MARIETTE'S BACK TO BASICS

Wednesday, September 4, 2019

Passing Through Waynesville, NC Where Our Speckie Came From

For the very first time since January of 2010, we drove exactly past Waynesville, North Carolina on our way home from the Smoky Mountains on July 30.

This is our tiny Speckie on January 15, 2010...
We had picked her up on January 8, and Pieter showed me this photo of her, while I still was in the hospital. Got home on Saturday, January 16.
Got paralyzed the night after we came home with this tiny baby.
A look alike of the missing (kidnapped ?) Mama cat that we lost.
But this was a 2 month kitten so impossible it would be her.
We drove a long distance to go look at her...
Actually, Pieter did all the driving from Atlanta where we spent the night at the hotel before making it to Waynesville, North Carolina.

Pieter said, shall we bring her home, we have come such a long way... and so we did!

Now I was traveling on Great Smoky Mountain Expy 74 and very close to where our Speckie girl came from, see red marker!
She sure came from a beautiful area and also close to Lake Janaluska.

Here we are with the sign from Waynesville to the right...

Lake Janaluska must be to the left here...

Such a beautiful area...

Where was our Speckie girl born? Somewhere in this region...

Roads in the USA are always great!

Bye bye Smoky Mountains...

When we had breakfast that morning in Tennessee, I noticed that we were rather close to my youngest brother who was with his wife and daughter in Iceland on vacation.
ONLY 5,405 km or 3,359 mi away now!

Instead of the usual 7,190 km

Or usual 4,468 mi

Got home after this total trip of 1075 mi or 1730 km that is including drive up to the Creeper Trail in Virginia and then to Tennessee...

Thanks for your visit and comment!

Saturday, August 31, 2019

Gatlinburg Sky Lift Park Walking the Longest Pedestrian Suspension Bridge in the U.S.

After riding our bikes down from Whitetop to Damascus - Virginia Creeper Trail we went to Tennessee for a Cabin Stay.

On our second day stay at The Hill by Cherokee Lake, we drove to Gatlinburg, Tennessee which is only a good hour driving distance.

Yep, a WeFie of both of us as we are climbing to the top of Crockett Mountain to walk one of North America's longest suspension bridges!

Getting way up Crockett Mountain...
Sky Lift Park existed since 1954 but a deadly Wildfire destroyed it in the end of 2016...
It got rebuilt though and since the end of May it is again open to visit the newly constructed Sky Deck with its fabulous Rocky Mountain overlook and restaurant.

Two lines, coming down and going up so they help pull each other...

While I still was studying all this, they unexpected took a photo from us near the Sky Deck!
So we went ahead and purchased it, had it scanned into my iPhone...
Modern Technology!

The entire landscaping looked beautiful!
Behind Pieter you can see the length of the Sky Bridge

GATLINBURG SKYBRIDGE click for info
5' Wide or 1.5 m
140' High or 42.6 m
680' Span or 207 m

A very friendly Indian man took this photo from both of us.

Breathtaking view.
Oh, I'd bought the tickets on the Internet, so we could skip the line!
They put this band around our wrist that is valid all day.

There we go... Entering the on May 17, 2019 opened NEW SKYBRIDGE...
It was close to 14:00 when we started our walk across.

Admiring those sturdy steel cables!

Three THICK steel cables in One Length!
680 feet or 207 meter...

Looking down from SkyBridge down to SkyDeck and GiftShop Restaurant and SkyLift area.

Incredible view of the Smoky Mountains from SkyBridge!

My foot for comparison...

The Glass Bottom in the center part. My foot below and Pieter's feet and silhouette at the top...

Steel anchors fastened to a block of concrete below, for keeping those steel cables tight and to prevent swinging of the bridge.

For tightening the steel cables on the bridge...

Disturbing to see at the end of the bridge that they had cut out a piece of this table!
They have a canopy to shield against the sun and for seating, and to purchase some water or soft drink if needed.
Remember we were visiting Clingmans Dome in April? That peak is seen to the right.
Panoramic views of the Smoky Mountains are fabulous from up here.

The Great Smoky Mountains stretch along the Tennessee-North Carolina border and are a subrange of the Appalachian Mountains. They are called the Smokies due to the ever-present morning fog and majestic blueish tint. Great Smoky Mountains National Park protects most of the range and was established in 1934. It is America's most visited national park with over 11 million visits each year.

And then it started raining...
We ALL had to walk back to the SkyDeck for danger of lightning and being on an all steel bridge.
So we sat near the restaurant vendor area and here Pieter is getting a nice warm fanning from behind those beverage machines that needed cooling by fan, thus sending the warm air his way!

They started running the SkyLift empty for getting rid of excessive water before letting people sit in them...

There was still a queue of people outside waiting to ride down...
Now around 15:45...

At 16:15 we go down after having purchased also a Smoky Mountain poncho!

Cute Mama Bear and Cubs Statue...

Here we go down at 16:20 and notice that nobody is riding up?
The Park is open from 7:00 till 21:00

Still clouds and fog on the Smoky Mountains

Gatlinburg lies below...

Looking up how it rolls over cable...

A happy Pieter who enjoyed this adventure!

The Gatlinburg Space Needle comes into sight.

Almost back...

The Gatlinburg Space Needle a lot closer now...

Short Relive.cc video including the drive back to our Cabin at The Hill by Cherokee Lake in Tennessee.

A total of 3.5 hours including the rain interruption and the drive from Gatlinburg to Bean Station, Tennessee was 112.8 km or 70 miles.
We thoroughly enjoyed it, even if the rain did surprise us all!

Workers grab parts from a helicopter to rebuild the Gatlinburg Sky Lift click link
Kudos to the install team that erected those footers, towers, cross arms and sheaves using a helicopter and also for flying in all of its parts!

Hope you enjoyed it too and thanks for your visit and comment.

Related links:
Our Cabin Stay at The Hill by Cherokee Lake in Tennessee | previous post by me
Our Bike Ride from Whitetop to Damascus - Virginia Creeper Trail | previous post by me
Gatlinburg SkyLift Construction - Rebuild | After the wildfire destroyed the original one from 1954
Gatlinburg SkyLift - SkyDeck Construction, Part 3 | showing how the DkyDeck got made
SO Proud of my NONAGENARIAN | previous post where we went to Clingmans Dome together

Tuesday, August 27, 2019

Our Cabin Stay at The Hill by Cherokee Lake in Tennessee

So what is the background here?
After our Adventure of the Virginia Creeper Trail we did drive to Bean Station, Tennessee for our 3-night stay at the Log Cabin on The Hill by Cherokee Lake.
We had tried to stay there previously but they were fully booked!

Now we were lucky for having our 3 nights secured.

We are friends with Donna and her son Josh and the above photo I took on April 8, 2019 when we could not stay at their log cabin, due to it being fully booked.

Donna is the writer, I wrote about in a previous post: SECRETS of the Heart and you find the link below.

Josh, her son, also wrote a book in 2011, when his eyesight was still reasonably good... see links below as well.

YES, this young man is LEGALLY BLIND!

He works at Lions Volunteer Blind Industries in nearby Morristown, TN, where his Mom has to drop him off and pick him up again.

Josh is very fond of creating the BEST ambiance for a memorable vacation get-away with a unique experience!

Donna wrote in Alignable: About Us

We have a studio cabin vacation rental, available 2-6 nights

How We Got Started

My legally blind/partially deaf son and I relocated from Georgia in August, 2016, and found our two little cabines which we were able to buy in June, 2017. We added a third little studio cabin which houses our personal washer/dryer.

We decided to not only use it for our personal laundry use, but went to the fullest extent with my son's "blind design" as he refers to himself and made it a unique getaway. Our guests love it!

That much about a legally blind person, still going the extra mile for creating and designing a unique getaway...