The Interstate 75 Parking Lot

Gatlinburg, Tennessee has the greatest assembly of miniature golf courses in the world.  Every possible theme and combination of themes is here.  Jungle, Mine, Treasure, Dinosaur and Dinosaur Mine Treasure Jungle Miniature Golf.  And really, its a good thing to have so many recreational opportunities considering the density of pancake houses in the greater Gatlinburg area.  You have to burn those calories somehow!

This morning I got to thinking about Cherokee and Gatlinburg, and decided they're kind of a twin cities Disneyland for folks in the region.  And, I really like the idea that everything is so family oriented.  Every last thing is tailored to family.  So, yeah, it's plasticville, but at least it's family plasticville.  It's a bit weird to have all the Disneyland stuff on either side of the National Park, which shouts that the Great Smokies really aren't all that great, and that there might be bugs and snakes and bears and steep hills to hike up. 

Today's goal was to capture the Ohio and Indiana high points, hundreds of miles north via three or four interstates.

Everything was going super well, when, north of Knoxville it happened.  Total stoppage.  Like, turn off the engine and wait it out.  The hands of the clock moved half an hour.  Then we began to inch forward at under 5 miles an hour.  The curves in the road hid the incident, so we speculated: nothing? fatal accident? Road worker injury?  A memory crept in from a family vacation of more than forty years ago.  We four in the family Country Squire station wagon in southern Oklahoma.  Traffic at a standstill on a two lane highway.  My dad was a war veteran and raised always to go see what he could do for anyone.  He walked ahead to the scene.  Some time later he came back very shaken.  Family of seven, killed at a railroad crossing. 

We inched forward, and there it was, a burned out jumbo RV, still smoldering.  On to Lexington, Cincinnati, and western Ohio.