Foliage report...please (Johnson City, Kingsport, Bristol: 2010, vs., deal)

[pdq]

I would avoid the Cherehola skyway and highway 129 south of Maryville. They are beautiful stretches of highway and scenery but get filled with motorcycles and speed bikes.

There's been many problems up there this year, deaths, accidents, and numerous tickets. It's get so congested during the Fall that the problems could increase.

Some up-to-date news about the two highways.
Tail of the Dragon at Deals Gap and Cherohala Skyway, Graham Co, NC

Best of luck.

[gemkeeper]

Thanks for that, pdq. We are driving up to Maryville tomorrow morning from N. GA and there is no question that my husband plans on taking the Tail! It always freaks me out, but he becomes a 16 year old driving it. Looks like there are too many of those guys this time of year.

He took his car in for service this week to have the brakes and brake pads checked, soooo I know he is ready for some serious driving.

I printed your post with the link for him. When he gets home soon from the auto shop your heads up will be waiting for him to read!! Do I think he'll change his mind? Hmmmm.

[pdq]

I do hope he reads it, it can be crazy out there. There are many good, less traveled mountain roads in N GA for him to play on. Cherehola and the Dragon are not for the casual browser this time of the year.

Best of luck in your trip!

[gemkeeper]

Originally Posted by pdq

I do hope he reads it, it can be crazy out there. There are many good, less traveled mountain roads in N GA for him to play on. Cherehola and the Dragon are not for the casual browser this time of the year.

Best of luck in your trip!

Thanks, pdq. He read it shortly after I posted to you. He said that he is going to rethink our route up to Knoxville in the morning. I don't usually like to go with him when he has his 'vette out on the Tail or the Snake here in N. GA, but when we drive to TN, I don't have much choice!

I don't think he is an unsafe driver, but I do worry about the other guy coming toward us who isn't very skillful with mountain driving. Things can get out of control very quickly. We have noticed that most of the cyclists get pretty daring around the photo shooting areas - no doubt hoping to have their picture published in Cyclist magazine or other mags. Our #2 son used to do professional free-lance bike event photography and had near misses just being on the side of the road!

I'm sure we will have a safe trip up and thank you for wishing us well on our visit. Hope we can duck the heavy downpours once there. Last Monday was a real washout! We were pleased to spend a couple of days in Chattanooga before heading home to wait for clearer weather. It is a lovely city; we really enjoyed it.

[Tennesseestorm]

I have heard that areas as far south as north Georgia has alot of good color now. I live in Bristol and our accelerated very rapidly. On October 20th, MOST all trees were ALL green, but now we have some color, or the trees are still all green, or brown (from the drought). Some areas in south Bristol still have low color as well.

HOWEVER, I was in Kingsport the other day (20 miles west of Bristol) and there is very little change there. Most all trees are still green, but they are about 400-500 ft. lower in elevation. From what I can tell, they are probably in line with Knoxville now in the Kingsport area.

We took these on late Saturday afternoon in Elizabethton, Tennessee (which is just east of Johnson City and south of Bristol). We took these when heading to the Saturday night cruise-in down there. As you can see, there was some color, but not much.

[summergal]

Is there much color around Knoxville yet? I'm coming up for a few days on the 11th to look around (yup another in Florida planning a great escape LOL)and I'm so excited! Will it still be pretty then or do you think most of the color will be gone by then?

[TedTAce]

I think this link is apropos

Cades Cove Plus Some of Gatlinburg (broken link)

[summergal]

Wow Ted! Those are really stunning photos! Thanks for sharing them

[dkaye]

Thanks Ted for sharing! The colors doesn't look as vibrant as usual do they? It looks like we aren't going to make it up in that area this season...:-(
We are moving from Alabama to the Nashville area in January and we are so busy trying to get ready for the move that it looks like that is all the time we are going to have but we will be about 3 hours closer to Gatlinburg. :-)
Have a great day!
Donna

[TedTAce]

Originally Posted by dkaye

Thanks Ted for sharing! The colors doesn't look as vibrant as usual do they? It looks like we aren't going to make it up in that area this season...:-(
We are moving from Alabama to the Nashville area in January and we are so busy trying to get ready for the move that it looks like that is all the time we are going to have but we will be about 3 hours closer to Gatlinburg. :-)
Have a great day!
Donna

The colors are only STARTING to change, I think this comming weekend will be very good and maybe into the week after that. We are only tonight supposed to get our first freeze, so here we go.