First, let me tell you that the truck started yesterday. Started right up. No hesitation, no evidence of a dead battery. Nevertheless I took it to the nearest Sears Auto Center to have the batteries tested. Both were fine, according to them.
So we are left with a mystery: why the drained battery on Saturday morning? What was draining the electricity? I refuse to believe that it was the GPS (and the guy at Sears scoffed at that idea as well). So what was it? We have no idea. So now, in addition to the stress of our RV problems we will have the daily stress – at least for a while, until our confidence is restored – of wondering whether the truck will start each morning.
Today we will check the status of Patience. Hopefully she will be well enough to leave the sick bay today. If so, we will travel to Pigeon Forge tonight and will do Dollywood tomorrow. We had tentatively planned to do it today, before picking up Patience, but the weather is horrible (rainy and cold again) and should be better tomorrow. Dollywood has a kennel and we will try to get space for the dogs. If not, we have the option of leaving them in the RV.
So what did we do while we were in Knoxville? Other than eating out (we had a very good lunch of fried chicken and pot roast at the local Cracker Barrel yesterday) and watching LOTS of TV (Jett caught up on all the crime of the last 20 years by watching ID all weekend), not much. The attractions that interested me the most were outdoor ones (Knoxville has some interesting parks and a nice restaurant area with sidewalk cafes) and the weather was not conducive.
I do want to provide a few details of our road trip to Gatlinburg on Saturday. Gatlinburg is a few miles south of Pigeon Forge, which I will describe after we have been to Dollywood, but we figured that since we were so close – about 5 miles away – we would take a quick trip there to see what the buzz is about. Well, I don’t think there is any such thing as a quick trip to Gatlinburg. There is just one road – TN 441 – that enters Gatlinburg from the north and it was bumper-to-bumper from Pigeon Forge. Yes, it was a holiday weekend, but the weather was terrible, which should have cut down on the traffic. Was it worth the trip? In a word, no.
Gatlinburg reminded us of several places we have been. It was pretty, in a touristy way, but not as pretty as Rockport. It had a large number of honky-tonk attractions (arcades, wax museums), but was not as honky-tonk as Hampton Beach. It was, in places, garish and tacky, but not as tacky as Niagara Falls.
I think part of the attraction is its proximity to Great Smoky Mountains National Park and it is probably more beautiful when the sun is out (we couldn’t even see the mountain tops when we were there). It seems to cater to vacationers who would stay for a week or longer as there are a large number of lodges and cabins lining the stream that runs through the town. There is an establishment that offers “high end cabins” – a curious combination that has me thinking of hot tubs constructed of logs. There is also an aquarium that bills itself as the “world’s best” which might annoy the people at Sea World or the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. And a mini-golf course that is reached via inclined railway. That one intrigued me, but Jett abhors mini-golf. Besides, we didn’t want to shut off the engine or deal with trying to find a place to park.
All-in-all, I see no reason to return to Gatlinburg.
Or Knoxville.
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