Time to catch up on the last three days. From Pigeon Forge we headed into the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Unfortunately there are so many trees in the park you can't see anything but trees. Even at the scenic overlooks are grown up in trees so you can't see over them. Fortunately on the highest mountain in the park they have built an observation platform that you can see Nancy waving from.






This is a view from the platform. You can see why they are called the smoky mountains (Although it is actually fog caused by the high humidity)











The only wildlife we saw in the park although she wasn't very wild. I expect she is a "kept" hen by the way she came running up to the truck when I stopped to take a picture.










They did have a restored grain mill in the park that was very interesting. Here is Nancy standing beside some used grinding wheels.











Inside the mill that was grinding corn while we were there. The operator was selling 5 lb samples.











They also had a restored farmstead in the park complete with a log home, wood shed, Ash bin(used to store and make lye for making soap), apple storage cellar, corn crib, barn, hog shed (with two young pigs), Sorghum mill and furnace (for making molasses).
Took back roads to Charleston and saw a lot of neat productive looking farms and small towns.






We took a city bus tour in Charleston.. Most of the tour was in the historic district and I guess I saw more large homes than anyplace I've ever seen before. Seems the rural plantation owner got tired of rural life occasionally so they had a townhouse built so they could live in town in the winter and socialize.







Charleston is called the "Holy" city because of large number of large churches with tall steeples like this one.

















We then took a boat ride out to Fort Sumpter which was built along with 43 others to keep out foreign invaders after the war of 1812. Unfortunately the first shots of the civil war were fired here after South Carolina seceded from the union while federal troops were stationed in Ft Sumpter. After 34 hours of warfare the 85 federal troops surrendered. There were no casualties of that battle but it was the beginning of the civil war.