Well I need to backtrack just a little. One of the things we did on Saturday was drive through Thomasville Georgia. I can tell, you are sitting there scratching your head saying what the heck is in Thomasville Georgia. Well the oldest landmark of Thomasville is The Big Oak. It’s a huge Southern Live Oak that apparently at one time was an acorn. Legend has it the acorn was planted around 1685 and is one of the original members of the Live Oak Society, enrolled in 1936. The interesting part of this, who knew there was a society for Live Oaks. This one is number 49. It has a limb span of over 165 feet and a trunk circumference of over 26 feet! So when you get to the tree if you use your smart phone and call a number and follow the instructions the camera across the street will take your picture. Hence the reason for our delay in writing about the oak, our picture wasn’t posted until Tuesday.

Yesterday we did some driving around the Bryson City area which is just on the outskirts of the Great Smokey Mountain National Park. We took a drive to the Fontana Dam. It’s a hydroelectric dam on the Little Tennessee River. Built by the TVA in the 40’s. It is the tallest dam in the eastern US and it took less than three years to build. Think about it, in today’s time it would take the government somewhere around 30 years to do the same thing. That is after it was agreed to by everyone in Congress.

We then took a drive to the Road to Nowhere. Not that I am dissing the government, but this was another brain child of the government. The road was promised to the citizens of Swain County during WWII when the government wanted to build the above dam for power. The government made everyone that lived on high ground leave their property, whether they wanted to leave or not. They took over 44,000 acres of people’s land. There were family cemeteries all over the area as well as a little town called Proctor. Long story short, for a variety of reasons only six miles of the road was built and it dead ends at the end of a tunnel. Hence the reason it’s called a road to nowhere. You get out of your car walk down a deserted road and go through a tunnel into a forest. Kind of eerie!! So this occurred in 1943 and the government finally reached a settlement in 2010.

For those of you that may have been worried about our steak and the grill. Good news to report, the grill worked and we ate our dinner!

The Smokey Mountain area is magnificent if you ever get the chance you should take the time to visit. Today we are off to Louisville. I don’t want to spoil anything but just let me say 2 words, Colonel Sanders!!