Old Mill Village-June 3, 2011

Today we found a road that looked interesting and took off to see where it ended. It was another route through the mountains to Gatlinburg. This is such a beautiful area I really cannot put it in words. The mountains are so peaceful and soothing. We also stopped at Old Mill Village which is the exact spot where Pigeon Forge was founded. We had lunch in an old flour mill. What a fun environment! The food was good, too. We walked afterward and then struck out on yet another road. Ended up in Sevierville, only a few blocks from our park. We have one more road to explore tomorrow. They are having a rally here for a certain brand of 5th wheel trailers. Every single trailer that comes in, unloads and hooks up. Then they rent a golf cart to ride around and gawk at everybody else. There are so many of those stupid little carts, I want to play "shoot the duck" with a bb gun (not really) or at the very least, go out with flares and direct traffic. Would there be injuries if two carts collided doing a max speed of 7 mph? Probably not, but there would be a lot of screaming and yelling going on. We have never encountered this before. We don't see the need for it either. But to each his own. I did forget to tell you that yesterday after we explored the bird store, we stopped at the courthouse. There are only two bronze statues on the entire property. There's a beautiful eagle honoring all military personnel. It had a pretty floral wreath in front of it. The other bronze statue is of Dolly Parton. Not kidding. We were told that she gives a concert every year at Dollywood and all of the proceeds goes to children's programs in this area and/or to the public library. Bless her heart, how generous. Jerry said he did not care for this area too much until we found these back roads and also encountered some very nice local people. He really likes it now. So do I. We'll see what we find tomorrow.