Gatlinburg: A cool tourist trap

Day 238
​Gatlinburg TN

What a terrible nights sleep. This campground is the closest to Gatlinburg and it became painfully obvious as the night went on. People come here to party. The kids across the road from us were up past 1 am and every time one of them finished a beer they walked over the to metal dumpster and threw the bottle out. That dumpster was about 20 feet from our RV. That metal dumpster also had a metal lid beacuse this is bear country. BANG! There goes another bottle. Guess that is all part of traveling and getting close to the action. It's time to check out Gatlinburg and see what this place is all about. It's early in the day and the sidewalks are empty. We cruised the back blocks and found a parking space for free. Then it's time to hit the pavement and start gazing into the storefronts.

One can almost always find a free place to park if you are willing to walk a couple of blocks.

The main drag is pretty cool. That's a compliment for being such a tourist trap. A lot of touristy towns way over do it. Gatlinburg does it just enough. Lots of souvenir junk stores but there are quite a few craft stores thrown into the mix. Blown glass, wood carvings, and distilleries on the street make for a good walking experience.

Completely pointless waterfall contraption. I want to make one of these.

We knock out the town in a couple of hours and call it good. No money to spend changes the experience completely. Sure window shopping can be fun, but it gets old after 8 months. We never buy anything because we can't. We don't eat out... because we can't. We don't go out for drinks... because we can't. Perhaps our outlook will change to a great degree of appreciation when we finally can do those things again.

Back at base we need to take Eli out for a walk. He guides us around the campground and I take the time to start eyeballing all the tags on the posts. The tags show when people will be leaving and I am a nosy guy. Oooh, looks like college kids are leaving tomorrow. Sweet. Maybe they'll keep it down tonight so this guy can get some sleep. 

Our neighbors right next to us start making some noise of there own as the sun starts to come down. A group of grey haired men sit around a campfire and start playing music. A steel banjo kicks in followed by an acoustic guitar. A harmonica fills in the silent gaps whenever the lead singer isn't singing. The perfect ambiance for a backwoods getaway in eastern Tennessee. I guess life isn't so bad after all.