Pigeon Forge, TN to Slade, KY (2015-06-09)

Today was a travel day, and with a little nagging on my part, I had Joe out of bed about 8:00, and on the road about 9:30.  It was 67 degrees when I got up, had rained more during the night, and we drove through mostly cloudy weather, in the low 80s, most of the day.  It took us 45 minutes to get through Pigeon Forge and Sieverville, then we turned the wrong way and had to turn around.  But that worked out, because it was a gas station with propane, and Joe had wanted to fill up with propane before we headed off on the next part of our journey.  But the price was $3.50, which he thought was a bit high.

In last night's travels, I did make one purchase, when I couldn't find any painted bear statutes.

Once we cleared the towns, it was a pretty drive through Tennessee.  We crossed two very large lakes -- Douglas Lake near Banetberry, and Cherokee Lake, which seemed to stretch forever.  Made us want to get John's and Bridgette's pontoon boat in the water here.

Douglas Lake

Cherokee Lake

He found a scenic lookout point at potty-break time, so we took advantage of that.  It was very pretty, great views, and a memorial to our veterans.

We spent a few minutes here to enjoy the scenery.

Along this stretch somewhere, we saw a pheasant right beside the road.  We first thought it was a turkey but decided it wasn't big enough (guess it could have been a baby turkey).  So we decided it was a pheasant.  Next up was the Cumberland Gap Tunnel.  Here we had to stop for a few minutes, then they let us through.  Don't know if that is security, or road construction.

This is at the Kentucky State Line, and we crossed it about 12:30.  There is a national park here and we considered stopping there but Joe is fighting a cold and I don't think he knew how long he would last today, so he just kept driving.  He had selected KY 11 as our travel route through Kentucky, but it turned out to be a very narrow, crooked road with not that much scenery, and he was too busy with the steering wheel to get to see much.  We finally found a place to pull off for sandwiches, but it was hard driving through here.  It finally improved, and we saw one deer just before we got to the Natural Bridge State Park near Slade, KY, for our stop tonight.  This is a lovely little campground, right on a creek, and we are creek-side. 

I kept struggling to stay awake all afternoon (that's what that hiking will do to you), and I really just wanted to take a nap when we got parked, but there was one washer/dryer here, so I opted to get my laundry caught up again.  We drove down the road to the Lodge for dinner, then drove around the park a little, but Joe is so full of mucous he can hardly breathe, so we called it an early night.