Sept 13  Knoxville TN

We start a new trip, although a week earlier than we had planned.  As Florence approached the North Carolina coast we decided that leaving early would be a good idea.  We might have to cut this trip short (perhaps VERY short) if there's a problem back in Chapel Hill, but for now we're on our way.

The original plan had this car trip starting with a visit to Memphis on the 20th.  We'll try to move that date up, but until then we'll stay close to NC and see the things that Knoxville has to offer.

 This morning we visiting the Ijams (eye-ems) Nature Center, located very near downtown Knoxville.  There are several hiking trails with great scenic beauty.

Visitor Center

 We first walked over to the quarry.  There are several old quarry sites along the south side of the Tennessee River in the Knoxville area which have been turned into nature areas now.

 We saw "challenging" as "don't do it" and just walked along a small portion of the quarry.  They rent kayaks to take out on to the lake.

 Beautiful reflections

 We next walked down to the river, along the river trail that includes a boardwalk built into the side of the limestone wall.

 There's a kayak launch site.  I'd guess the rollers make landing and launching pretty easy.

 Impressive boardwalk cantilevered over the river

 Back to the visitor center through the woods

 William Tecumseh Sherman didn't conquer the South, kudzu did

 A theme for this trip.  On the 5-hour from Chapel Hill to Knoxville we passed at least 300 bucket trucks going into eastern NC to be ready for the war against power outages.  We shared the Fairfield Inn on the outskirts of Knoxville with several crews and their trucks.