Part 3 - vacation diary

part 3: After leaving DC we ventured to Virginia Beach for some sun and surf. It was not hot, but very pleasant most of the time with a little drop or two of rain. The first day there, Lilli & Effy wanted to do some shopping, mainly for clothing. The prices here are far less than in Denmark. So to Costco we headed. They loaded up on stuff and we headed to Macy's and loaded up on stuff there. It was a very nice and relaxing break to our trekking around museums and historical sites. We did moon lit walks along the boardwalk and pier and enjoyed a brew or two. After two days of this, we headed to the Great Smokey National Park in North Carolina and Tennessee. We detoured from the freeway to the Blue Ridge Parkway and wined our way along this small two lane road, stopping frequently to take in the sights and colors. Our first night there we stayed in the Cherokee side of the national park in a small valley called Maggie Valley. We visited the Cherokee Indian Reservation and a 1800's working village they have to show what life was like back then. The next day we entered the National Park again wining our way up and down the rolling mountains see the change of the season with the beautiful red and yellow leaf changes. The fog that rolls in and up the mountain is very weird, I can see now why they call it the Smokey Mountains, as it looks like smoke blowing up the mountain. Lilli & Effy did a little hiking on the Appellation trail. Judy and I enjoyed reading about the history of making the park while waiting for them. The next day we drove the Sweet-water loop road and saw many of the old homes and building left by the inhabitants who lived there before the National Park was established. We stayed a couple of nights in Gatlinburg, TN, which is a major tourist trap. The traffic is as bad as the Las Vegas Boulevard on a weekend. It is near Pigeon Forge were Dolly Pardon has several amusement parks, including DollyWood, which was not on our to do list.

After our Smokey Mountain tour, we trekked down to Atlanta, GA for our final leg of our trip. We cruised through the high rent district of the wealthy and the Governors Mansion before settling down for the night. The next morning before Lilli & Effy had to fly home we went down town Atlanta to visit the Olympic Centennial Park & CNN studios, then up to a shopping mall for a final day of purchases. We dropped them off at the airport and headed back home.

We left the airport at 3:30 pm on Sunday and arrived home in South Jordan at 5:30 pm Tuesday. Long days behind the wheel, but not a bad drive, until we got near the western Nebraska border. It started to rain and freeze so we spent the night in Sydney and had to thaw out the car the next morning. We had fog and wet roads all the way west to near Rock Springs, then it lifted to just high overcast clouds and it warmed up to near 50 from a morning low of 32.