chuckography

A "Green" Mini-Vacation

It's not that I dislike hiking and camping but staying at a hotel with speedy and efficient room service beats sleeping on the ground under the stars.

And anytime you can hike woodsy trails without walking is pretty good too. Nice Segway.

Asheville, N.C. is laidback and even described as a hippie town. It sits at 2,000 feet near the start of the Blue Ridge Parkway that rises much higher.

Everywhere you look, you see a Prius. Guess these hip people are watching their carbon footprints.

The Parkway has a speed limit of 45mph, with many scenic turnouts, so it takes several hours to reach the switchback road that snakes its way from Cherokee, NC to Gatlinburg,TN, through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Clingman's Dome is a little more than 6,000 feet elevation and there is a trail you can walk up from the parking lot to get to the absolute top. A sign says it takes 30 minutes but I doubt the view is much better than from where I sat by the car sipping from a bottle of mountain spring water.

I was saving my strength for touring the Biltmore Estate.

Labels: Asheville, Biltmore Estate, Blue Ridge Parkway, carbon footprint, Clingman's Dome, Gatlinburg, Great Smoky Mountains, Hybrid, NC, Prius, Segway, TN

posted by chucker @ 10:40 PM