Starbuc71

Great trip report. We used to go every year when we didn't own a rv. The last time we went about 7 years ago we had our last MH, (as in the one before this one, due to the fact that we did go over the mtn with the MH towing a car, and we almost lost our brakes, traded it in soom after). I would love to get back there some time in the future. Think it would be a great place to have a GG!!!

Lorna,

I spoke with owner of the campground about group gatherings and she stated she had hosted many. One of the bigger ones was the outbackers group from outbackers.com That site is dedicated to people who own keystone Outback TT and 5er's. They even have a clubhouse to use free of charge for pot lucks and what not. It was one of the fist things that came to my mind on this trip on how it was a perfect place for a GG

Our Scout Troop goes skiing at Ober Gatlinburg for their December campout every year. So I think the skiing is pretty good, since they return year after year.

Anytime to go skiing is a good time in my book. I have never been able to ski out west yet, so I am happy with mediocre conditions we get on the east coast of the country

Awesome TR! We love the Smokies and go often. I am not that fond of Gatlinburg's touristy stuff, but I love the surrounding area.

I have to call you out on this, though.

A high temp in the 80's has never been recorded at Clingmans. It's quite amazing how different the climate is on the highest peaks of the Smokies.

Here's some weather data from the 4th.

Your right, it was in the mid 90's down in the town and Piegon Forge. It was cooler up there, but the wife still did not want to do the hike. We had the 90 degree wheather on our mind from walking downtown. It's 9:30 on a Friday night, I guess I got to get my head on a lttle straighter...lol

On with the show.... With all the trip reports now being posted, this report is starting to loose it's steam. I'm going to try and wrap this up today or tomorrow. We next decided to go up through the new found gap road that cut's right through the smokey mountains. If you never have driven this road, it's a must. I would add that you would be crazy to pull a trailer or a 5er through this road. Here is a view of the road from New Found gap

Do you see that small road? It meanders for about 36 miles between Gatlinburg and Cherokee NC. It's absolutly beautiful in the fall months

I had to take a picture of this RV. I can't believe he drove this up then down the mountain. You can't see it too clear, but there were many parts including a ladder and bumber that were being held with duct tape including access doors

Here are some pics from Clingmans dome which is a slight higher elevation than New Found gap

This is a close up shot of the 3/4 to a mile hiking path to the observation tower. With it being 95 degrees out, we opted for the close up on the camera vs. the hike

Her's my daughter at the bottom of the entrance to the park

After some more sightseeing in the car, it was back to the campgrounds. Here are some more random shots of the campgrounds

The next day was a pool day. Our children love the water so this was a nice "free" day. My oldest is just learning to swim and the shallow end at 3 feet was perfect for learning

Next up will be a ride through the cades cove area then into piegon forge and finally wrapping up the trip with the visit to our favorite theme park, Dollywood

As our trip continues, we are still walking the streets of Gatlinburg on Friday. Near the center of Town, we stumbled upon one of my favorite places

This Cooters place. It's kind of like a museum and gift shop/memrobilia for anything and everything Dukes of Hazzard. Some of you may know who have been to Gatlinburg, Cooters used to be located at the end of town with a replica General Lee, a Hazzard County Patrol car and cooter's tow truck out front. This year it apparently looks like the city was going to use that land for parking or something and Cooters moved to a better location. Here are some pics

You can find just about anything here relating to the Dukes of hazzard. From real props to t-shirts mugs and whatever

As I stated in my last post, we ran into a celebrity. Can you guess who it is?

It was Rick Hurst. Rick played Deputy Cletus Hogg on the series. Don't ask me who the kid in the pic was. The line was long and I at least need to get a pic. I forgot to mention, Cooters is actually owned by Ben Jones who played cooter in the series. Being that it was 4th of July weekend, he had some star power at the shop. I thought to myself that he as aged, but when I did the math........ I was 9yo when he was playing Cletus probably at age 30. So all in all, he looked GREAT.

It is tradition in dowtown Gatlinburg every year that they have the first Independence Parade in the country. What I mean by that is that they have a huge parade down the main strip at exactly 12:00AM complete with huge animal balloons, floats and bands. Unfortunaley, since we have the little ones, there was no way of seeing this parade. I was bummed, but I'm sure one day we will be the morons up at midnight to watch floats and marching bands. I was a little bummed though as we were walking out of cooters the sign stated "Catherine Bach, this years MC for the 4th of July parade" I was 1/2 tempted to go but o' well

Next the wife and my daughter hit the chairlift ride on the main street

By this time we were hot and tired. We needed to get the cold A/C of the car and do a little sight seeing

Torreya State Park is in Liberty County and it is on the Apalachicola River. There are people who believe that it borders the Garden of Eden (as proposed in the book by E. E. Calloway) and is where Noah's Ark was built. Torreya trees are believed to be the infamous gopher wood. Here is a link to the website. It is truly a gorgeous park and I have spent many days exploring there. torreya park

I will have to check this place out. never heard of it but it sounds awesome especially for Florida

Hey we park in that same place when we go into Gatlinburg too! :banana: It seems we also eat at the same restaurants.

When we were there in October they had the parade of General Lee cars down the main road. We missed it, but still saw plenty of them over that weekend.

My kids all remember that from the Ober Gatlinburg tram you can see the Barbie House. They keep asking us if we can stay there. :rofl2:

That is a good parking lot. We never have a problem parking there. We usually have good meals everywhere in Gatlinburg except for one place that we will be talking about soon

Yes, your son looks completely overwhelmed!

Have you ever been to the Saturday night car show at Old Town in Kissimmee? Someone there usually has a Herbie all set up that honks and blinks and does "Herbie things" He always draws a big crowd,and it's fun to watch the kids' reaction.

My son is too young to get the big picture yet...lol I used o go to Old town alot when i had my 68 Camaro. That kinda faded away when I traded it for wife and kids...lol Old town is a neat place. On of the only nice free places in Orlando to enjoy

DW and I ate at the Cherokee Grill on our last visit and really enjoyed it.

I am really enjoying your report. We absolutely love visiting Gatlinburg and the surrounding areas.

I can't wait to see if you all did a lot of visiting inside the park!

:popcorn:

We will have to hit the Cherokee Grill next time. I think I'm about 1/2 way done. I have some pics of the park coming up

It's been years since my last visit to Gatlinburg. I love the pictures of the cars,the museum is something I would definitely do. go figure. I like cars :rofl2: Thanks for sharing :banana:

I think when the kids get older we will do the Star Cars thing. I want to do it every trip since I'm a car buff...lol

Thanks again for posting this report!

I have never been to Gatlinburg, but now I'm ready to go.

I would be all over that brewery with the pretzels and cheese dip!

Plus now I know where there is a secret parking place!

Have you ever been to Gatlinburg in the winter?

Has anyone reading along ever been in the winter?

I'd love to visit there sometime when there's snow on the ground.

My two youngest DD's have never seen real snow.

I would want to rent a cabin for that visit- can anyone recommend a place?

TCD

Glad your enjoying. There has been a lot of trip reports to compete with latley...lol I have never been there in the winter. Before the kids we were there in the middle of Nov., but no snow. I hear in Jan, Feb and sometimes march, there is decent skiing at ober gatlinburg but down in the town there is not heeps of snow. believe me it does not compare to Colorado for skiing but for first timers to ski or snow tube, it's allright. One of these days we talk about renting a cabin and spending Christmas up there. We have never rented a cabin, but I hear most are pretty cool depending on price, view and location and many even have hot tub on the outside deck. Gatlinburg is a great place. I can't wait til the kids get older so we can do more of the free things the national park has to offer as far as hiking and other free things

Why of course! My apologies in advance Starbuc for the temporary hijack.

You are making me go old school now. I don't want any wisecracks about my hair either. These photos were actually taken in April of 2004 so it wasn't actually winter, but it was cold and as we were driving over 441 from Cherokee to Gatlinburg we saw snow! I have also been there during January when it was really cold, but didn't get any photos.

DS8 was DS2 at the time. Man how time has changed!

As far as cabin rentals, we have stayed at several places from Townsend to Gatlinburg. We have stayed at Black Bear Falls in Gatlinburg many times and have enjoyed it.

http://www.blackbear...s.com/index.asp

We haven't stayed here, but really want to someday. We drove through here on our last visit to Gatlinburg and it was really nice. Granted it was about 5 years ago, so things may have changed.

http://gatlinburgfallsresort.com/

Great pics Tom. We hope to see snow there someday also

Thanks, Tom!

I'll talk to you about this some more some time.

Since you specifically requested it, I won't make any cracks about your hair.

Those are great photos!

If anyone else has any recommendations on accommodations in Gatlinburg, please share!

TCD

Andrew, here is the link where we stayed pre-camper/kids. http://www.deerridge.com/index.html it's not a cabin, but a nice resort about 10 miles outside of gatlinburg near the village of Cobbly Knob. I believe they do have a few cabins to rent and they have many more around the complex. We were always very satisfied staying here. It's quiet and the views are awesome. They also have Golf real close if you play

Love it Starbuc! This CG looks beautiful! Thanks for sharing your great photos... looking forward to hearing and seeing more. :)

Thanks, I should have more this evening

Wow, how beautiful is that state park and the Gatlinburg campground. I think that's what I love the best about camping-just taking in the scenery. There are parts of Oklahoma that are just gorgeous. OKC is a great place to live but doesn't have any pretty scenery. I think I would love to visit Gatlinburg one day.

We love vacationing here and would recommend anyone to at least visit the Smokey national park at least once. I'm sure you would be back for more

It was now about 6pm our fist night in Tennessee. As I stated we were hungry. A few years ago we stumbled upon a restaurant call Smokey Mountain brewery and Restaurant. It's located in Downtown Gatlinburg and is just a tad off the beaten path. They are part of a restaurant group that also includes a few more great places

This place has soft fresh bavarian pretzels seved with warm beer cheese dip. We loved these which made my wife remember the place. Here is the website http://www.coppercel...ainBrewery.html The food is really good and thier selection of thier own micro brewed beers are pretty good. We almost ate here twice over our trip but we knew we needed to check out new things.

If you have ever visited Gatlinburg, you know Parking is tight. The brewery restaurant is located on this little side street which looks like a small village. There is a huge parking lot at the end that seems like many do not know about. this is prime parking to walk the shops. here is the path leading th the lot

After a good dinner and a 1/2 day of driving it was time to head back to the RV and call it a night

The next morning we decided to do the Gatlinburg thing and take in all the shops and what not. We got up fairly early, got the kids ready and was heading into town by 9. We parked in our "secret" parking lot and headed for the streets of Gatlinburg

This was a sister restaurant to the one we went to last night

We never have ate here but heard good things about it. very rustic mountain look.

This is called Ober Gatlinburg. It's a large cable tram that will take you to the top of one of the mountains where you will find a lot of touristy crap in my opinion. We did not go since we have been up there before and it was nothing to write home about. They do have Skiing in the winter at the ski facility which does look good. They also have a bear exhibit which is really poor, an ice skating rink, a short alpine slide and a few crappy gift shops. If you have never been up the tram, it's worth it to do it once and that's it :)

As you all know, Gatlinburg is a small Mountain town known for it's arts and crafts and especially thier touist shops and restaurants. My daughter loves pancakes so a stop at Flapjacks was on the list

Next are a few shops. There are many side streets that resemble small villages with many shops. It's quite cool

I had to take this of this new restaurant bar located on the strip

Don't you love the name?

Of course the Bubba Gump Shimp Co. was still there. I have never eaten there. Is it good or is it just a novelty like planet hollywood. being a former Chef, the hole in the wall places are uually the best

...And of course what is a tourist area without some sort of Star Car attraction. I have always wanted to go in here but the wife could not see spending the $60 dollars or so for all of us to state at cars. I was temped, but she was right

You have all your regular famous cars like Bumblebee

I guess they coundn't afford the newer version...lol

The original Batmobile

I like this better than the newer version

The General Lee..come on, it's Tennessee, this had to be here....lol just kidding

And no star car place would be complete without the Flux Capacitor

Coundn't I have drove an hour and 1/2 to Orlando to see this? Probably..

But wait..... Something was missing, someone very, very important. he had to be here. I looked and looked and there he was, all shinny and new like he just rolled off the big screen

You could see my son was just as excited. Actually Herbie has been the main attraction parked out front for years. His hood opens and lights will blink at you. And to make it even better, Star cars got a new edition a while back. they got a hold of a one man herbie that was used for years on the Disney on ice show which traveled around the country.

If you look close enough, I noticed when I got home that I happened to get the mini herbie story on the easel in the back

Next up, the Starbuc family runs into a celebrity and the "General Lee" lives

They have Yurts at Torreya State Park here where we live in Florida.

Where is Torreya State Park. Sounds like an interesting name. Is it an interesting park?

Glad you enjoyed Red Top, we have stayed there several times since it is about an hour south of us. Never had a problem always happy. They have several trails which parallel the Lake, great fishing and swimming at the Lake.The unfortunate thing is they closed the beautiful Lodge that is there. We always enjoyed eating there when we camped. State budget constraints have closed several in GA.

I think when the kids get a bit older I would not mind staying there longer. Our kids get bored real quick at thier ages right now. I agree with you on budget constraints. Our wonderful governor here in FL is actually looking to close some parks to save money. Some are now even closing 2 days a week. have you ever heard of such a thing?

This is great! We love Smoky Bear Campground. For awhile we were spending all our fall breaks there. Then my son got really busy with football and gas prices went up :argh: so, the last time we went to Gatlinburg we ended up not taking the camper and just staying at a condo right in town. I really missed being at the campground. I love that when I would call to make reservations Chong would really take the time to find out about what you were towing, how many would be there and try to find the best site for you. Then when you get there they go out of their way to make sure you are happy.

Compared to the fort, smoky bear is our favorite campground. I just wished we lived closer. There is not much to it, but the owners like you said are super nice and it's a great place to relax and be out of the hustle and bustle of the tourist areas

Looks like a wonderful campground!

We usually take the same route you mentioned along 321 to Gatlinburg. The scenery is great and Wears Valley is a pretty neat little town. I can't imagine pulling a rig that way though.

Great Job! Can't wait for the next update.

Taking 321 saved us about a 1/2 hour in the long run. I bit a few nails off taking the road over to Wears Valley but we made it. With the gas mileage we get you have to make sure through mountian raods you have the gas or your screwed. i am starting to realize that a pop up can get you many more places at times and also some nice campgrounds that the 30fter won't

I can't wait to read more - thanks for sharing!

With the amount of pics, I'm almost 1/2 way there

This report is great!

I always enjoy seeing other campgrounds, and hearing about other people's experiences in them.

It looks like you timed this trip perfectly in terms of gas prices.

I understand completely about the back-up you hit on I-75 south of Ocala. Been there. Done that. More than once. Not a good way to start your trip.

But, it looks like things smoothed out for you after that.

That State Park in Georgia is gorgeous. You are right about Florida's State Parks. We should be embarrassed.

I love the looks of your campground in Tennessee.

I'm looking forward to hearing more about your trip.

Thanks for posting a report!

TCD

Yeah, the Ocala part sucked but overall, that was the worst thing on the trip and happened right at the start. We could have had far worse problems. Your right, we should be embarressed by some of our state parks. If Gov. Scott has his way, we will see less of them in the near future. Don't get me wrong, I love Florida but I think what I like most about the fort is that at times you feel like your not in FL. I guess you had to grow up in the North to understand what I mean. More to come.....

As usuall, i forgot to ad the website for the campground. From the site map you can see the layout of the campground

http://smokybearcampground.com/index.shtml

Well, it's thursday morning and it's time to leave Red Top mountain. We got a great night sleep after a full day of driving. I forgot to mention, did you notice the concrete picinic tables? I have not seen them in a long time. I guess it keeps people from moving them. As always I forgot to take some pictures entering the park. I guess coming in is the same as going out. In this pic, 75 is right on the other side of those hills just over the bridge

The lake which this park is on I believe is called alltoona lake. by the map you can see it has many fingers and coves. Here is a pic after the bridge and look twords the lake

We were on the road by about 9:30. I couldn't pull another 6am. We were on vaction right?...lol The wife was smart and packed some breakfast items in the truck so we did not need a hour or so delay at the cracker barrel like usual. By this point I believe we were on our 4th fill up. Once we hit Chattanooga about 11am I stopped for another dose of fuel. I was surprised to see in both GA and TN regular gas was an average of about $3.34 per gallon. Not that that was great, but it helped compared to the $3.55 we are paying in and around Tampa. Getting gas while pulling the camper is the thing I hate most while camping. When we go to the fort, I always make sure to fill to the top before we leave and then fill up after we set up at the fort so we don't have to stop on the way home. We usually burn about 3/4 tank from our home to the fort. On a trip like this, it's always a crap shoot to see if you picked the right exit with a large enough station. With 20ft of truck and 20 ft of trailer, a lot of you know it can be a pain.

Around 1:30pm we were passing by lenior City which is a small town off of 75 in TN. In past trips we would always get off at Lenior City which for some of you more locals will know, this will cut over to Maryville via 321 to Townsend then through Wears Valley to Piegon Forge. We were leary time since the last trip here we ended up tearing our awining due to some scary hairpin turns and tight mountain roads. The other alternative was to go all the way through Knoxville and over to 40 then backtrack back to Gatlinburg. I guess i was feeling adventureous and decided to take the shorter route. to know surprise, it was a sucess. The last time we met a 40ft 5er on a hairpin turn and he was not budging so it was I who scraped the rocks. Not this time :) We finally arrived at Smoky bear campgrounds around 3pm

Don't pay attention to the dates on the camera since the battery kept dying and I screwed up all the dates. As I stated, this campground is one of our favorites. it is owned and operated by Barry and Chong O'leary. You could not ask for better host of a campground. This place has just about 50 campsites all with full hookup including electric, sewer, cable and water. 9 of the sites are concrete pull throughs while the others are back in quarry stone. They also have four cabins for rent along with a truck camper that is permantly on one of thier sites. There is also a small primitive camping tent area twords the back which looked like about 5 or so sites. Here are some pics driving into the campgrounds

here is the owners residence and also the camp store and office

This was the first time we were able to enjoy the pool at smoky bear since usually we are here in October or November. hre is there pool which is located right across from the office

This was looking at the pool from the other side with the office to your right. The 9 concrete pull throughs are lined up in the back of this shot

And this was looking at the pool/bathhouse from the back side through an empty back-in site

A couple things I forgot to mention and did not take any pics of (another Duh?) the store has a lot of basic items and also some local craft items I belive made from the owners and other locals for sale. they do carry camping supplies, cold drinks and a variety of other items. On the porch of the office is your typical brochure rack with all the pamphlets of fun things to do in the smokies.

I did not get a chance to viisit the bathhouse since we usually shower in the RV, but while at the pool, my wife took my a daughter a few times and she said they were super clean. the bath house is the large building on the backside of the pool with ladies on the right and gents on the left

We had booked this trip about 2 weeks after Christmas in January. I figured like the fort, holidays would book fast. Chong told me back then that people who stay more than a week, she tries to get them into some of the more roomier and spaceous sites. When we arrived, she gave us site 18. Boy were we happy. this was an awsome site. It was the largest site in the place, it was half shade and half sun, it had a grass area for the kids and it did not back up to the road. Just about every site has some sort of gardening done. Ours had a large flower bed in the front and it could not have been any better. Here are a few pics of the site

After set up was time to wash up and get some grub. the wife and I were starving and she wanted to head to one of her favorites in the smokies. More to come.........

Great start. I know what you mean about pictures, I never remember my camera. The ones you did take look really nice. Your kids are precious.

I need to get a new Camera, I have the old kodak digital that everyone had back on 03 and it's bulky. One of these days. The kids always look the happiest when were camping

I just wish we had state parks in Michigan as nice as the ones down south. I'll be waiting patiently to read more :popcorn:

Actually the state parks in Ga don't even compare to the ones in FL. We actually stopped camping in the ones in FL due to most are dusty and very tight spots (ask lou about Ft. Desoto) Have you ever camped up in the UP? We were at a park called little girls point right outside of Ironwood Mi. that was real nice

I have been waiting for this report!

I knew you were going to Gatlinburg and staying at the Smoky Bear Campground right? We have family in Kingsport and love that area. I can't wait to read your thoughts on your stay, we have been eying this place for a while.

You are off to a great start and I can't wait for more.

With all the trip reports I was going to wait but I said what the heck. If you plan on going camping around Gatlinburg, I highly reccomend Smoky bear. I will get into that place down the road

I love state parks and Georgia has some really nice ones. I have never been to Red Top, but it looks gorgeous! I am looking forward to hearing more.

From what I could see Red top was a very nice place to enjoy a beautiful lake and awesome camping. If anyone here has camped there, please chime in

Well those are just cool :banana:

If you mean the pics...thanks, if you ment the Yurts, I thought so too. It may be a GA thing since I believe a place called Durahamtown (an ATV park) has them also. Donnie may have more info since he's been there

Looks like a great park. Looking forward to reading more. :popcorn:

Thanks Dave. A new installment should be on the way

I've said it before and I'll say it again unless you had joined back up you'd be our lost fiend that wasn't in the flock. The pics look great and I can already tell this will be a multi page report that I look forward to reading. As of late this place should be called tripreport.com lol. Hope to see some updating soon.

Thanks for talking me into coming back. Hopefully I can add an installment every night. I think I took around 100 or so pics. It was really a great, non-incident trip

You're off to a good start! I'm still stuck on "a 40 foot pull through site with water & cable for $25" Holy cow, sign me up! Looks like a beautiful place, looking forward to the rest. :popcorn:

That's what i said. How can you beat $25. I have to admit the cable really sucked but I didn't care. What a great place for a relaxing GG even if I don't partake...lol You should check it out

I forgot to add the website for Red Top Mountian incase your all wondering what the heck is a yurt?

http://gastateparks.org/RedTopMountain/

7/8/2012- UPDATE.... Many of you know we take our annual trek to gatlinburg, TN every 4th of July. This year was no different...and i mean no different. Below was our trip report from last year just about everything this year was mirroe image of last year right down to the same camping sites and visiting the same resturants and attractions. I guess some can call us boreing people taking the exact same vacation, but I call it planing a perfect vacation that we never get bored with. For some fiends that have joined after this trip report ran it's course last year enjoy the whole trip. Just picture my kids a year older and the dates on the pics changed to 2013. For the ones who already read this feel free to enjoy again.

Dave

Well, here it is. All of you knew I took a break from the fiends site for a while. My intention was to return when we came back from our summer vacation with a cool trip report. And as most of you know, I came back a little earlier to clear my name....lol, well, not really. Anyways, every year we take one big vacation which is usually at least 7 - 8 days. For the past 2 years we have been doing our normal 4-5 long weekends at the fort (remember we live about an 1 1/2 away) and usually (1) long whole week at the fort usually sometime during the MNSSHP. Before the kids and pre travel trailer, the wife and I would vacation in and around Gatlinburg Tennessee every year. As the kids and camping came along and our first trailer grew from a 17ft hybrid to our now 30ft toyhauler, Tennessee was a tough trip. But this year, we decided to load the Hess station in the back of the truck and make the trek. Now I know a lot of you fiends are from up North or out west and getting the fort is a major trip in it's self, but since we usually only hang around FL with our long weekends, this is a major trip for us. My wife and I are in the same business so it's sometimes hard to get time off together. We were lucky and got 12 beautiful days off in a row.

I have to admit, I am nowheres a good trip reporter in terms that I forget to carry my camera alot and always say sh$@ after we passed something and forgot to take a pic. But I think I got some good shots so you all get the idea of our trip.

We stated our trek on Wed. June 28th. We planned to be on the road by 7am and actually for once got going by 6:30. We were supposed to leave Thurs. but we thought to get a good start on Wednesday and drive 1/2 way or at least past Atlanta. I searched online to find a good overnight stop. Nothing fancy, just close to the interstate and fairly safe. We stumbled upon the Georgia state Parks website and came across Red Top Mountain State park. It was about 20 miles north of Atlanta and literally right off 75. Normally for an overnight stop we would pick a KOA, but nowadays, it's hard to find decent ones without a lot of permanant scary campers. I don't mind, but the wife and kids do. Some of you may be familiar with Red Top Mountian park. All I have to say is WOW. What a nice park. The park is huge. We arrived there about 5:30 due to a 2 hour back up on 75 right near Ocala. For those familiar with 75, all northbound traffic from Wildwood where the tunpike merges with 75 to past Ocala was closed. We took farm roads for 2 hours. I was hot. Anyways back to Red Top. We reserved a 40ft pull through for $25. It included 30/50 amp, water and cable. How can you beat that. We explored the campground by foot since herbie sat this trip out. What an asome campground. For people with pop ups or smaller trailers, the lake front sites rock. Below are a few maps

Here was our site. We never unhitched and the traier was perfectly level. We dropped the jacks, pluged in with elec. water and cable and we were set

The kids loved the exploring. There were many huge rocks and the kids love to climb

These shots were looking down from our site. If you look at the map, all the pull through sites were located together, I believe there are like 12 or 14 pull throughs

We grilled out since once we set, we were set for the night. We took along walk over to the other size sites near the lake. They were beautiful and so was the lake. Wouldn't you know, I forgot to grab the camera on our walk...duh. As I stated the park is huge and we were not able to explore the whole park. I believe they have rental cabins, rental boats, picnic shelters and even a yurt...which is a new kinda tent thingy to me.

Tomorrow is a ealy day back on the road to Gatlinburg.......

Andrew, Another great report. I feel bad for the hoopla with transportation issues getting to the poly and back. My wife and I always say it would be nice to split a few more boats up to be able to travel directly from the fort to the poly or the GF. On a good day it usually takes 45 minutes each way no matter what plan you choose. It's always like clock work when we are at the Contemporary we just miss the boat going straight to the fort and it's usually at least a 1/2 excusion just to make it back. Not fun at all when you have a tired 5 yo and a sleepy 2 1/2 year old on the dock.

Brief thread jack:

Whip, We KNOW you wouldn't be buying that stuff......you have your own life time supply of the much better and more economical stuff........pwease....... :rofl2:

end thread jack.

I have to say the awning tape you can get at camping world is awesome stuff. We tore our awning a few years ago and the tape worked so well, I never replaced it. We keep a roll around for our grill cover when it rips from time to time