Turns out, October is still a busy month for camping in Tennessee. I had trouble finding a place to stay between Chattanooga and Pigeon Forge, but finally found Hornsby Hollow Campground. It was a quiet, secluded campground and we were thankful we could stay there for eight nights, so I didn’t have to find another location to move to before going to Pigeon Forge.
Our friend, Robert, who lives in Knoxville met us in Sweetwater, TN to do a tour at The Lost Sea Adventure. The cave tour was a little over an hour, with about 20 minutes in a boat on the world’s largest natural underground lake, which was different than the other cave tours we had done. I thought we’d be traveling by boat through some of the caverns, but it was just one large room with a large body of water (75 ft deep at its deepest point) that we circled around. They stock the “sea” with rainbow trout, which were pretty large, and we stopped to feed them at one point. There were also some formations the guide called “cave flowers” which are only found in 7 different cave systems, with 70% of them found in these Craighead Caverns. They “grow” super slow and have a steep fine for damaging them.
After the tour, we drove to Sweetwater Valley Farm and ate grilled cheese sandwiches and milk shakes in their cafe. Both were really good!
The next day, Randy and I drove up to Knoxville to do some sight seeing. On our way, we stopped at a car dealer in Lenoir City to test drive a used Toyota Rav4. I wanted to compare it to a Rav4 Hybrid, which I had already driven and liked. The normal gasoline version wasn’t as impressive as the hybrid version, so I didn’t walk out with a “new” car. We decided to stop at Knoxville Toyota, too, to see if they had any hybrids in stock to buy. Evidently, they are super popular and are spoken for before they are delivered to dealers, so I will need to find a used one that has the features I want and pay a new car price for it, or wait 6-8 weeks to have one made for me and delivered. I don’t think I want to be without a car that long after we close on the house, and I’m pretty set on the Rav4 Hybrid, so I’ll keep looking. If I end up buying used, I’m hoping to find a hybrid in that bright blue color, which they don’t make anymore but I love!
We finally got to downtown Knoxville around 3pm and did the Knoxville’s Perfect Blend Scavenger Hunt by Let’s Roam. When we’ve searched for “things to do” online, there are usually a lot of scavenger hunt options near the top of the list. We’ve never actually paid to do one though. Since Robert gave us a code the day before for a free hunt, we decided to use it in Knoxville. It was a good experience — leading us to see some historical landmarks while walking over a mile around the city. It wasn’t as hilarious as they claimed it would be, but we had fun taking the silly pics as directed. I’d do it again if we ever have extra time in city that we’re interested in walking around and touring.
Once we were done with the hunt, we drove to the World’s Fair Park, but unfortunately, we were too late to go up into the Sunsphere that closed at 5pm. It was still nice to walk around the park and look at the sphere and water fountain. It was getting a little chilly, but wasn’t too bad with jackets.
Then we met Robert and his wife, Angela, for dinner at Saloon 16 in Graduate Knoxville, a hotel that has a really unique vibe. The restaurant is “an upscale watering hole” that has lots of memorabilia about Peyton “The Sheriff” Manning who went to the nearby University of Tennessee. The food, along with the company, was all good!
It was also nice to have a few days with “nothing” to do and just hang around the campground, resting and programming (I still have to find time to work occasionally!)
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