Three

Tennessee

The new state starts out a little less busy. The road is running along a rather empty valley. But this soon is changing again and the constant humanity returns. It does look a little poorer here. Most of the houses could do with a paint job. A church even is missing a few letters of its sign. But there is another sign pointing to Optimist Camp, so not all is lost.

About fifteen miles in, I leave the main highway and return to smaller country roads, eventually arriving at Erwin. The town centre is barricaded off for the Annual Unicoi County Apple Festival. People living along the road leading to the centre have taken to the opportunity and are selling parking spots for five bucks a piece.

The city itself covers the floor of a valley running north-east to south-west. To continue west, I have to climb out if it and across a narrow mountain range. Quickly, however, the road finds another valley to follow. This one is rather narrow, leaving only room for the river and the road between its steep rocky walls.

On the other side of the range follows flat country. It is also rather settled again. Despite it being Friday, there are yard sales everywhere. I always thought them to be on the weekend. Friday also means that my arrival in Greenville, population roughly fifteen thousand, during the afternoon rush delays progress.

The city itself is of the now familiar make up with a centre along Main Street of red-brick buildings and a white columned court house. Most notable, perhaps, a collection of mobile home dealers, three? four? towards the end of town.

The landscape suddenly widens. Houses disappear and there is tell-tale signs of cattle farming: cows. The mountains I crossed earlier are still looming in the far south, but around here there is only gentle, green hills and plenty of space.

This changes again entirely upon approach to the next city, Newport. More serious hills return and the road becomes narrow and winding. The city itself nestles in between tall hills at the crossing of the Pigeon River. Main Street runs directly along the river front but has to share it with the railway. The main highway, named Broadway, is one block back. But everyone turns onto Main Street, so I do, too, and get slightly confused in the process. Recovering, I don’t have time to look at the town, but I think it’s centre is rather handsome albeit in the usual way.

By now it is also time to consider the destination for the day. I had planned to be quite a bit further west, well beyond Knoxville even. But all that getting lost in North Carolina has taken its time. There is two bigger cities on the map: Jefferson City and Morristown, both on the shores of Cherokee Lake. The former is further west, so I pick that one.

To get there, I have to cross Douglas Lake first. An artificial water body, the lake has formed in the bends and twists of French Broad River after construction of Douglas Dam. The road crosses one of the bends on a mighty bridge right after passing a no less mighty marina. To the right the Interstate crosses on an even mightier bridge.

Soon thereafter I arrive in Jefferson City and can’t find a single motel or hotel. Only a dozen miles further, outside Morristown do I find accommodation. Despite being far out of town, there is a restaurant in a former mansion atop a neighbouring hill within easy walking distance.

There also is a bank next door. Its cash points are only available as drive-thru ATMs, a concept that strikes me as even more odd than a drive-thru fast food restaurant. Not being picky after a good dinner, somewhat complicated by me only understanding about half of what the waiter said, I recommission the arrangement into a walk-thru ATM before happily retiring to balance this mornings political views with the opposingly balanced views of MSNBC.

The next morning starts grey. When I finally leave the hotel, the sun is up but hidden behind a misty curtain. Among all the fog I finally find downtown Morristown. It features two big churches, a county house, some more smaller churches and a tiny bank. None of them is red brick but rather made from big granite blocks.

I cross Cherokee Lake, yet another artificial reservoir full of marinas. The mood is very gloomy this morning. Despite of that, it is rather warm, somewhere in the Fahrenheit sixties. Confusingly, the TV reported blizzards with three feet of snow for the Midwestern states.

After the lake, the fog finally disappears and it becomes sunny and nice. All the better, since yesterdays yard sales were only a shy start of what happens today: there is sales everywhere. Most road turnouts have been converted into makeshift flea markets, thereby converting the roads into makeshift parking lots.

The lake makes a final, tentacle appearance before the road finally climbs up into a mountain range. It has to resort to crazy hairpins to arrive at what seems to be called the Clinch Ridge. The pass features a closed down petrol station and a similarly closed shop. Then more hairpins down and across a hilly valley. This procedure is repeated two, three more times in order to arrive at Sneedville, made from a few stone buildings most prominent among which the Town Motel.

After Sneedville, the road gives up its mountain crossing and instead runs along a valley floor. Or so I presume from the grey shadows as the fog has returned. It provides some unexpected bends to liven things up. Unlike in the western states, where every single turn is properly signed and speed posted, around here you have to figure out to correct speed on your own, preventing the use of cruise control on smaller roads.

Not long though and it is time to say farewell to Tennessee.