Sevierville

The drive to Sevierville was nice and short- just over an hour! In fact it was so short that we were going to arrive before check-in, so we stopped at a beautiful rest area for about 45 minutes 🙂 We found out the correct pronunciation of the town- we thought it was pronounced Seever-ville, but it sounds like Severe-ville. Learn something new every day! This campground is beautiful- right on the French Broad River, and about a half mile down the road the Little Pigeon River comes in. We saw deer across the river yesterday evening and again this evening:

Today we did some exploring and found some very nice neighborhoods. Sevierville is the gateway to Pigeon Forge (Dollywood), Gatlinburg and the Smoky Mountains National Park, so real estate is a bit pricey! Towns that are just a few miles away are much more reasonable! And I know I have mentioned how it is very hilly and that flat land is hard to find- here are some houses being built overlooking the 6-lane road to Gatlinburg:

We went to the Peddler Steakhouse in Gatlinburg for dinner to celebrate Father’s Day (Happy Father’s Day to all you dads!). Our table had a great view of a small river:

Dinner was very good, and Gatlinburg is CRAZY! There are several blocks of restaurants, sweets, tourist shops, attractions (Ripley’s Believe It or Not, Aquarium, mini golf, escape rooms, etc.) and LOTS of people! A couple we were visiting with while waiting for our table for dinner said it was not nearly as crowded as normal- yikes, I would hate to see a normal crowd there!

While walking about Gatlinburg we saw a groundhog in someone’s yard- it was cute, but I hear they are horrible pests.

When we got back to the campground we saw deer and geese across the river:

And we went to see the fireflies after dark- they were flashing so much in the trees that it looked like twinkle lights- amazing! Each of the white dots is a firefly: