Thursday, August 19, 2010

The Smokies and Kentucky's special - Day 22

We had a good sleep at the Spring Hill Suites, Pigeon Forge. Left the hotel after breakfast around 10:30AM. We stopped at the Grand Resort and Convention Center at Pigeon Forge since Ajo wanted to revisit the hotel after 10 years. A decade ago, the CSI conference was held in Pigeon Forge, TN. Hence the revisit. The hotel grounds and the hotels looked non-maintained and unhygienic. I was glad we chose not to stay there.

We drove to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, the most visited national park in the US. It's free to the public, hence busy. We took some pictures. It was beautiful yet no where close to the parks in the West. The mountainous roads were not new to us, and the high elevations of the park were not high for us. We drove up to the 2nd highest point beyond Mississippi.

We left the park grounds around 2PM and drove through I-74 North towards Lexington, TN. As forecasted we did encounter some heavy rain and thundershowers on the road. We had two big traffic jams which took a lot of time out of our day. For the first time in a long time, we had to wait at one spot for traffic to clear up. It was not pleasant. Later we found out that both the traffic jams was due to highway collisions and one was between a truck and a car. The car was being towed away as we drove by after the fact and the car looked almost flat. I really hope and pray that the people survived. We often forget how much God protects us and cares for sinners like us.

The rain had gotten better when we got into Kentucky. Kentucky, the home of the Kentucky Fried Chicken. So we drove to the first KFC location and ate from there. The chicken tasted really good since a long time. Our planned destination was Huntington, WV. Due to traffic delay, we weren't able to go that far, and hence decided to spent the night at Hampton Inn, Winchester, KY. We had some delay getting our room last night due to system issues. We had an awesome breakfast and we are ready to hit the road for another exciting day through the East coast traffic. Today is our 2nd to last day of travel. I can't thank God enough for His mercies.

Highlights from Day 22
  • Great Smoky Mountains National Park
  • KFC original location

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