Tennessee

June 15, 2013: we had a pretty good sleep at our campground. We started to break camp around 7am and hit the road. It was a pretty drive thru Great Smoky Mountains National Park with more rolling green hills, tunnels thru the mountains etc. When you exit the park you are in Gaitlinberg which we know of from Johnny Cash's song, 'Boy Named Sue'. This place is like Vegas in the middle of TN. Every chain restaurant is there, souvenir shops, etc. so strange to exit a national park and find this. The next town was called Pigeon Forge which is like 2 mile street lined with tshirt stores, rides, go karts, it's like being on a tacky boardwalk. We took the kids to one place to go on rides. They did the pirate ship and swings. Then we took each kid on the go karts. After we drove up to Knoxville and checked out Nyland Stadium where Tennessee plays. We love exploring stadiums. We had sort of snuck in and saw the media/press room, luxury suites, ran on the field and went to the way top. Half of the stadium is very old and run down and the other part is brand new and impressive. We ended up being stuck inside for a little bit right when the kids were breaking down getting hot, tired then we finally found an open gate. We had a picnic lunch and set out for Nashville. We arrived at our friends the Scott's house, our great friends from New Hampton School. The kids played and we all caught up and had a nice BBQ on their deck.