The Blue Ridge Parkway emerges from a tunnel under the peaks.
residence there. As we wandered among the historic homes and buildings that make up the Mountain Farm Museum outside the visitors center, we were as delighted by the elk as we were by the historic buildings. Cherokee is a small but bustling tourist town filled with shops and restaurants. Although it’s a bit of a tourist trap, we were entertained by some Native American street performers who did an Eagle Dance and a Warrior Dance for us. The whole crowd enjoyed watching their performance. Keeping our 36-foot Hitchhiker fifth-wheel trailer parked in Cherokee, we headed into Great Smoky Mountain National Park with our truck and drove the beautiful Newfound Gap road to Clingmans Dome, the highest point in the park. Looking out across the vast landscape of hills and valleys, the mountains faded into the distance in layer upon layer of silvery blue just as their name describes. As the sun set, the sky cast a pink glow across the mountain tops. These rugged mountains are filled with streams and waterfalls, and we drove down to the Deep Creek region of the park one day to explore three waterfalls. The hiking trail to the falls was easy. We strolled slowly through the woods to the Juney Whank Waterfall first.
Appalachian Mountain Adventures Story and Photos by Emily & Mark Fagan The AppalachianMountains span almost the entire length of the eastern states, from Georgia to Maine. Within that range, between North Carolina and Virginia, stand the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the 469-mile-long Blue Ridge Parkway winds its way from North Carolina’s Great Smoky Mountains National Park to Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park along their crest. Following this parkway makes for an extraordinary RV trip that showcases not only America’s beautiful natural landscapes but special aspects of its culture too. We began our Appalachian adventures at the southern end of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Cherokee, North Carolina, and our first explorations were by bike on the easy Oconaluftee River Trail from the heart of town to the Oconaluftee Visitors Center. What a thrill it was to see elk casually munching the underbrush and wading in a stream by the trail. Arriving at the visitors center, we discovered that a whole herd of elk had taken up
APPALACHIAN MOUNTAIN
COAST TO COAST SUMMER MAGAZINE 2017
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