Monday, October 3, 2016 Smoky Mountain Road Trip

We're off today on our next adventure, a road trip through and around Smoky Mountain National Park in Tennessee / North Carolina with stops in Asheville, NC and Chattanooga, TN.
We're flying into and out of Atlanta.  Our first meal on the road trip, courtesy of Delta Coach.
Our first main stop will be an AirBnB cabin in the mountains above Gatlinburg, TN for three nights.  Then it is off to Asheville, NC to visit relatives.  Then it will be a short hop over to Clyde, NC where we will stay in an AirBnb caboose, yes, the railroad kind, on a buffalo ranch.  The last stop will be Chattanooga, TN before heading back to Atlanta.

We are hoping that Hurricane Matthew will wait for us to depart the area or venture well off coast while we are there.

Our stay tonight we be a nostalgic visit to the Westin Atlanta Airport Hotel (since we are arriving late in the evening).  We have fond memories, well, at least memories, of the Westin as it was an unplanned Christmas Eve overnight last year when travel arrangements did not go well on our way to the Turks & Caicos.  Hopefully, this time our luggage will also stay with us.

Happy days!  Our luggage was on the carousel when we arrived there, a testament more of how far it is to walk to get to baggage claim than it is to Delta's crack baggage crew.  Nevertheless, we are pleased.  Then a multiple circuitous trip around and through the Atlanta airport trying to find our hotel, only one mile away.  We arrive and head to the bar to view the Minnesota Vikings on Monday night football and cheer with a fellow Vikings fan at the next table.
Off tomorrow for Tennessee.

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