A Very Nice Little Trip to North Carolina

Last week Nelda and I got away again for a few days, this time with our friends from church, Butch and Mavis. They took us to a beautiful place they had visited many times, often taking their Miata to drive the winding roads in the mountains and hills of the Southeastern rim of the Great Smokeys. This time we road in their sedan and we stayed in a cottage at Phillips Motel in Robbinsville, leaving on Monday morning the last full week of October. We will have to go again. Might even take the trailer sometime as we saw a number of campgrounds along the way. What follows is Butch’s description of the trip, which turned out quite well:

Had a marvelous time even though the weather didn't cooperate. Rained all day Tuesday. Undaunted, we set out to drive the Cherohala Skyway Tuesday morning. Everything was fine till we got a little above 3000 feet and we began to drive in the clouds. A little above 4000 feet we ran into some snow on the road. At 4900 feet we really ran into some snow and had to turn around. We were thinking how lucky we were that there was no traffic on the road but us. As we started down, we did a bit of sliding but made it safely. Met a snowplow headed up the mountain, which confirmed our decision to get back down to the valley as quickly as we could. Went over to Cherokee and tromped around the stores for a bit and talked with some interesting people.

Left this morning around 8:15 for the trip home. All went well until we approached the Ocoee River area. Cars that met us were flashing their lights. We thought they were warning us of a cop. Then, some 8 or 10 miles into the curvy road area, we came to a line of stopped vehicles. We found out from some guy behind us in a delivery van that an 18-wheeler had turned over and spilled 40,000 lbs. of flour. They were expecting a wait of several hours. We turned around and headed back to find an alternate route home. Found an intersection and turned south and drove into GA to Blue Ridge. Found a Chamber of Commerce building and got a GA map. Came down across NW GA to Calhoun and Rome and finally got home. Strangely, it was a very nice drive. Might drive back up there sometimes by that route.