May 4-8, Mon.-Wed. We’re baaa…..ck!!! This is exactly where we started our 20 month long adventure in Sept. 2013 back out west for 2 winter seasons in AZ and a loop up the CA & OR coast, over to MT, and back down to AZ. What a long journey and awesome places se saw! Hard to believe we wound up back at the same spot in Sevierville, TN, at the same campground above Douglas Dam. It is a nice place among the trees and we have a small view of the lake. The campground isn’t very big but the price is cheap at $16 a night with water and electric . Down the hill is a swimming area plus boat launch and the lake is much higher than it was on our last visit. We also have a nice view of mountains across the lake. We have had great weather and sunny days so far.
Douglas Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the French Broad River. It was built in the early 1940s to meet emergency energy demands at the height of World War II, impounding the 28,420-acre Douglas Lake. The dam was named for Douglas Bluff, a cliff overlooking the dam site prior to construction. During 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt requested Congress to allocate funding for the dam. After the attack on pearl Harbor, construction of this dam became a high priority in order to generate power for national defense purposes, particularly in the production of aluminum & magnesium for wartime warplane-manufacturing. Construction required the purchase of 33,160 acres of land, 5,182 acres of which were forested and had to be cleared. This project also required the relocation of 525 families and 32 cemeteries, and the rerouting of several miles of roads. Supplies for the construction of the dam were hauled to the site by the Smoky Mountain Railroad, which had constructed a spur line to the site from nearby Sevierville.
Situated in an area where the Foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains give way to the TN valley, Sevierville has long acted as a nexus between Knoxville to the north and the Appalachian towns in the mountains to the south. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which is located approximately ten miles south of Sevierville. I don’t think we will go up into the park on this trip. We have been here several times and had hiked most of the main trails and taken the scenic drives. The other reason is due to the early crowds. It is only the first part of May and traffic is bumper to bumper already! Where did all these people come from? They can’t all be retirees like us! You can see some of the peaks in the distance from town, and with the dull haze, you can certainly see where “Smoky” came into the name.
We are just going to enjoy the views we have down by the lake. We can also say that we had our “bear sighting” in the summer of 2007, because we saw a mother and 2 cubs off to the side of the road. Pictures are a little blurred because it was early morning and trying to get in among all the other tourists following these bears was difficult. In the third picture, we watched the mother signal her cubs into the tree for safety and then signal again when it was safe to come down. Cute to watch. Boy, oh boy! To see these bears close up, people were just stopping in the middle of the road and then getting out of their cars without even pulling over! Crazy! But then again, if I had been driving (Doug pulled out of the way), I think my excitement might have gotten the better of me as well! By now, you know me and my wildlife!
Several major state and federal highways intersect in Sevierville. U.S. 441 commonly called "The Parkway," connects Sevierville with Knoxville to the north and the national park and Cherokee, NC, to the south. Great Smoky Mountains National Park straddles the ridgeline of the Great Smoky Mountains, part of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which are a division of the larger Appalachian Mountain chain. The border between TN and NC runs northeast to southwest through the centerline of the park. It is the most visited national park in the United States and was chartered by Congress in 1934. It encompasses 522,419 acres making it one of the largest protected areas in the eastern United States.
Before the arrival of European settlers, the region was part of the homeland of the Cherokees,which later forced the removal of the tribes. Many of the Cherokee left, but some hid out in the area that is now the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Some of their descendants now live to the south of the park. As settlers arrived, logging grew as a major industry and a rail line was built to haul the timber. Clear-cutting was destroying the natural beauty of the area, so visitors and locals banded together to raise money for preservation of the land.
Since I knew we were following I-40 straight East and would pass right by Knoxville, it was my idea to stop in Sevierville so I could return to my favorite scrapbooking store. A Scrapbooking Superstore! And it is just that! On our previous visit I spent a couple of hours+ and did the same thing this time! It is the largest selection of scrapbooking supplies I have ever seen! There is so much ‘stuff’ that you just can’t see it all. The main store is great and big, but the nicest part of the shopping is in their ‘discount’ store right next door. It is about the size of a small drugstore. Items that are marked down are given another 50% off when you check out. Cha-Ching! That was my green light to stock up! Might have to borrow a few bucks from Doug when my charges show up! I love the store so much because they have some of the most beautiful papers and embellishments that you can’t find anywhere else. I was told that much of their supply is created locally just for the store. Doug was a real sweetheart to let me shop for so long. (He spent his time in the bookstore.) Man, that was fun!
I like to buy one page of what I like. Then I scan it into my laptop for my scrapbooking files so I can reuse these hard to find pages over and over again. Here are some examples of the kind of pages found in this store. This doesn’t even begin to cover any subject to scrapbook that you could think of.
Now I can hardly wait for our next exploring adventures so I can use my love of scrapbooking!
You're as bad as some of those quilters out in blog land. I love your bear pictures. Don't forget Buz and Ned's when you're in Richmond.
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