We arrived in Knoxville and set up camp with barely an hour left of daylight after driving 2 and a half hours from Ashville. That meant we got a day of rest the next day, right? Not with Jim playing tour guide.

Thursday, I let Jamie sleep in a bit and we hit the road around 11am for the tail of the dragon. For anyone not familiar with this attraction it’s an 11 mile drive between Tennessee and North Carolina with 318 hairpin turns that takes the life of at least one motorist, mostly motorcycles, every year. It’s very popular among motorcyclists and people in sports cars, both of which we saw many. This has been something on Jim’s bucket list for quite some time. He wanted to do it on a motorcycle but had to settle for our jeep. It was quite an experience.

On our way home we stopped in Knoxville for dinner. We stopped at a hidden speak easy called the Peter Kern library that you have to know a secret code to get in with plans for just having a pre dinner cocktail. After browsing the menu we decided to have dinner and we weren’t disappointed. We shared a couple of small plates and finished with an amazing dessert.