Easter weekend Tennessee/NC

[Bill_B]

First off let me start by saying NE Tennessee must be the 4runner capital of the east coast LOL! I don't think I see as many 4Rs in a month than we saw there in 3 days.

We left Pittsburgh Thursday morning, stopped off in Summersville, then finished the drive down to Watauga Lake near Cherokee National Park. Friday we drove SE to Lake James State Park in NC and took the southern entrance to Old Highway 105 which was an absolute blast. If you're looking for a mild 18 mile drive through the mountains I highly recommend. From there we jumped on the Blue Ridge Parkway up to Grandfather Mountain then drove back to our cabin in Tennessee. Saturday we just spent the day hiking and driving around Cherokee/Watauga. Best Easter weekend I can remember

Total trip was about 1,100 miles on the money and we got about 18.5-19mpg each fill up whether we were on the highway or in the mountains... average for the whole trip was 18.6.

I have higher res pictures if anyone is interested in seeing more of the landscape.

 

[blue$]

I think the mountains of western NC may challenge TN for that honor. We've got tons of T4Rs hereabouts.

Either way, you can't lose. Beautiful country abounds.

 

[Bill_B]

I think the mountains of western NC may challenge TN for that honor. We've got tons of T4Rs hereabouts.

Either way, you can't lose. Beautiful country abounds.

You may be right there, I don't think we did enough driving around in NC but we definitely saw a lot of Pros there
At one point I remember seeing like 2 LEs in front of us at an intersection, an SR5 coming from the opposite direction, and a Pro in the parking lot of diner... these were all within my vision at one time :lol:

 

[jbjones85]

Looks like a great trip. There are quite a few 4R's in the western part of NC. My GF's family is there and whenever we go out to see them my truck feels right at home.

We are actually going to be heading into TN later this year for a long weekend so may need to check some of these areas out. The scenery looks great.

 

[CarborundumK]

First off let me start by saying NE Tennessee must be the 4runner capital of the east coast LOL! I don't think I see as many 4Rs in a month than we saw there in 3 days.

We left Pittsburgh Thursday morning, stopped off in Summersville, then finished the drive down to Watauga Lake near Cherokee National Park. Friday we drove SE to Lake James State Park in NC and took the southern entrance to Old Highway 105 which was an absolute blast. If you're looking for a mild 18 mile drive through the mountains I highly recommend. From there we jumped on the Blue Ridge Parkway up to Grandfather Mountain then drove back to our cabin in Tennessee. Saturday we just spent the day hiking and driving around Cherokee/Watauga. Best Easter weekend I can remember

Total trip was about 1,100 miles on the money and we got about 18.5-19mpg each fill up whether we were on the highway or in the mountains... average for the whole trip was 18.6.

I have higher res pictures if anyone is interested in seeing more of the landscape.

Old 105 used to have some great scenery, along with being a fun drive. Thank you for sharing some photos - they brought back some good memories of trips out that way.

As for the concentration of 4Runners, all of Eastern Tennessee seems like 4Runner country from the time I have spent there (along with western Georgia and northern Alabama).