Sharp's Travels

We left this morning at 10:15 for Tuckaleechee Caverns in Townsend, TN. It was about a ½ hour drive from our campground. It was only 65 degrees so we needed our sweatshirts and jackets for the trip.


This cavern was opened to the public in 1953. It was amazing. The temperature remains a cool 58 degrees year around. There are a total of 410 steps down to the bottom section of the cavern. The formations were beautiful. We saw a 24ft high stalagmite, ribbon stalactites, flowstone draeries and much more. The big room was discovered in 1954 and is also open to the public as part of the mile-long guided tour. The big room is more than 400 ft long, 300 ft across and 150 ft deep. It is a site to see.

The newest section open to the public includes a 200 ft waterfall, which is a double waterfall. You can stand by the lower falls and look up into a lighted room where the upper falls is located.

The cavern gets over 50,000 visitors a year. It took us about 1 ½ hrs to go through it.

We stopped at a Mountain Craft Shop on the way back to the 5th wheel. I saw lots of things I’d like to have but ended up only buying a black bear to go with my bear collection.

We had left-over pizza for lunch and then left about 2:30pm to head over to the trolley station. We parked the bike at the station and took the trolley to Dollywood.

We only had time to take in 3 shows—One on Dolly’s 25th Anniversary of the Park, one 50’s & 60’s music, and one Country Music Show. They were all good.

We did take time to ride the Dollywood Express Steam Train, which takes you by most of the attractions in the park.

The park closed at 7pm and we made our way to the entrance to catch our ride back to the Trolley Station.

We ate dinner out at Mel’s Diner. It’s an old 50’s style diner with scenes of old cars painted on the windows. The atmosphere inside was really neat.

We were back home by 8pm and dog tired. It was a busy day.

For pictures of the day see album: Tuckaleechee Caverns.