We're So Blue, Blue, Blue, Blue, Ridge Parkway

So, we got this half-baked idea to take the granddaughters on a vacation. Perhaps this was out of some guilt-fed concern that we don’t see or do things with them enough, or there was some kind of grandparental vacuum that needed to be filled.

The girls get journals to record the trip

But in any case, we invited granddaughters Hannah, 12, and Sadie, 11, to join us on a trip to the Smoky Mountains with a couple of days at Dollywood to drive the point home how great their grandparents really are!

We picked them up and headed for the Smoky Mountains with the idea that we would go to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, followed by a section of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Enjoying the pool

The first day mostly involved driving from Louisiana to a place relatively close to the park. Turns out that was Ft. Payne, AL, where we got a motel with a swimming pool that the girls absolutely enjoyed!

The creek at Cade's Cove

It was a long day and we all crashed early.

The next morning we rose early to drive the distance to the park. The GPS routed us through Knoxville, but Opa (Capt. Larry) found an earlier exit that cut our driving time to the park in half. We drove to the park’s Cade’s Cove section before we realized that we really wanted to be at the northern visitor center of the park.

At the visitor's center

We found a picnic area and had lunch. There was a nearby creek in which children were wading and the girls wanted to join. About a half hour later, we reversed course and made our way to the center. There, we bought the girls Passport Books and got their stamps at the cancellation station.

Getting the stamps!

They also collected memorabilia to scrapbook in the travel journals we bought them. They were excited. We poured through the center’s exhibits and watched the video about the park in the theatre. We had just missed the 1400 Junior Ranger’s program and felt the guided nature walk at 1500 would not fit our schedule, so a visit to both visitor’s centers and a drive through the park would have to suffice for this park.

We left the center and started our journey through the park. The Newfound Gap road runs from the Sugarlands Visitor’s Center in the north to the Oconaluftee Visitor’s Center to the south, essentially dividing the park in half.

The girls' first park!

The girls were thrilled riding through the mountains, but we knew that they would really be wowed when we got on the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina. We arrived at Oconaluftee Visitor's Center, viewed the exhibits, took some pictures, collected more memorabilia, and headed out of the park. We had originally planned on staying in Waynesville, NC, but when we saw all of the private motels with vacancy signs in Cherokee, NC, the girls voted to stay there. Cherokee is on the reservation of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation.

The Oconaluftee Visitor's Center

It would also provide quick and easy access to the parkway tomorrow. We found a motel in the heart of the Oconaluftee Indian Village and on the Oconaluftee River. It was perfect. After checking in, the girls hit the motel’s pool, but it wasn’t long before they were asking to go into the river. The water at its deepest only came to their waste, but it was cold and the current was swift. After supper, Opa worked on the blog and Mimi (Jane) took the girls to the WWII Cherokee monument and the Indian village to cruise the souvenir shops.

Wading in the Oconaluftee River

Returning, we had supper and again turned in early

The parkway

Up early the next morning, we had breakfast at a nearby restaurant, and then drove to the entrance of the Blue Ridge Parkway. We weren’t on the parkway 20 minutes before we started hearing oooooh’s and aaaaaah’s, and these mountains are sooooooo beautiful!  

At an overlook

The girls were especially captivated by the clouds that hung over the valleys giving the impression that we were driving above the clouds. And so began a series of overlook stops and encounters with the twisty turns and switchbacks that the roadway administered. So caught up with capturing the sights on their phone camera that they started deleting selfies of themselves lest they run out of storage space!

The beauty of the Smokies

After traveling about 85 miles we came upon parkway’s southern visitor’s center. We stopped to stretch our legs and collect this service unit’s stamp and more memorabilia. Two miles up the road was the Folk Art Center sponsored by the Southern Art Guild?

Folk Art quilt

The center’s galleries were amazing and featured folk art in a number of different materials­­—cloth, wood, leather, natural, ceramic, metal, glass, and others. We all enjoyed viewing the artwork very much. The center had a picnic area and it was lunch time, so we had a quick picnic lunch and then resumed our parkway travel.

Highest point on the Blue Ridge

We had entered the parkway with a ¾ tank of gas, and after a particularly long stretch it became apparent that we would have to exit at the next available access. Well, that exit turned out to be Route 80. We weren’t sure if this was a state or county road, but it hairpinned and switch backed straight down the mountain for 10 miles from where we started. Of course, the girls thought that this was great fun and more exciting than any ride at Dollywood. Mimi started to get sick and Opa broke out into a clammy sweat as he careened the van down the mountainside. Ten miles of twisted hell and six more of much more civilized roadway brought us to Marion, NC.


We stopped at a roadside rest so Mimi could step foot on solid ground and  get her bearings again, and also to figure out how we were going to finish our day. We hadn’t traveled the parkway as far as we had originally planned, but obviously there were no votes to return. We decided to drive to Asheville, shop for a few things we needed, and spend the night there.