We had a fun day of travel passing through Florence, Columbia, and Spartanburg SC. We then traveled over to Asheville, NC and across the mountain to Tennessee. At the NC/TN border we encountered a pretty big traffic jam that delayed us about an hour. After our full day if travel we arrived at our hotel around 9:00pm.
During our day of travel we made stops at Young's Pecans in Florence, SC - one of the best stops anywhere on I - 95. After Young's we made our way over to the Picadilly Cafeteria in Spartanburg for lunch. Good thing most had plenty at the Picadilly, cause the next stop was on 1-40 in a traffic jam where the DOT of NC is still doing roadwork from a rock slide from several years ago. We had about an hour delay and decided we needed a stop at the Tennessee Welcome Center. At the Welcome Center we spoke to a very nice lady, Deanna, who is a perfect person to be working a welcome center. She was very nice, helpful, informative and most of all she was a native of the area. Knowing that she was a native I asked her where "the best" places to eat in the area was and the 3 places she recommended were all places on out itinerary for this tour of the fall leaves in the Mountains.
We then headed over to our first stop in the Gatlinburg area, the Farmers Table restaurant. We were honored to meet Mr & Mrs Wilson owners of the converted dance hall into restaurant. They were excited to have us as we were the first motorcoach group to dine in their new restaurant. If you happen to stop off, make sure to try everything, it's all homemade and very tasty, especially the sweet potato casserole. Since we were in the area we stopped in for a quick visit to the Smokey Mountain Knife Works, the second largest single seller of knives in the entire country. The Knife Works is only second to Wal Mart in knife sales. After a short visit to the Knife Works we checked in to our hotel, had all the bags delivered to our rooms and settled in for a good nights sleep along the roaring mountain stream. We are off to Dollywood tomorrow so keep checking back to follow our travels.
