{"id":10012,"date":"2021-04-23T11:15:15","date_gmt":"2021-04-23T15:15:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/?p=10012"},"modified":"2022-01-23T14:41:56","modified_gmt":"2022-01-23T19:41:56","slug":"tn7-hop-6-walland-tn-to-charlotte-nc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/2021\/04\/23\/tn7-hop-6-walland-tn-to-charlotte-nc\/","title":{"rendered":"TN7 Hop 6: Walland TN to Charlotte NC"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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TN7 Hop 6<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

244 miles via US 411, TN 338, TN 66, I-40, I-26, US 74, I-85, I-485 (southwest of Charlotte) and I-77 with a midway refueling stop in Hendersonville NC. Cumulative tow miles: 1055. Truck miles: 331. Cumulative truck miles: 1508. The additional truck miles were due to my sightseeing trip to Pigeon Forge and my two trips to dine out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was very worried about this hop. I thought it would be very hard on both me and the truck. Well, I was half right. It turned out to be a piece of cake for the truck – barely broke a sweat over the Smoky Mountains – but it was very hard on me. I woke at 4am thinking that I needed to find a better route. The route I was planning involved 20 miles over very narrow roads with no shoulder and, in places, a deep ditch which would have been a disaster if I let the RV wheels run off the pavement. Well, I opted for a longer stretch on US 411, which is not an easy road but has more shoulders and fewer ditches. That longer route meant it would be neccesary to refuel, but I found a truck stop in Hendersonville that would work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the really bad portion of the trip involved only the first few miles. Then a long stretch of US 411 where I had to remain focused. I navigated that successfully and made it to the truck stop. But there I saw a long line of trucks waiting and rather that incur the ire of OTR drivers to get less than 20 gallons of diesel fuel, I opted to try the car pumps. It wasn’t easy, but I finally got the truck to the pump and successfully refueled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last 110 miles were uneventful, though with a lot of traffic, particularly on US 74.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My home for 2 nights in Walland was the Whispering River RV Resort<\/a>. I have stayed there before. I mentioned that the reservation was incorrect – they had my stay shifted by 1 day. I don’t know if it was my error or theirs, but it got corrected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note to self: read the confirmation email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The RV at rest at Whispering River<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Frost on the windshield<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The main feature of the stay there was the cold<\/strong><\/span>. I had to scrape frost off my windshield the morning of my departure. I don’t like frost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the reasons that I chose to return to Whispering River was its proximity the The Snoring Bear Diner<\/a>, one of the best breakfast places I have ever encountered. This time I chose the “Denver Boone” – a sandwich made from two slices of french toast, stuffed with cheese, egg, sausage and bacon. “The Heart Stopper” would have been a better name. But delicious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Unpretentious Amici<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The previous night I also dined out, at Amici<\/a>, an Italian restaurant in Maryville that looked interesting. The item on the menu that got my attention was the “Bison meatball” pasta. There were other items that sounded appealing but I had to try the bison meatball-and-spaghetti dish. Washed down with a couple of pints of craft beer. Verdict: best spaghetti-and-meatball dish I have ever had. The bison meatballs were great but so was the red sauce. Superb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Needless to say, I didn’t lose any weight while in Walland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Denver Boone<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Selfie at Amici<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

244 miles via US 411, TN 338, TN 66, I-40, I-26, US 74, I-85, I-485 (southwest of Charlotte) and I-77 with a midway refueling stop in Hendersonville NC. Cumulative tow miles: 1055. Truck miles: 331. Cumulative truck miles: 1508. The additional truck miles were due to my sightseeing trip to Pigeon Forge and my two … Continue reading »<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[62,38,4,7,5,16,98],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food","category-nc","category-places","category-routes","category-rvparks","category-places-tn","category-tn7"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1VniU-2Bu","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10012"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10897,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10012\/revisions\/10897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}