Blue Ridge Parkway and Great Smoky Mountains

In the last three days we took a long drive through nature: we drove all the way down the Blue Ridge Parkway: 469 miles from Rockfish Gap in Virginia to the Southern End in North Carolina. The road winds through valleys, hills, mountains, and endless forests. Sometimes there are no houses for miles, other times there are small villages on the side. Overall, it is very natural, with very few restaurants, shops, and hotels/campgrounds directly on the Parkway. You usually have to leave it and drive a few miles to find a supermarket or gas station.

The journey is the destination: the views from the many viewpoints are wonderful and there was little traffic (off-season and cold at night, but sunny and beautiful during the day).

A few times we were approached by very friendly Americans because of our German car, everyone was very friendly and helpful, almost everyone had been to Germany and knew words like "Guten Tag" or "Hut" 😂😂

Many people here are not shy about expressing their political opinion. We were greeted with "Welcome to our wonderful America minus Trump". But that's probably a minority opinion here in the South. In every small town and on every street corner there is a church, and many front yards have signs that say "Thank you Jesus" or something similar - we are in the Bible Belt of the USA 🇺🇸 . This is probably more Trumpland.

The blue mountains deserve their name. In the sunlight, the mountains appear blue, with several blue waves in a row. We have always liked that, we have a picture of the Blue Ridge Mountains ⛰ in our living room and the campgrounds ⛺️ are mostly located in beautiful nature. But we have to turn on the heating in the camper at night, as the temperatures drop to around 0 degrees - brrrr ❄️

On the third day, we reached the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Basically, you can continue driving on the road, the nature remains fantastic. The park runs halfway in North Carolina and halfway in Tennessee. At the entrance of the park is the town of Cherokee, which belongs to the Cherokee reservation. After a long battle, some families managed to negotiate with the government to be allowed to stay here. However, most of the 5 tribes living here had to leave their land quasi overnight during the "Trail of Tears" and head towards Oklahoma. About half of the displaced people died on the way or in the first year thereafter from hunger, exhaustion, and diseases. It was a clear violation of the law, because they were promised that they could stay on their land if they just adapted properly. So give up hunting in favor of agriculture, send the children to white schools, etc. But what do I care about what I said yesterday if I want this land for white settlers... we visited the informative Cherokee museum, very well done. Unfortunately, our budget did not quite allow us to buy one of the real, handmade Native American artifacts. A beautifully woven basket easily costs $800.

Now we are sitting in the sun at a beautiful campsite in the park, enjoying the rest of the day. Tomorrow we will continue through the park and then head to Graceland 🎼🎤🕺🏻👑 We are excited!