Norris Dam State Park Campground, 20 miles northwest of Knoxville, TN

on the 21st, we eventually made it to the Smokey Mountains National Park, where we drove over the smokies and into North Carolina, where we found a campground. technically, the campground was closed for the night, meaning we weren't supposed to waltz in and set up our stuff as everyone was sleeping (it was around 11:30 at night), but we did anyway. we found a camping space, and i left everyone waiting there as i went back to the ranger station at the entrance to register, but got really lost through the campground, and repeatedly embarrassed myself as i drove past the same people over and over again trying to get to the entrance.

finally i made it, but found there was no place to s elf register, as there are in most public campgrounds, but i just thought "eh whatever", and went back to the campsite. we set up camp, cooked some chili and corn, and went to sleep. the next morning we woke up and had a wonderful oatmeal breakfast, then headed back over the smokey mountains back into tennessee. as we got over the crest, it started to rain real bad, and so it did for a while. we headed down into gatlinburg (one giant tourist trap kind of a city), and found ourselves a parking space. we got out and walked along the street, and decided to sit down at a resteraunt and get some coffee.

we went into the Afrium House of Pancakes, and got coffee, and 3 baskets of french fries, which came to 10 dollars total, a luxury we cannot afford that often. after that, we walked along the main strip, did a little window shopping kind of stuff and checked out the authentic Herbie the Love Bug. every so often, it would start beeping and some hydraulics would bounce it up and down. then i realized that the Ecto 1 from Ghostbusters was sitting by a window on the second floor of the building we were standing in front of. i stared in awe and took a few pictures, and chatted for a few minutes with the people trying to get us to pay money to go inside about how i was a ghostbusters freak. oh yeah, i forgot, while we were in the restaraunt, zach found coupons good for a free fifty firecrackers at a place called the Fireworks Supermarket. we headed there, which was also on the way to a campground we wanted to stay at.

unfortuneatly, for some reason, the half a dozen pictures i took at that place didn't come out on the digital camera. aw well. when we got there, we went in, and walked around the store looking for the free fireworks. eventually we asked someone hesitantly, not expecting our coupons to be honored because you can't just give away 50 firecrackers, and they said "oh yeah just bring your coupons to the register." so we did, and some cool tennessee teenager who was working there said "watch i'll get you more . . . hey! give these guys double packs! see, i'm the man." me and justin each got 100 free firecrackers, which seemed way to ridiculous to be true to us, and went outside.

after a while of standing around out there, a couple of the kids working there came out and started chatting to us about the car, and suddenly about 5 people were out checkin out the car, and we chatted with 'em about tennessee, and one of them said sometimes he likes to drive around in his pickup truck with a shotgun shooting into the air just to give people who think tennessee is all hicks a taste of what they expect. then he started talking about how sometimes he rides around on his horse shooting deer, which we laughed at, and he said "no seriously." then about 10 ridiculously hot tennessee girls came out and started talking to us, and a few of them signed the car. eventually, we left, and continued on our way to norris dam. we drove on 441 through knoxville, and on the way to norris dam i saw a bunch of signs that said "public campground", which sounded a lot cheaper, so we headed towards them.

this took us off the main routes and onto some tennessee backroads, which were extremely rural and extremely beautiful. after a while we came to a campground with no fee at all, but some flappy faced tennessee guy who we couldn't understand told us there wasn't any space, but told us to try the anderson county campground. we drove there, and as soon as we got there we got some pretty bad vibes. we found a campsite right by the water, and took a walk to the bathrooms. along the walk, a chubby little tennessee kid at the age of 4 or 5 or 6 or 7 biked up to us, and yelled "freaks" then biked off real fast. again we biked by us, and stopped, and asked us,

"don't y'all know you look likes dorks?", to which we asked him 

"well define dork, your definition could be much different then ours."

he gave us a puzzled look, then biked off and yelled "freakos!"

once we got back to our site, the guy in charge of the place had driven up. jake went up to their green pickup truck and asked,

"yeah, uh, where do we register?"

"where you boys from?", asked the camp manager in a very southern voice.

"oh, we're from mass." "y'all can't camp here, this here campgrounds for the county residents only."

"oh, so we're saying we can't camp here, eh?" said jake, being a little sarcastic sounding, especially since there were plenty of cars with out of state plates. i jumped in to try and makesure it didn't escalate into anything;

"sorry about that, we'll go to a different place, but can you give us directions to norris dam state park?"

"yea allright, well you take a right at the end of . . ."

as he was giving me directions, the little bike kid came up and said "this car is dorkeriffic" "well, you have to admit it's a little cool" zach retorted, to which the little tennessee kid said "yeah if you're a dork, you dork!" and rode off. we left the campground in a very embarrassing manner, everyone staring at us as the park ranger followed us out. i'm sure we were the talk of the campground for the night. "Hey jimbob, what was the deal with that van?" "yeah don't worry eileen, we dealt with em," or something similar to that.

on the way out of there, i noticed a very strange white cement building, with bars on all the windows and a chain link fence with barbed wire on it. it looked like some sort of a crazy prison that the locals sometimes throw people in for no reason, or something like that. we eventually found norris dam, where we were greeted happily and respectfully, so we're going to spend a couple days here. in a few horus, me and jake are going to check out knoxville and a walmart, and zach and justin are going to stay here. then tomorrow morning we're going to wake up, and see if we can get to nashville or a campground near it. see ya.