Vacation October 22, 2020

Drove to Gatlinburg, TN. We did not take the expressway (I81) which would have been the fastest way, but rather took Route 321. This took over two hours. I enjoyed the drive a lot.

In Gatlinburg, we found that the Sugarland Visitor's Center was completely full. I dropped Connie off so that she could use the restroom, and I drove around the parking lots waiting for her to come back out. There was line of people waiting to go into the actual Visitor's Center, (COVID distancing) so Connie skipped getting any park maps or anything.

We drove to Cades Cove and stopped at the campground store to use the restrooms and buy some bologna and cheese for lunch. As we entered the Cade's Cove area, we saw a sign that said it could take up to four hours to drive around the 11 miles of the Cade's Cove loop. It didn't take us 4 hours but it was 3 1/2 at least. It was pretty much bumper to bumper and often stopped despite the signs telling people not to stop and not even to idle.

This is pretty much what we saw of Cade's Cove

We did not stop at any of the sights. I think Connie got out of the car once to take a few pictures of the meadow. It's pretty enough country, especially with the leaves changing, but not worth this trouble.

We drove back to the Sugarland area and waited in line for thirty minutes, bumper to bumper, waiting to turn left onto route 441 to go up into Gatlinburg. When we got to the Hilton Garden Inn in Gatlinburg, I realized that our reservations were for Hilton Garden Inn in Pigeon Forge. So back in the car, more waiting in traffic and it took 90 minutes to get to the hotel, normally a 30 minute drive.

Connie had a Web conference that she wanted to attend at 7 PM so we just had time to order dinner at the hotel (Hilton Garden Inn) and take it to our room before the Web conference started. The food was decent, and fit the need for the schedule we were under.