Michigan ➤ Cincinnati ➤ Smoky Mountains

 TL;DR AirBnB nestled into the Smoky Mountains is our new getaway from people.

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    After we moved out we stopped at the Farleigh "BnB" on the lake to decompress for a few days. So cheap, great views, always a big breakfast, and allow cats! LOL - thanks Mom & Dad! I always hate taking the cats away from there, they love watching the lake wildlife outside the big windows and my parents treat them like actual grandchildren (a.k.a. completely spoil them). It was a tear-filled send-off once we were packed up and hitting the road, but I'm pretty sure my parents tears were mostly for the cats 😹

Fiyero gets the good "scritches" from Dad and Elphie watches the ducks.

Hitting the road! (Note the black Subaru turning the wrong way)

Dan turning around to go the right way. 😂

    Our first stop was Cincinnati for a few days to see our good friends Ian and Katie! The drive was relatively smooth, other than my car severely under-calculating the battery usage of the drive by about ~20% so I fell short just before my Supercharger stop in Fort Wayne, IN. I'm going to post more about this and what it's like travelling cross country in an EV / Tesla in a future post! The cats sat on Dan's lap the majority of each leg of the drive. We stopped every 2 hours-ish to charge my car, so these were perfect breaks for the cats. We will share more information about travelling with the kitties from the car setup to adapting to the hotels, in a different future post as well!

   We spent some amazing quality time with our friends in Cincinnati, who were incredibly kind to taxi us around and show us the city. We went to a comedy club, Topgolf, arcade, and (my personal fave) the infamous Cincinnati Zoo! I've been following Fiona the baby hippo and Rico the Brazilian porcupine from the zoo for a few years, so I was starstruck (and made many squeals to prove it). The kitties settled into the hotel for the weekend and discovered some fun perching spots.

    Onto our beautiful Airbnb nestled into the Smoky Mountains for 15 days! We just realized that was the longest we've ever stayed in one spot aside from home, normally our trips are filled with multiple location stays in a two week period. Tennessee and the Smoky Mountains also haven't really flown on our radar before, likely because it is a very popular vacation spot for West Michiganders (or at least the ones we've worked with in the past). Call us "hipsters" but we always lean towards places that few people in our circle have been, mostly so we can make our own discoveries and brag about them when we come home😂 When we decided we wanted a low-key, warmer, 2 week stop before heading to the east coast though, Tennessee became a perfect pitstop. Once we saw this deck and view on one of the Airbnb listings, we were sold.

    Once we arrived, Dan set up his workstation next to the big windows and I immediately found my perfect reading spot on the deck. Dan will be posting about his “digital nomad” experience and working remotely while travelling in a future post, so stay tuned. Each day over the next two weeks, we alternated between sitting on the porch reading and working, grilling with a Shandy in hand, playing video games while it thunderstormed over the mountains, and driving over 30 minutes to get groceries. On the weekends we took long scenic drives through the Smoky Mountains National Park, which was absolutely gorgeous with its rocky landscapes and thick green forests. It was a balmy 80-85 degrees the duration of our stay, but thunderstormed about half the time.

    We of course had to see what all of the hype was about in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, so we stopped in both places for a classic moonshine tasting, ordered a few flights at some top rated breweries, and I may or may not of hit up Buc-ee's more than once (Beaver Nuggets: if you know, you know). I visited a few kitschy museums on my own one of the days while Dan was working - why a Titanic museum is in the middle of Tennessee, I will never know. If that wasn't enough 'Merica for us, we encored at our lord and savior Dolly Parton's famous dinner "stampede", which included a horse show and hog and chicken racing while eating a 4 course southern meal. I never wanted to own a cowboy hat that bad in my life. While all of this was fun, we found the towns a bit too touristy for our taste, so we retreated back to our mountain haven after a few hours.

    Dan also spent some time sampling the local disc golf courses. His top target for this area was a course called Harmon Hills, which is on private land and considered one of the top 10-50 (depending on where you look) disc golf courses in the world. The course lived up to its reputation - it was the best Dan had played since September of last year. He also tried out several courses around Morristown, the self-proclaimed "disc golf capital of Tennessee".

    Back at the AirBnB, the cats really enjoyed it as much as we did. They could be found lounging in sun spots or perching in the open windows to smell the air. Frequently we’d jump when they would zoomie from one end of the house to the other on the hardwood, burn out around corners and slam into the walls while chasing each other. They also found all of the hidden nooks and crannies, either emerging covered in dust and sneezing and sometimes getting stuck all night and needing to be extracted by us when we went looking for them the following morning.

    In addition to our wild animals inside, we had an unfortunate run in with the local wildlife outside. Normally this animal lover would be all about it, but NOT this time. I walked right up on this “NOPE-ROPE” on our porch one morning (see video below) after almost stepping on it. The remainder of our stay was filled with paranoia and checking over and under the furniture each time we went on the porch. Literally the only animal I could do without… We did see a bear cub right next to the car though, so I guess that made up for it!

    All in all, this was a fantastic stay and perfect way to start our adventure. We had many hours of relaxation and quiet time in the fresh air with our kitties, beautiful drives through the mountains with the windows down, and some great BBQ, sweet tea and moonshine! We will definitely consider coming back here in the future if we want a quiet escape from the hustle and bustle. Now onto our next leg, up to Portland, Maine with a few stops in between. Stay tuned!

--Also, check out:

Album of photos from this leg of the trip

Full Roundtrip Stop Map (New stops added as we progress)

Dan's Disc Golf Reviews (Updated as he plays local courses)

Corinne's Reading List (Updated with books read on the road)