Southern Virginia and the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee

The sights to see in Virginia seem to be endless. I heard about the town of Bristol, Virginia, where the state line between Virginia and Tennessee ran right through the middle of town.

 We stayed at a hotel in Bristol since it was close to some other places we wanted to see. Besides the awesome sign, there wasn't too much else happening in Bristol, other than a country music museum. We weren't interested in going to it. 

Who knew that Bristol, Viriginia was the birthplace of country music?

There are "LOVE" signs all around Virginia, but this was a unique one, celebrating country music.

Not far from Bristol was another Virginia destination we wanted to see, called Natural Tunnel State Park.

We rode a chair lift to get down to it from the entrance of the park.

As the name suggests, there's a tunnel through the rock that was large enough to build a railroad track through back in the 1800's.

We weren't able to go through the tunnel since it is an active railroad track.

This was a cabin typical of those built in the area in the late 1770's.

At the same state park there was a reproduction of a fort that had been in that area during the Revolutionary War. Every year they stage a reenactment of a battle at this site.

The state park was in the part of the country where Daniel Boone traveled. I always thought he was from Kentucky.

Next we drove into Tennessee to go to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

There were amazing views everywhere we looked.

I thought this photo was a good representation of why they're called the Smoky Mountains.

This is an observation tower in the Great Smoky Mountains National park called Clingman's Dome. It's  built on a hill and was quite a hike to get up to it, but the views were pretty spectacular.

Clingman's Dome is the highest point in the state of Tenessee.

This was taken on top of the tower.

It's said you can see SEVEN states from Clingman's Dome on a clear day. They are: Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky, Alabama and Mississippi. Crazy, huh?

The Appalachian trail cuts through the Great Smoky Mountains, so we took the occasion to hike along if for a short distance.

Clingman's Dome is located on the border between North Carolina and Tennessee.

One reason we wanted to go was to see the wild rhododendrons in bloom. We were disappointed that there weren't more blooming; we had to look pretty hard to find them.

When we did find them, we learned that in the wild rhododendrons aren't very colorful, but mostly a very pale pink.

This was a waterfall in the park.

The area of Tennessee where we we visiting has another claim to fame--Dollywood. We drove past the entrance to the park several times since it was off of a major highway. I think it's brought lots of jobs and prosperity to the region.