miles to the next trailhead.  He volunteered to let me walk the trail while he took the car on down to the next access.  So I got to walk awhile and alone.  Fun!

I came to a fence!   It turns out that the Forest Service had fenced 20 acres to keep out wild boar to protect a stand of bass trees.  They created this stile so one could walk up and over the fence at entrance and exit to the plot.

It continued to sleet while I was walking.

Tom was starting to walk the trail back toward me when I came out at New Found Gap.

  

Tom at the stream near the place we picnicked.

Cade's Cove.  Apparently a cove is a grassy valley surrounded by mountains.  This was very beautiful, but too popular.   We got stuck in traffic and Tom had to drive us out a back way that he knew that turned out to be so pretty and calm and took us down a nice log-cabin feel motel that overlooked more forested hills.

The day after we drove through the Smokeys, we took a foothills parkway over toward where Tom's son Josh and wife Stephanie live.  Here we could look back to the Smokeys.