Sunday morning, after getting breakfast at the hotel in Danville, KY, Joe and I set off for the Smokies. The drive isn’t a very long one, so rather than taking interstates, we jumped off and took some back roads south through Kentucky, until we joined up with I-75 just south of the border with Tennessee. The drive took us through part of the Daniel Boone National Forest, some beautiful country. Our meet up with Cathie was at the Sugarlands Visitor Center in the Smokies. When we got into Sevierville, and then into Pigeon Forge, what would have been a 20-30 minute drive into the park took nearly twice as long, traffic was very much like a weekday rush hour in Chicago.

We ended up having to park in the RV parking lot, and then walked over to the visitor center where Cathie was waiting outside on one of the benches. After the first of many purchases in and around the park for the rest of the week, and Joe joining the Great Smoky Mountains Association, we drove into Gatlinburg, got lunch, dropped off our rental in a public parking lot, and ventured back into the park to introduce Joe to it. We intended to head into Cades Cove, and stopped at a roadside bridge over one of the many rivers in the park. I took a few infrared photos from there, including the one below.

But, as it was early afternoon and a cloudless day, the light was very harsh, so we didn’t take a lot of photos. We decided to continue on to Cades Cove, and, ran into a traffic jam due to repaving. We found a space to turn around, and, realizing that we still had to go back into Pigeon Forge to check in to our cabin, we decided to leave and take care of that. We also needed to stock up on food and other items we would need for the week.

The cabin rental company’s office is right next to the Titanic museum, and I was hoping that wouldn’t be a metaphor for the rest of the week. We checked in, and headed to the cabin. It was quite an entertaining (and nerve-wracking drive) up some winding mountain roads to get to it. While the directions seemed complicated, it didn’t take us long to master them, as well as finding a shortcut that wasn’t mentioned by the cabin rental folks. We unloaded the vehicles, then headed back down to Pigeon Forge to get dinner, and then stock up. We got back to the cabin after dark, settled in, and made our plans for the next day.