Smoky Mountains -> Huntsville

So now it was time. The days in the mountains passed much too quickly. We had to pack up all our things again, and we realized that we had accumulated a lot of additional luggage in the form of souvenirs, etc.

The house was thoroughly searched one last time, as we didn't want to forget anything.

We made a short stop in Gatlinburg, as Steffi still wanted to ride the summer toboggan.

Since we hadn't booked any accommodations in advance for the two upcoming stops to Memphis, we decided to make our first stop in Huntsville, about 400km away. But instead of driving the same route through the Smoky Mountains that we took on the way there, we decided to take the challenging route through the mountains. Although we made much slower progress, we had beautiful views of the Smoky Mountains and later the Nantahala National Forest. After a small lunch snack, we reached Chattanooga, where we encountered traffic for the first time since our road trip began. For the next hour, we could only move at a crawl. Eyes closed and through it...

After a total of 7 hours, we reached Huntsville and checked into a motel that we had chosen online in the Smokys.

As resilient as Steffi is, she wanted to use her remaining energy for a shopping spree. So, we visited 2 outlets without any serious resistance from my side, and of course, we didn't leave without some loot for Steffi. We were tired and exhausted when we went to sleep.