Tennessee trip

Fall break was the ideal opportunity to get away from it all and explore some more of this country.
On Friday, right after class, we left towards Nashville. The first stop on the way (after the WalMart where we got an extra sleeping pad), was Chattanooga. We hoped to see something from the Lookout Mountain, but apparently the Lookout Mountain was more a collection of attractions and a small town than a place with a great view. So we continued to Nashville. In one word: Nashville is amazing! Small bars with live music, great atmosphere... it's all about music! On Friday evening we just went from bar to bar and soaked up the atmosphere of Nashville. The next morning, we visitid the Country museum and Hall of Fame, and I found out that I don't know anything about country music. I couldn't recognize any of the classics we could listen to and there were very little names I knew. But now I have some idea of it. Afterwards, we walked up to Fort Nashborough. It's called a "fort" but it's a bunch of wooden baracks. Interesting... Then we went to the western part of Nashville, the area of the Vanderbilt university. There, in Centennial Park, they have a copy of the Parthenon. Nashville thinks of itself as the Athens of the USA, so they copied the Parthenon. Seriously... The next stop was Music Valley, where we visited the museum of the Grand Ole Opry and the Gibson guitar shop. We had some extremely sweet icecream in Music Valley too, and then we hit the road again, towards the hostel in Knoxville.

In Knoxville, we didn't visit anything. The manager of the hostel told us that it would be very quiet there on a Sunday morning. I thought that they would all be sleeping in, but apparently everyone there is in church on Sundays. By the way, a hostel in Knoxville is not what we're used to as a hostel. It had just two dorms, one with 4 beds and one it 6 beds. Very cosy!

So, on Sunday morning we went to the Smokies. We arrived via Townsend, where we made some rough plans in the visitor center. We had to go to the Sugarland visitor center, because we intended to do some backcountry camping (we decided that on saturday evening). So at Sugarland the advised us some 7,4 mile dayhike and then a 9 mile dayhike... I think the lady at the visitor center must have tought we were really fit, because the hike we eventually did was already enough. But first we got back to the car and planned to visit some of the waterfalls along the Cherokee loop or something like that. Until we saw the traffic jam in the park around Gatlinbrug. So we just headed towards Clingmans Dome and started off our hike. As we had this very intense preparation for the hike, we needed to be a bit inventive (using shoestrings to tie up our sleepings pads and using school backpack as our hiking backpacks). After a 2,5 hour walk along the Forney Creek trail, we arrived at our campsite and had a good time around the campfire with Aussie and local hikers. The next moring, we woke up and thought it was still very early... but it was 9:40... the light was shining bright on the top of the leaves, creating a wonderful sight. Actually the whole hike down and back up was a series of breathtaking sights. And the camping itself was something I never did before, there was just a place to make fire and something to tie up our backpacks in the trees so that the bears wouldn't attack in the tents to get food. It was so great being there, away from the traffic in the national park and away from it all. I've had my mind totally refreshed there and am ready for some heavy studying the coming week(s). The hike back up was quite a challenge. Especially the firs20 minutes, I was constantly out of breath and having a very fast heartbeat. But after about an hour I found my rythm and kept on going and climbing all the way back up to Clingmans Dome (about a 2000 feet higher than the campsite, so it was a steep hike up!). I'm proud of myself that I made it to the top, and in quite a good time.
Then we started our way back to Atlanta. We made a stop for lunch at Sylva, North Carolina, a very small town with a railroad passing it. In Georgia, we also had a look at the Tallullah gorge, and then we got back in Atlanta in the evening.
I really liked the difference between busy Nashville and the silent breathtakingly beautiful Smokies...