Les Jones

I love the Smokies but not fond of tourist crowds. Hence, the only way to visit the Smokies for me is by boat.

It's interesting how different an individual's perpective of the exact same place can be from another. When we were there, we took in the scenic stuff in the mountains and only spent one day walking around in the city limits of Gatlinburg.

The aquarium photo and the ski lift are the only things that are familiar to me despite driving through there at least a dozen times. Now I want to come back and ice skate! I am trying to convince myself I need to come back with NO KIDS in October. This helps my argument.

October is the very best time to be in the Smokies. You'd love it.

Sort of the all-around best place to stay IMO is the end of Gatlinburg away from Pigeon Forge, which is the end near the park entrance. From there you can walk anywhere in Gatlinburg, or hop on the bypass to go to Pigeon Forge, or drive into the park to go to the riding stables, Sugarlands, Alum Cave Bluff, Newfound Gap, Clingman's Dome, or (a little farther away) Cades Cove.

William: there's always Townsend. It's so small there's only one traffic light in the whole town.

You can have a lot of fun driving an automobile thru that neck of the woods, if you have right automobile.

triticale, I've made lots of trips up and down the dragon in the "right now" automobile :)

When I was young and dumb, I drove it a little too fast in my '84 Tbird. Something was wrong with the geometry on the rear axle links and it was loose in slippery conditions, but every so often if I pushed the car in the dry the rear axle could bind, which is somewhat like hitting the bump stops.

And it did, one trip. By the grace of Goodyear my 50 yard sideways slide was straight down the centerline and I stayed on the road to a stop in front of an awed man in a red toyota pickup. I inched it back into my lane and drove on rather slowly :)

drstrangegun, to be honest I was shilling for a friend of mine, who produced the kitcar in the linked pictures. Driving those roads at freeway speeds in a car which will out-autocross a Viper even tho it's 2 seconds slower in the quartermile is apparently a pleasant way to spend an afternoon. I saw a post from someone driving a 7 (not a Stalker) on the Skyway who said he was just motoring along while the superbike ahead of him was being ridden in full knees-out mode.