Blue Ridge Farceway

Today was not a good day. Firstly, it was raining in the morning, and it rained steadily all day, which is enough to put any tourist in a bad mood, but our experience with the Blue Ridge Parkway made it worse.

The Blue Ridge Parkway is a tourist road (no commercial traffic) which runs along a high ridge of the Appalachian Mountains for 469 miles in Virginia and North Carolina. The information about the Parkway proudly proclaims it to be a "designated All American Road" which requires it to have such exceptional and unique qualities that it is a "destination unto itself" and "the road must provide an exceptional travelling experience so recognised by travellers that the primary reason for their trip would be to drive along the Byway". This requirement places All American Roads well above "National Scenic Byways" which apply to a lot of particularly scenic roads in the US.

Well sadly, the Blue Ridge Parkway is a farce. Today it is closed in no less than 12 separate places, the closures totalling 241 miles of the most scenic (highest?) parts of the road. The closures are due to "ice and snow". Trouble is, we have seen almost no ice and snow anywhere on this trip. Even around ski resorts, the only snow visible is man made. The entire southern 80 miles of the Parkway, from Cherokee to Asheville, which we particularly wanted to cover, is closed.

Why is this "exceptional travelling experience" completely ruined by these closures? Our enquiries reveal that no attempts are made to clear the road, so travellers wanting to enjoy this All American Road have to wait for very old ice to melt naturally in areas where sun probably never reaches in winter. We have travelled the Rockies in winter, and mountain passes twice as high as anything in these mountains are kept open during snowstorms, and in exceptional circumstances, seem to be opened within hours of really heavy falls. Surely, no other American tourist attraction, not to mention one claimed to be as exceptional as the Blue Ridge Parkway, is treated with such contempt by its guardians.

Before we get flamed, let us emphasise that in no way are we criticising the staff of the National Parks service which, apparently, has responsibility for the Parkway. We are confident that the Parkway is being neglected due to underfunding, and that the staff are doing the very best they can with the limited resources available to them. Surely the "blame" belongs with the bureaucrats and politicians who determine the budgets available to the Blue Ridge Parkway, this road of exceptional significance. Shame on whoever is responsible for this!

Good information is available from recorded messages and from very helpful visitor centre staff on where the road is open or closed at any particular time, and what the best alternate routes might be. It's a pity that notices on the road itself about closures are virtually non-existent. Maybe the budget again?

So, our drive from Asheville to Boone which should have been 100 miles of the Parkway, was actually less than 10 miles of the Parkway (with hardly a trace of ice or snow), and the rest of the way on alternative routes, including Interstates and US Highways which hardly give the same experience.

This drive had its highs and lows. The scenery was both interesting and delightful once we were off the I40, and we saw some quaint mountain towns such as Black Mountain, Old Fort (which we would have missed if were on the Parkway, and Clare got cappucino at a friendly shop in Black Mountain) and Blowing Rock.

We tried to see Linville Falls which is supposedly one of the most spectacular sights of the Parkway, but it required a 1km bush walk, and frankly it was raining too heavily, and the path was slippery. We can't blame the bureaucrats for the rain! The Parkway visitors centre at the Falls was closed as was the State Forest visitors centre (a cute shack, photo). Why are these Centres closed? We are quite concerned at the tendency to close businesses and services down in winter when there are still tourists about (these mountains abound with ski resorts, after all) and most of them are accessible.

We tried to visit Blowing Rock, a natural feature in mountainous country apparently characterised by exceptional updrafts. Sorry, it's closed for the season, and because it seems to be on private property, not even able to be looked at from a distance.

We think the value of the Appalachians, and the Blue Ridge Parkway, is the exceptional natural beauty of the area, and the quaintness of the towns and small settlements. There is little or no value in the commercial capture of scenic beauty (Blowing Rock as mentioned, also Grandfather Mountain), turning them into tawdry attractions and theme parks. It's a shame that this exploitation has been allowed to occur in such an exceptionally beautiful region.

Driving slowly along the Blue Ridge Parkway today would have been a perfect way to spend a miserable rainy day or two. The scenery would surely still have been glorious. Instead, we missed that opportunity, although the other road was still good. Hopefully, the weather will improve - that will improve our mood considerably - but we doubt that anything quick will happen to open the closed sections of the Parkway.

The Vanderbilt's Country House

We had originally planned to skirt round the Great Smoky Mountains on the I40 and then drive the Blue Ridge Parkway near its southern extremity at Cherokee NC, but we were stunned to hear that the Parkway is closed throughout North Carolina due to snow and ice! We have just driven over the Smokies on the day after the last storm, and there is barely a flake of snow to be seen. We cannot fathom how the Parkway can be closed, but we do understand that the road is not snow-plowed, but has to clear itself naturally. This is a stark contrast to the approach we saw two years ago in the Rocky Mountains, where mountain passes twice as high as anything on the Parkway seem to be cleared within hours of a snowstorm. These are isolated roads of course, and therefore very important, while the Blue Ridge Parkway is a tourist road with lots of alternatives available.

Anyway, we had been advised by both Jack's friend, Mike, who lives in Washington, and our friend Judy from Greenville that when near Asheville NC, we should not miss the Biltmore Estate. We were not sure we wanted to take up these recommendations, having previously visited Versailles out of Paris, and Schoenbrunn in Vienna. But in the end, while waiting for the snow on the Parkway to melt, we made the pilgramage to Biltmore, and the investment of our time and the entry fee was amply rewarded.

At 8000 acres, the Estate is huge. The drive around it is about 11 miles long. The gardens are large and immaculate, and were designed by the same fellow who did Central Park in New York. There was once a working dairy, which provided the town with milk, but it has now been replaced by a huge vineyard and winery, which now markets Biltmore wines. We sampled some of the wines, which were very good! There are other tourist attractions now, a farm and horse stables, not to mention walking trails, jogging, bicycling, carraige rides [photo] and even Land Rover off road driving experiences. There is a large inn, for people to stay on the estate.

The highlight of the visit to the Estate is Biltmore House, the largest house in the USA. The house's exterior is very ornate, bringing to mind Windsor Castle and Notre Dame. The house was built by George Vanderbilt in the 1890's as a "country home". It is interesting to see this house and the furnishings, as there is so much of Europe incorporated there. Many tapestries, on the walls, all the furniture in the rooms, and the art works. For example, all the bedrooms are themed in such a way that you can almost guess the name of the room from the art on the walls, all European. The European palace approach of having narrow passageways between the rooms for servants to scurry has been adopted at Biltmore. Of course there are very practical American touches, specifically that all the bedrooms have ensuites. This would be an innovative idea in Europe, even today.

Sadly, photography is not allowed inside the house. There is a winter garden just inside the front door which is stunning. The main dining room is beyond description, it even features a huge pipe organ! The circular grand staircase goes from bottom to top and wraps around a gigantic multileveled chandelier. While the tour of the majestic rooms of Biltmore was as impressive as you would expect, possibly the feature of this tour which made it partly unique and certainly fascinating was the visit to the servants quarters, the kitchens, the pantries, the laundries etc, all in restored condition. We even saw a blower room which powers the organ upstairs, and a "mechanical" walk-in refrigerator. The washing machine was a sight to see!

Biltmore seems way ahead of its time: it has a bowling alley, an indoor pool and a gymnasium. We are guessing the house was used in the winter, there is no outdoor pool, no tennis courts etc, so maybe the Vanderbilts had a beach house as well, for summer use. Obviously the grounds would have been used for hunting, and shooting, geese, deer, etc., and there were large lakes for fishing.

Biltmore House did have an outdoor bowls area, and extensive vegetable gardens. Still functioning is a beautiful conservatory [photo], with many plants we recognised, all of which would grow in a Sydney garden all year round, and were flourishing in the hot house conditions, even pineapples!

The Estate is still in the Vanderbilt family, but it was opened to the public in the 1930's as a means of helping Asheville with tourism during the depression. Despite the entry fees, and the wine and merchandise sales, one would not assume that the "business" makes too much money. Maintenance of the grounds and the buildings would cost a fortune, and there are great numbers of staff employed.

Cades Cove

We stayed at Gatlinburg, Tennessee, just on the northern border of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Our hotel room has a balcony overhanging a gushing river, and the town itself is a theme park in its own right, full of (apart from gunshops) a wide array of amusements (exemplified by Ripley's Believe It or Not) and rides, all no doubt designed to separate tourists from their money. Despite this, it is a very pretty place, jammed between mountains and divided by numerous rivers and creeks, and populated by tourists who seem to be totally unprepared for cold weather, judging by their clothing and footwear. We saw the same in Florida, but there, cold weather is unusual, here it is surely the norm! The next town, almost joined with Gatlinburg, but lacking its mountainous location and charm, is Pigeon Forge (it's on the Pigeon River), also full of motels and fun parks, and very busy with tourists. The photo shows fishermen in the Roaring Fork Creek or Little Pigeon River in the centre of Gatlinburg.

There is a ski resort above the town, although you cannot see any snow from the town. Gatlinburg reminds us of Jindabyne, but much bigger and flashier. We drove up to the slopes and still did not see a flake of snow, so it must be 100% artificial at the skiing area. We didn't go past the car park, because at 5pm, they still wanted us to pay for a day's parking. It is certainly cold enough here to make snow, and they have more than enough water.

We spent the day at Cades Cove, an old remote community from the 1800's in a wide valley surrounded by mountains, where "homesteaders" or "hillbillies" lived before the land was acquired for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Cades Cove is a long, twisty, slow 30 mile drive out of Gatlinburg (along the Little River, being enjoyed by kayakers), and then to see the Cove you drive round an 11 mile loop (reserved for pedestrians and cyclists on some days in summer). It was a beautiful cool, sunny day, and it was so nice to be in this Shangri-la-like hidden valley where about 700 people once farmed and raised crops. There were several restored churches and houses [photo], with barns. We saw old waterwheel mill, a forge, smokehouse etc. The visitors' centre there was very impressive, with lots of information.

This is a very popular area, and the limited roads were quite crowded. People were fascinated to see wild deer - one can only imagine their reaction if a black bear appeared! The Cove has large empty fields and visitors really wandering off into those fields and enjoying the relative solitude and quiet [photo]. We think this Park, and Cades Cove in particular, is quite unique in the USA.

The descendents of the original Cades Cove families have a reunion every year, and we note that many of them are still being buried in the tiny cemeteries at the churches there.

Judging from their number plates, many people visiting Cades Cove, and indeed in Gatlinburg, were from the nearby states, Alabama, Georgia, and Nth Carolina and most were from Tennessee. We figure this is a popular place for weekends away.

The Great Smokies

In Greenville SC, we met up with old friend Ralph and his wife Judy, who generously invited us to stay at their beautiful new home. Thanks very much Ralph and Judy, and we hope we get to repay the compliment in the future! Ralph showed us around the delightful and recently restored historic downtown area of Greenville. The Reedy River flows through town, and the rejuvenation of this district has rendered the area beautiful and charming.

On this drive + walk, we discovered that the Poinsettia is a flower of Mexican origin but introduced to the US by a Greenville resident Joel Poinsett who became the first US Ambassador to Mexico. We also saw the beautiful campus of Furman University, within walking distance of Ralph and Judy's home.

Ralph and Judy advised us on a scenic route into the Great Smoky Mountains (GSM) which was to be our next destination. We followed this route, and found it to be (as warned) circuitous and extremely twisty, but as it climbed into the hills, it passed through delightful countryside and towns, such as Cashiers and Highlands. This route looks as if it is very popular in summer, but it was reasonably quiet for our drive. At the latter town, we found a great place for cappucino. It seems the arty and touristy towns are reliable sources of espresso coffee outlets!

We eventually arrived at Cherokee at the southern gateway to the GSM National Park, and decided that there wasn't enough time to cross the mountain at leisure, so we stayed the night. Cherokee is a big touristy town, full of "trading post" type souvenir shops, located inside the Cherokee Indian Reservation. The town is getting quite a lot of work during this off-season. The photo shows one of many painted bears which decorate the streets of Cherokee - they are quite cute!

Indian reservations in the US are allowed casinos to provide a solid source of financial support to the native populations. This is no doubt one way of compensating the Indians for atrocities performed in times past. In the Cherokee's case, the entire nation was marched to Oklahoma by the US Government in the 1830's, the famous "Trail of Tears", where few survived.

Hopefully the Cherokee Casino (and all others for that matter) is distributing wealth where it is most needed, but we found it quite dispiriting, a dark and very smoky place populated by sad looking and addicted gamblers. We remember someone saying that gambling is a tax on stupidity. Casinos are certainly habituated by people with poor mathematical skills, otherwise they would know that they are going to lose! The fact that gamblers seem to smoke heavily is perhaps another indicator of their intelligence.

We spent a fine but mostly overcast day in the GSM National Park. The drifting mists which give rise to the "smoky" were well and truly in evidence, and the park was amazingly beautiful. After an overnight downpour, the rivers were flowing apace [photo at a bridge over the Oconaluftee River], and the waterfalls were plentiful and magnificent. The altitude of the park is not so high (Newfound Gap is at 5046ft), so it's partly above and below the snowline, leading to the slushy and slippery conditions that also grace the Australian Snowy Mountains. We only attempted about a mile of the famed Appalachian Trial, and found the walking conditions quite challenging [photo].

At the vistors' centres, we learnt a lot about the history, flora and fauna of this Park. The GSM National Park is effectively the only wilderness area on the eastern side of the USA, and it only came about through the cooperation (sometimes grudging) and contributions of many landholders, residents and schoolchildren, and commercial stakeholders, including logging companies who had already logged 80% of the area, and the governments of Tennessee and North Carolina. A most important donation came from the Rockefeller family. The biodiversity of the park is stunning (a movie at the visitor's centre explains why) and precious, and accordingly we found it quite unnerving to see a lot of gun shops in the town of Gatlinburg on the north side of the park. These shops are here for a reason!

While considering where to stay after our Park visit, we looked for Dollywood at Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. It's missing! We found the car park, but not the theme park (which is shut for the Winter anyway), and not the "emporium" which is supposed to be open.

Georgia on our Minds

Travelling north out of Florida, we moved up through the middle of Georgia en route to the Great Smoky Mountains. We avoided Interstates as much as possible, although at Tifton we were lucky enough to spy a Starbucks advertisement so Clare could get her fix for the day.

Although she would not normally have coffee from Starbucks in Australia (not great coffee, paper cups!), espresso has not taken off so much on this side of the USA,and cappucinos can be very hard to find. If you stay off the beaten track, you can travel 100's of miles between espresso shops, and a Starbucks outlet thus becomes a welcome sight.

We deviated to Andersonville to visit what proved to be magnificent National Monument commemorating Prisoners of War. Our Navman had some trouble getting us here, but we made it in the end. Andersonville was the site of the biggest Civil War prison camp on either side (it was a Confederate camp), and due to how the camp design contaminated its own drinking water, it suffered the highest number and percentage of prisoner deaths. The cemetery here was large, crowded and most moving. The dead soldiers were originally identified only by numbered stakes, but, after the war, the lady who established the American Red Cross (and others) painstakingly went through the records and identified the soldier associated with every numbered stake. Now these names of these soldiers appear on small tombstones across the cemetery. Like all war cemeteries, this is a very moving place.

But more fascinating is the site of the camp itself, about a kilometer away, with some reconstructions and other devices to clearly show where the wells were dug (in a desperate search for water during the hot summer drought, and to build escape tunnels), where the stockade (perimeter fence was), where the "deadline" was inside the stockade, beyond which any prisoner would be shot, and where Providence Spring appeared after a downpour to save the lives and quench the thirsts of the prisoners. The photo shows this site and some of the numerous memorials erected by the northern states to show where their citizens tended to congregate in the camp. Apparently the men from the individual states tended to stick together for better morale and peer support.

The museum at this historic monument features an incredibly gruesome and moving movie reconstruction of life inside this horror camp. The museum itself seems to memorialise American POWs of all wars, as well as foreign POWs held in American camps.

Although we spent a night in the large city of Macon (rhymes with "bacon"), we cruised up through Georgia mostly on back roads and passed through some delightful little towns, such as Juliette (where the movie Fried Green Tomatoes was filmed, centering on the Whistle Stop Cafe, see photo). Andersonville itself as particularly charming, as were places such as Monticello and Eatonville. In this last town, we stumbled across a very cute cafe which served cappucino, so we stopped there for a break. The photo shows the inside of this cafe, which was preparing for a lunch rush. While we were there, the phone rang repeatedly with people asking what was on - it was chicken pie and squash casserole, with rice and green beans!

We started to notice that the lakes and rivers are at very low levels. The "high tide" marks are well up from the present water edge, and some boats and wharves are particularly high and dry. There is a serious drought in this part of the US.

Up the Middle of Florida

In the spirit of trying to avoid Interstates as much as possible, we followed US27 North from Miami up to Gainesville Florida. This route proved to be interesting, although not terribly photogenic. US27 is an excellent road all the way, and was very quiet down south, but progressively got busier and busier.

For the first several hours, US27 looked to be going through the Everglades, with swamps and canals the main thing in view. The swamps gave way to massive development work to drain them and clear them, and then we saw massive sugar farms, and a lot of turf (lawn) growing as well. For a while, much of the traffic on the US27 was very large sugar trucks and machines which look like cane cutters. Full sugar trucks were headed towards occasional large sugar mills, with empty ones going in the opposite direction.

The Lake Okeechobee region and the busy town of Clewiston (where we stayed) seemed to be the centre of the sugar industry. US27 through Clewiston is called the Sugarland Highway, and the town proclaims itself as the "sweetest in America". There was a fishing tournament going on in Clewiston, banners welcoming the participants, and the town was full of enthusiastic boaters. The RV parks were full, but it was pretty quiet in the town's hotels.

Clewiston is rather "off the beaten track" (meaning any town not very close to an Interstate!) and as such, should not have to put up with intolerant and demanding city slickers like ourselves. We walked out of one restaurant which was so overwhelmed with its clientele that night that no waiter came to attend to us (it had just opened a few days earlier, and everyone in town was trying it out, we think). The next restaurant we tried had already been recommended to us as "excellent", but the food was nothing special, the service was charming but naive, and the billing system was primitive. The truth is, legendary American efficiency does not always extend far outside the cities, and it doesn't in Australia either, so we shouldn't be so critical!

Lake Okeechobee is a large natural lake, about 40km square, which once flooded causing massive loss of life and property, so it has since been surrounded by a large levy bank and intensive water management (which gets blamed for water shortages in the Everglades downstream). The lake is only 14ft above sea level, quite amazing given that it drains to the Everglades and is nowhere near the sea. The levy bank itself provides great recreational opportunities (biking, picnicing etc), and incorporates many boat launching facilities to accommodate the fishermen. The lake is strange in that inside the levy is an artificial channel of deep water, and inside that is a lot of shallow or marshy areas, and then inside that, the lake proper, linked to the outer channel by radial channels [photo].

North of Okeechobee along the US27, the sugar industry gives way to oranges (we passed a town with a massive juicing factory), and the countryside becomes what could be called "the Lakes District". The road passes literally dozens of small to large lakes (including Lake Placid), many of which are mostly built up around the edges by holiday homes and boat sheds. Many of these look charming and are very picturesque. The towns around these lakes are obviously very popular with recreational boaters and RV campers. We have never seen so many large and exquisite RVs and fifth-wheeler caravans as we have in this part of Florida, and the state is particularly popular with Harley Davidson riders too, who patrol around usually in small to medium groups, mostly grey power, some couples.

The photo shows a cooperative specimen of local fauna (species unknown to us) which met us in the grounds of a very quiet Visitors' Centre near Leesburg.

From the lakes district north, as the US27 bypasses Orlando to the west, the path of this highway is almost 100% built up and urbanised. The towns look to be not so significant on the map, but on the ground they seem to link together to become a huge (or long) suburban sprawl. In some areas, the development is very new and affluent, other parts look to be older and maybe a little bit jaded. We are impressed that the new developments appear to incorporate excellent roads and to gain their commercial infrastructure at the same time as if not before the bulk of the residential development. This forward planning does not seem to occur in Australia. We are not so sure about public transport, trains or buses. The planning paradigm in the USA seems to revolve around motor vehicles, and often even sidewalks (footpaths) are overlooked. We see very few pedestrians except in very poor areas, or "retirement" suburbs, or along beach paths. We normally wish to walk to restaurants at night if they are within a kilometer or so, but often we cannot due to lack of sidewalks or lights.


By the time the US27 arrived in Gainesville, the weather was again cool but sunny, and we realised that it was now looking like what we remember of Georgia, especially Savannah, lots of very large trees with Spanish Moss hanging in them. We have at last left the swamps of the Everglades!

Gainesville itself is a delightful university town (University of Florida), leafy and low rise. Most streets have marked cycleways, and although these are not safely separated from cars, their very presence shows a refreshingly different planning attitude prevailing in this town. We looked at an intriguing geographic feature known as the Devil's Millhopper, a very large sinkhole which supposedly resembles a mill hopper. This deep hole is traversed with walking trails where we took the photo.

The Florida Keys

We made the long trip south west from Miami to the Florida Keys, and to the very end at Key West. It was worth the effort, even though you have to come back exactly the same way, something which we are normally philosophically opposed to. The Keys are unbelievably beautiful, although possibly developed beyond their capacity. They consist of 700 islands, according to the guide books, many of which are linked together by the southermost part of Route US1 (a pretty good road) and dozens of bridges, many large, and one seven miles long.

As you pass down US1, the major towns are Key Largo, Islamorada, Marathon and then Key West, with plenty of lesser towns in between. You can see the Gulf of Mexico on the right, and the Atlantic Ocean on the left. Lots of the Keys are reserved as State Parks, thank heavens, but where developed, there are whole suburbs of beautiful waterfront houses, and many very cute marinas. The crystal blue water on both sides is a haven for all forms of recreation, boating, sailing, fishing, kayaking and diving. It's just like paradise, but maybe a bit too crowded. US1 is just a two lane road much of the way, and it's steady heavy traffic in both directions.

Stunningly, the Atlantic coast of the Keys was quite calm during our visit, and judging from the look of buildings and seawalls etc, it is calm most of the time. Maybe it is protected by some offshore reef, but we were quite surprised to see a total lack of surf on this ocean side.

The "African Queen", the boat which starred in the movie of the same name, is in the marina at Key Largo. It seems to be available for cruises, but it doesn't look very seaworthy to us.

Key West itself is a very pleasant town which effectively fills up its island. There are streets and streets of historic and beautiful old wooden houses, some very grand (such as Ernest Hemingway's old house, and the "little White House" used by quite a string of US Presidents). There are also some very beautiful public buildings, such as the old Customs House [photo].

Key West proves to be the epitome with Florida's contact with the Cuba and the West Indies. The town seems to have a lot of Caribbean people and culture, voodoo and the works! We ate one night at Kelly's, a very nice restaurant (in Pan Am's original offices, apparently) which supposedly specialises in exotic islander tastes (but not that much on the menu reflecting this, and our waiter didn't know much about it either, he came from Argentina).

Key West is only 90 miles from Cuba, and is the southermost point in the continental USA (even though it's actually not on the mainland). A marker to this effect is a popular tourist attraction [photo]. Key West developed and grew at least partly because of the profits from "wrecking", the salvage of valuables from the numerous shipwrecks in the area: there an excellent sculpture commemorating this.

During our visit, Key West was hosting a major sail race week, so the town is full of yachties who seem to know how to enjoy themselves in the bars and restaurants in the evening. Luckily, a sponsor of this event was a Barbados rum company, so cheap Caribbean cocktails were available all over town.

The port area of Key West is very beautiful, being next door to the little White House area, and enjoying a marvellous redevelopment by a resort hotel, and an interesting market area. While we were there, there were two cruise liners disgorging their guests into the town for a day visit. We noted an exquisite luxury yacht from the George Town in the Cayman Islands, "Meteor", moored in the marina. The older part of the marina is more down to earth, and features many rustic restaurants and bars. The last photo shows a developed island off Key West, as seen through the ropes of a moored cruise ship.