Etowah is a tiny town of less than three square miles. It is located in the East Tennessee region of Appalachia, where the state lines of Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia begin to meet. Tennessee Avenue, also known as Highway 411, is the main street through town. Etowah is about an hour southeast of Knoxville,…
Charlotte’s City Center is divided into four separate wards that are simply called the First, Second, Third, or Fourth Ward. Collectively, these four wards form a diamond shape and are referred to as “Uptown.” Each ward is defined by its direction away from the intersection of Trade Street & Tryon Street, known as Independence Square.…
In 1799, a kid found a 17-pound rock while playing in the river and his mom used it as a doorstop, until a visitor later recognized it as solid gold. Feels like something that would happen to me, honestly. This discovery created the first Gold Rush in the new world.
Charlotte’s Uptown Four Wards get a lot of coverage, but we had the most fun in Plaza Midwood and in the North Davidson “NoDa” District just a bit northeast of Uptown. I love this area because nearly every building exterior or open space is covered in murals and mosaics, and each store or gallery is…
Two of our favourite stops in Charlotte, North Carolina are both northeast of the main “Uptown” part of the city. I have already written a few blogs about Charlotte’s First & Fourth Wards, Second Ward, Plaza Midwood & Belmont, and the NoDa District, so I thought I would give these two spaces a blog of…
Waynesville, North Carolina’s Cataloochee Valley has become a prime spot for elk viewing since 2011, after an experimental program reintroduced elk to this part of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The program was led by the National Park Service, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, and a few other partners. Twenty-five radio collared elk were brought in…
From Bat Cave, North Carolina, get yourself a jug of apple cider from a roadside stand and sip it all along NC-9 North and Bat Cave Road. Follow it right into Old Fort. Old Fort is a tiny town of less than 1,000 residents located halfway between Black Mountain and Marion, and halfway between Bat…
Charlotte North Carolina’s Plaza Midwood neighbourhood is located less than a mile from Uptown, Charlotte’s city center. Plaza Midwood runs along Central Avenue from Hawthorn Lane to Eastway Drive, though locals may cut it a few blocks short of Eastway Drive. The neighbourhood also has a locally-designated historic district in its westernmost part, a four…
One of the first things I noticed in downtown Boone, North Carolina was this mural painted by local artist Peter Grant Catoe. The mural depicts the Tank Man protest on Tiananmen Square back in 1989 when the repressed students and citizens of China rallied for economic reforms and personal freedoms, among other changes. The Chinese…
Grandfather Mountain is among the most rough and rugged mountains in Eastern USA and at 5,946 feet (1,812 m), it has the highest peak on the eastern escarpment of the Blue Ridge Mountains. My song for this entry is a heavy cover of Edvard Grieg’s classic “Hall of the Mountain King” by Apocalyptica: Daniel Boone…
Blowing Rock is a small town in northwestern North Carolina near the Tennessee border known as the “Crown of Blue Ridge” with around 1300 residents in its three square miles. The land that became the town of Blowing Rock first belonged to Cherokee and Catawba tribes, and when white settlers moved in, they used it…
One of my favourite drives for viewing fall leaves in East Tennessee is the Cherohala Skyway, a National Scenic Byway that runs between Tellico Plains, TN and Robbinsville, NC. TELLICO PLAINS The tiny 1.6 square mile town of Tellico Plains currently has less than 1,000 residents in what used to be the Cherokee settlement of Great…
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