Story and photos by Will Chappell, Contributing Writer
This past week was spring break for us at Middle Tennessee State University. I’m still avoiding flying and indoor public places until I can get Evusheld, the vaccine equivalent for immune suppressed people and my car was totaled in December and the supply chain crunch is delaying its replacement. So, I asked my dad if he’d like to take a short road trip for a couple of days to North Carolina to visit my grandmother’s childhood home of Salisbury and his childhood home of Winston-Salem while also driving through Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
He agreed. We had a wonderful time exploring the Great Smokies, taking a trip down memory lane and eating some great food.
We hit the road on Tuesday morning and set our sights east, towards Sevier County, Tennessee. Somehow, after twenty years of living in Tennessee I had never visited Pigeon Forge, but I have now remedied that oversight. Our first charging stop of the trip was at a Tesla Supercharger (he drives a Model S) in Pigeon Forge, the tourist capital of the Appalachians. From indoor snow tubing and a replica of the Titanic to an upside down building and indoor skydiving and every kind of dinner show, distillery, miniature golf-course, go-kart track and weaponry shop in between the town has the full smorgasbord of options to help tourists spend their money— and I didn’t even mention Dollywood. We didn’t spend time doing any of the activities, but the town has a vibe that would be best described as a smaller version of Las Vegas but with the gambling replaced by a Panama City Beach, Florida menagerie of family-themed attractions. I want to go back to get a fuller experience of the place, which is something I did not expect.
From Pigeon Forge we pushed on to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I had driven through the mountains on Interstate 40 at least a dozen times and took a day trip to the world-famous Tail of the Dragon bordering the southern edge of the park last year but never made it to the nation’s most visited National Park. The park reminded me of the reasons why I love the Great Smoky Mountains. After spending a significant portion of last year crisscrossing the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and Utah, I was worried that the mountains with peaks standing around the same height as the bases of many of those mountains might underwhelm. But those fears were completely misplaced.
We stuck to Newfound Gap Road, the park’s main road, which crosses into North Carolina around the eponymous Newfound Gap at over 5,000 feet of elevation. Unlike many National Parks and monuments entrance to the park and access to the scenic drive is free of charge. Owing to this, on the Tennessee side the road was extremely congested with spring break holidaymakers, but after crossing into North Carolina it opened almost completely making for a much more enjoyable run into the small town of Cherokee. We were also lucky to see a herd of twenty to thirty elk along both sides of the road as we neared the exit from the park.
Cherokee stood as a captivating contrast to the commercialized spectacle of Pigeon Forge on the other side of the park. The town, named for the Cherokee tribe of Native Americans on whose reservation it sits, was much smaller in scale and scope than the monument to American 21st-century vacation culture presented on the other side of the border.
It featured a good number of hotels and motor lodges, a gold prospecting experience and several restaurants and small museums. It seemed that most of the buildings in town had been constructed in the 1950s or 60s and reminded me of towns along Route 66 or in coastal Maine. It seemed quaint and nearly deserted compared to the hustle and bustle of Pigeon Forge. While I’m sure it gets busier in the summer, Cherokee represents the 20th century American road trip pathos of small resort towns catering to a more local clientele, which has since been supplanted, first by the interstate system and then the affordability of air travel. But it’s clear from Cherokee’s survival that the charm of a less commercialized holiday still appeals to some significant portion of the American public. The casino located just outside of town surely doesn’t hurt either.
From Cherokee we made our way to Salisbury, a town about forty-five minutes north-east of Charlotte. My grandmother grew up there and my dad had come often growing up to visit grandparents. I highly recommend stopping in at College BBQ if you ever find yourself in that part of the world. The town is also home to the law office where President Andrew Jackson read the law before moving on to Nashville later in his life. We stayed the night there and visited my grandmother’s grave and other spots of personal significance to my dad before driving to Winston-Salem, where we did more of the same. In Winston-Salem we also stopped at Dewey’s Bakery—where I recommend trying the Moravian sugar cake— before setting our sights east for the trip home.
In lieu of crossing the mountains on Interstate 40, which we had both done many times before, we had decided to take the Cherohala Skyway from Robbinsville, North Carolina to Tellico Plains, Tennessee. The 43-mile stretch of road was completed in 1998 at a cost of $100 million and was one of the best drives I’ve experienced. On a Wednesday in early March the road was almost completely deserted and in the 43 miles we only saw five other cars. This allowed us to take our time enjoying the stunning beauty of the Great Smoky Mountains. The road took us from sunshine into the clouds of fog hanging on the sides of the mountains, past waterfalls and through the forest with a nice mix of switchbacks, sweeping curves and straightaways along ridges offering breathtaking views on each side.
In comparison to the Tail of the Dragon which lies about twenty miles north, the skyway is much less technically demanding of car and driver, instead offering a great road surface and engaging elements while affording drivers to take in the views. It also had more than a dozen overlooks with impressive vistas and several hiking trails. The only downside to this beautiful piece of tarmac, is its remoteness. Robbinsville is an hour and a half from Asheville, and you are deposited into Tellico Plains, an hour, and a half from Chattanooga. Undoubtedly, this isolation contributed to the solitude I so enjoyed, but it requires time and a commitment to just enjoying the road as there are no attractions to speak of close to either end. But if you have a chance, make the trip to experience one of the best driving roads in the country.
From the end of the Skyway in Tellico Plains we headed for a Tesla Supercharger outside Chattanooga to top up for the final push home. Although none of the roads were as impressive as the skyway, I enjoyed the beauty of the Appalachian foothills and the western-style, railroad-driven layout of Etowah, before the familiar drive from Chattanooga, over Monteagle, through Manchester and home. It was a short trip, but a great change of scenery and reminder of the beauty of the Great Smoky Mountains, North Carolina and Tennessee.
