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An EPIC Adventure - A Live & Interactive trip report

I just picked up on the fact that Roebling, who designed the historic Smithfield Street Bridge we walked on, also designed the Brooklyn Bridge. If you recall, when you first arrived in Pittsburgh on your trip, you lauded the historical background and revolutionary design of the Brooklyn Bridge that you traveled across, which turned out to have the same architect/engineer. Another one of those startling coincidences that we encountered so often on the Pittsburgh portion of your trip. :thumbsup:
 
Pittsburgh Photos

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This bank reminded me of Gringotts

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TRIVIA: If you look at the brownstone building photos, they were the Courthouse and Jail designed by the renown architect H.h. Richardson,who also designed Trinity Church Cathedral in Boston. He considered these twin buildings his best work. The bridge between the buildings was known as 'The Bridge of Sighs', and was used to transport inmates from the jail to the courtrooms in the Courthouse. Dozens of movies had their prison scenes filmed in the jail due to it's throwback interior look. Among those was scenes of Silence of the Lambs (Anthony Hopkins, Jody Foster), and Mrs. Soffell, the true story of the warden's wife that helped free and flee with two of the male prisoners in the 19th century (Mel Gibson, Diane Keaton). The torture well in Silence of the Lambs was built with stones from my sister's farmhouse that they were renovating at the time. My brother in law was a set builder at the studio they were using in Braddock, down the road a bit. The stones are now walkway stones leading from the driveway to the house at my sister's home.
 
Day 12 – Road Trip

We had a hire car booked to get us down to the third leg of this Epic Adventure, pick up was Morgantown, around 90 miles south of the @Mad Dog resort. This seemed a good place to get the car as it was enrooted to our destination, Sevierville, Tennessee for a week long stay by the Smokey Mountains with Friends @Bob Wadd and Dianne.

@Mad Dog had us at the Enterprise rental in Morgantown in good time and we said our goodbyes. We had an issue with a credit card which held us up a little, I was trying to use an out of date card, whoops. We resolved the problem and I was soon sat in my ride, a Hyundai Tucson. They first offered me a Nissan but I’m thinking about a Tucson as my next set of wheels back home so asked if I could switch wont het a better test drive than the 6.5 hrs down to TN.

6.5hrs is a long drive by UK standards but the journey went surprisingly quick, we made 3 stops, first one to sort out the problem with the credit card, it was nearly banks closing time back home so we needed to do this. We passed by @Disneyhead home town and we did see the Pies and Pints place he had recommended but decided it was too early for lunch and we wanted to make tracks after our earlier stop. We eventually stopped just over half way for lunch, a quick bite at Wendy’s for a Dave single and some coffee then back on the road, we would go on to make one more rest stop around an hour out.

The ride through the mountains was a good one with nice views, Google did a good job of getting us there and the only issue we had other than the credit card was a rain storm in WV. Down in one of the valleys rain was so heavy I had zero visibility; thankfully this only lasted a few minutes. We arrived at our destination in Sevierville at 5.30PM.

We pulled up at our log cabin and were soon greeted by our good friends @Bob Wadd and Dianne. We had all had long journeys to get here so the plan was a night in. The guys had already been at got groceries so we were set for dinner, Pizza, Deli Meats, cheese, bread were already in the fridge but the best think was Dianne had got me a 6 pack of Florida Cracker, the beer I so liked in NYC. Samantha was also made up as they had also got us English tea bags and a porcelain tea pot. Also in the fridge was a jar of moonshine.

We only had our car for the trip down so decided to drop it off that night so we could get straight out in the morning, with that out of the way we spent the night, drinking eating and catching up.
 
Great photos Mark. Amazing what he can do with a smartphone for pics. And glad you were able to get my soccer (football) trophy's and plaques up. I had some really excellent American and European players on my various club teams that earned those awards through hard hustling play. I wish the USA team would have played as hard as all my guys, and we played for the 'spirit of the game', not money.....We're already missing Mark & Samantha. Having them here for a week felt like I was on vacation too. Mark & Sam are two of the most quality people you would ever want to meet. Five thumbs up for the Elizabeth Township/Pittsburgh 'World' of the 'EPIC ADVENTURE TRIP' Report. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:
 
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Great photos Mark. Amazing what he can do with a smartphone for pics. And glad you were able to get my soccer (football) trophy's and plaques up. I had some really excellent American and European players on my various club teams that earned those awards through hard hustling play. I wish the USA team would have played as hard as all my guys, and we played for the 'spirit of the game', not money.....We're already missing Mark & Samantha. Having them here for a week felt like I was on vacation too. Mark & Sam are two of the most quality people you would ever want to meet. Five thumbs up for the Elizabeth Township/Pittsburgh 'World' of the 'EPIC ADVENTURE TRIP' Report. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

Thanks buddy, we both had a great time staying with you guys and your hospitality would rival Disney and Uni. Thanks for the memories :thumbsup:
 
Road Trip Photos

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Home for the next week

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And a few home comforts

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Day 13 – Mountains and Moonshine

After yesterdays travels we were all feeling good after a good night’s sleep and we were soon set to go after an all American breakfast of Krispy Kreme Donuts and coffee.

We had an hour and a half Drive that would take us through the heart of the mountains to the highest peak. The drive up the winding roads was so scenic and offered many places to park up and admire the views, we stopped off more than once to snap some pics.

We eventually made it to the car park of the Clingmans Dome Viewing Tower. It’s only a short half mile trek up to the peak but with the altitude and steepness of the walk it felt much longer. We were right up in the clouds at this point which impacted the views from the peak but this didn’t detract from being up there, was kinda neat being in the clouds and we still managed to get some good shots . We were also right on the border of Tennessee and North Carolina.

We spent a good amount of time here just taking in the views, the fauna and the wildlife before heading back to the car for our decent down the mountain. The ride down the steep roads felt like we were riding a coaster. Part way down we stopped off again so we could cross the state line to be in North Carolina, yay I had another state to add to my list.

After the mountain we hit up the Old Forge Distillery, Bob wanted to stock up on a few bottles and they also had free tasting. The server was really cool explaining all the different flavors and strengths and we had a blast trying them all, 0 to pissed in 6 minutes. Bob walked outta there with 2 full cases; we were all set for the rest of the week.

The rest of the night was spent drinking moonshine and grazing on snacks, we didn’t go crazy though, honest, as we were up for Dollywood in the morning
 
The Great Smokey Mountain Photos

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Current ETA 5pm
We've had 72 plus hours of rainfall. ten plus inches in many areas. My sister in law is presently at Ohiopyle and she just sent my bro a video. The river is so high that you can't distinguish the Ohiopyle waterfall (see photo's pg. 9) from the river. The photo of the people sitting on the bench on the hill above the river bank (where Mark helped British Ann down the hill) is now part of the Yough River....And if you look at the photos of Pittsburgh on the photo layout after this (page 10 of this trip report), the Point Park Fountain and part of the park is now under the Ohio River and the Parkway highway in another photo has been flooded by the Monongahela River. Good timing by Mark & Sam. They got out of town before the deluge started.
 
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