Originally Posted by tom2112
Gary, I'm going to work up an alternative Sunday for drivers that want to stick to the area around the Dragon - maybe reversing Saturday's route . . . or going up the Foothills Parkway, over to Townsend, Pidgeon Forge, follow the Great Smokey Mountain Parkway down to Cherokee, and find some lunch around there.Then down to Franklin and follow Rt. 28 back to the Lodge.
Per your suggestion above, I took the XFire Northern Route and modified it somewhat to reflect a route up thru Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge and back down to Townsend and the Foothills Parkway (see attached). MS Streets & Trips says it's about 160 miles roundtrip vs. the 150 miles for the route we ran back in the Spring. Time is approx 4 hours in either case + stops for photos & eats. I've also got driving directions, in the event we decide to run your alternate Northern route, that we can pass out at the driver's meeting Gary holds at the lodge on Friday evening.
Not to take anything away from the Biltmore trip, but for those of us that live nearby, the Biltmore typically has been seen by most of us. (Note: But there will be some great photo opportunities at Biltmore for these cars!)
Jeff Cobb will have a route in & around Asheville layed out for us, but like others have stated, I'm not too thrilled about driving nearly 1.5 hours just to START a driving route. So like others, I'm more interested in driving these cars in the surrounding topography of the Smokies and stopping only occasionally when I'm hungry, need a rest and/or want to take some pictures of these cars posing in the countryside.
Something else to consider. Besides, we'd be a spectacle as a group passing thru Gatlinburg & Pigeon Forge!
FWIW