Back to East Tennessee

Fall Colors greeted us at home!

Saturday, October 23, 2010

We left Birmingham about 9:00 and started on the last leg of our trip. We turned our unfinished mystery CD back on and the miles clipped by. We tried to find the Little River National Preserve near Ft. Payne AL but we were unsuccessful even with the help of the GPS and a map! As we neared Chattanooga we began to see a few trees turned in color but they did not seem to be anywhere near peak until we were nearly home. We did stop for lunch at a rest area between Cleveland and Athens.

Alabama Crimson Tide

Tennessee Vols

The highlight of the trip was watching the Alabama Crimson Tide decorated cars and fans headed north to Knoxville for the BIG game….after Chattanooga they were joined by equally decorated cars and fans but of the Big Orange variety. As we neared Knoxville the road became a parking lot for a ways but cleared and was not as bad as we feared. The game was not to begin until 7 PM and we were home about 4 PM so you can see we were probably ahead of largest number of fans….glad we missed the larger number!

As we neared home the trees began to take on more and more color. The best near the Fall Branch exit - about 5 miles from home!

This was a really great trip and we are already talking about heading back down for a longer stay in the late spring. Total mileage was 1,906.