Monday April 3, 2023

Road video and map

Today’s 120 mile (193 km) drive was about 98% on scenic byways through the foothills of the Appalachians but the bright, clear weather I was hoping for did not materialize. There was a steady rain all morning and cloudy drizzle later to obscure the beautiful views. The driving, however, was as good as I had hoped with plenty of hills and curves to keep my attention and not too much traffic to annoy me. I made several stops, most being photo ops, and will describe them using images I captured.

First up was the Murphy Historical Museum, just down the road from last night’s hotel. Murphy is the county seat for Cherokee County, NC and this is a small museum with about half of its space devoted to how the local Cherokee population lived and were subsequently mistreated during their enforced removal from the area. Most were small farmers at the time since the Cherokee nation required members to feed their households and many took active roles in the mixed native/settler community. In 1820 an enterprising Cherokee had invented a script to represent their language and, by 1830, the Cherokee nation was significantly more literate than the US as a whole.

As I mentioned yesterday, Georgia was the most aggressive state in the forced relocation of the Cherokee, due to the gold on their land, and began as soon as the Indian Removal Act was signed in 1830. In Cherokee County the Cherokee population were subject to harassment, property theft and violence and, in 1835, the US government signed a treaty with a small group of about 20 Cherokees, none of whom were elected officials of the Cherokee nation, who felt that relocation was the only way for the group to survive. Despite protests from 15,000 Cherokee members the US government ratified the treaty and began the process in 1835. The army built a fort in the town and arrested some 1,500 Cherokee, imprisoned them in the fort and then initiated the trip westwards. First they were moved from fort to fort, where they joined others from different areas, and then marched in groups of up to 1,000 to Arkansas and Oklahoma. Conditions in the forts and on the marches were unsanitary, food rations meager, and thousands died.

My next stop was at the Cheoah Dam on the Little Tennessee river.

When it was built, in 1919, it was the tallest dam in the world at 225-feet (69 m), had the largest turbines in the world and used the highest voltage transmission lines at 150,000 V but it is most famous for the 1993 movie, The Fugitive, as it was the dam used for Harrison Ford’s escape jump sequence.

A few miles north of the dam is a section of road known as the Tail of the Dragon. This is an 11 mile (18 km) stretch that has no intersections, crossings or other stoppages but has over 300 curves. In summer many sports car enthusiasts and motorcycle riders drive it for fun. To see it yourself you can watch the road video where I have provided a map marker to jump directly to this section.

Next up was the Townsend/Sunshine covered bridge.

Since I missed out on the longest swinging bridge east of the Mississippi river yesterday I had to stop at the Dark Island swinging bridge today.

My final stop was at Parrot Mountain and Gardens in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. This is, not surprisingly, a small zoo, at the top of a steep hill, devoted to parrots that has very good reviews on TripAdvisor. The birds are amazing but the place did not impress. Limited information about the birds, partially closed for construction and, most annoyingly, religious messages everywhere. I have no problem respecting the owners’ rights to believe what they want but I would like them to respect my right to do the same and not proselytyze to visitors who have paid to see birds.

Here is a video with a message for me. Watch to the very end as I stopped recording just as the bird “spoke”.

The weather could not ruin a great drive but it certainly could have helped make it better.