Campcation 2018

Ft Boonesborogh SP, KY

Yesterday my family and I returned from our 2018 summer vacation.  We are calling it a campcation because we camped almost every night.  It was an exhausting trip but we got to see a lot of great stuff.

We are from Indiana and we went down thru Kentucky toward the Cumberland Gap.  We were not going to make it by dark so we camped at Ft Boonesborogh SP in Ky.  We found our first LB of the trip here.  After checking out the fort we continued south.

Cumberland Gap Pinnacle Overlook

We arrived at the Cumberland Gap National Park around lunch time.  We checked out the northern visitor center and found a picnic area near a creek.  We ate lunch, played in the creek for a little bit and headed to the pinnacle overlook.  The overlook is a spot where you can look down and see the tunnel going thru the mountain.  We hiked around here for a while and then went to set up camp.

Pigeon Forge LB

We hung out in the campground for a while, went to town to eat dinner, and went to a nearby state park to look for a letterbox.  The state park had a nice playground and some old cabins so we stayed there for a while before going back to the camp site.

The next morning we got up, had breakfast, tore down camp, and drove to an Iron Furnace.  Then we hiked up to the Gap Cave.  This cave is just a hole in the cliff but the kids enjoyed playing there.  The hike up was a little rough.

Dollywood, TN

Then we went down to Pigeon Forge.  We stopped at the Great Smokey Mountain Knife Works for a little bit and set up camp at a KOA campground.  After we set up, we went to the Smokey Mountains National Park Sugarlands visitor center to get maps and whatnot.  Then we had dinner and went back to the campground to swim.

In the morning, we got up and went to Dollywood.  We got there 45 minutes before they opened so we left and found a LB.  It took us a bit to find it but my husband said we shouldn't give up so easily.  After stamping in we went back to Dollywood and spent the day there until 7pm.  When we were tired and hungry we went back to the campground to eat and swim again.

Newfound Gap TN & NC

The next morning we got up, had breakfast, tore down camp, and heading off to explore Smokey Mountain National Park.  We stopped at Newfound Gap and hiked to Clingmans Dome.  The lookout at the top was closed but we came all that way so we walked to the top anyway.  The walk down was beautiful with clouds rolling in.

Clingmans Dome

Then we pulled off and had lunch in a lookout/
parking area.  We continued south and saw a sign for a mill.  It wasn't on the map but looked close to the parking lot and we stopped to check it out.  It had a real short trail and was a nice place to stretch your legs.  When we were done we went on to the Oconaluftee visitor center.  There was a historic farm and a creek trail so we stayed here a while.

We stopped again for dinner and stayed the night at a campground in North Carolina.

One of the main points of the trip was to eat at Chef and the Farmer in Kinston, NC.  We watch a show on PBS called, A Chef's Life.  We love the show and talked about going last year on vacation but it was to far away.  We made it this year.  The chef, Vivian Howard, was not there the night we ate there but her husband was hanging around.  We left with full bellies, t shirts, and an autographed cookbook.  We also planted a letterbox in a nearby park.

The place we stayed at, the night we were in Kinston was just barley a campground.  It was a field with a shower house.  The kids were worried something might happen to us here and were happy that we only stayed one night.

Hotel in GA 

That morning we got up and consulted the old atlas and Google.  We discovered that going the long way back was just 45 min longer and would add 2 new states to box in.  Instead of driving back straight across NC we went thru SC and Georgia.

It took us a while to get out of rural NC.  When we got to a big rest area there were supposed to be 3 LB.  I looked for all 3 and only found 1.  When we stopped for the night in SC we were at a state park.  It had 2 boxes but we could only find 1.  The state parks in SC all have stamps and we were able to snag that too.  The woman at the park office fussed at me for putting it in my National Park stamp book but it's my book and I can stamp what I want in it ;)

Ruby Falls, TN

We drove thru Georgia without many stops.  The rest area that we had lunch at didn't have any boxes :(  But we did find one before leaving the state.  My husband was getting pretty tired and we stayed the night in a hotel.  The younger kids swam again.

We got up in the morning, enjoyed a hot breakfast, and went to Chattanooga.  In Chattanooga we went to Ruby Falls and Rock City.  Rock City has a Fairy Tale "cave" that is actually a building.  As we got to the end of the "cave" we discovered that it was raining cats and dogs.  We were at the end of the trail so we made a run for the gift shop.  We got some post cards, rock candy, etc and ran again to the ticket booth.  My husband was nice enough to pull the van around and we didn't get completely soaked.

See Rock City, TN

Next, we went to Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Military Park.  The place was a lot like Gettysburg.  It had many markers of where different states were stationed and signs detailing the battles there.  It was getting late and with the rain, we didn't spend a lot of time here.

We continued north stopping for dinner and camping at Old Stone Fort SP in Tn.  My kids learned that we were just a few hours from home and tore down camp in record time.  They were tired of camping and ready to go home.  We didn't look for any of the boxes there.

Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Park, GA

We had a great but tiring 9 days.  We only planted 1 box and found 8.  We added 4 new states that we boxed in: VA, NC, SC, & GA.  We left 1 HH and the only ones we found were in a HHH.  The rules of the HHH were to leave 3 in the box.  There were only 3 left and we didn't have any to trade.

Today we are doing laundry and unloading and tomorrow we will go to Holiday World in Santa Claus, Ind.