Andrew Johnson NHS / Beauty Spot
Road Trip to Wilmington, NC | Illinois to North Carolina | South Fork National Recreation Area | Andrew Johnson National Historic Site | Beauty Spot | September 2023
After a pleasant night spent camping in Shawnee National Forest, we set out to go for a short hike in Bell Smith Springs Recreation area before getting back on the road. It was a bit of a bust because there weren’t any signs and it wasn’t very blind dog friendly — but that’s ok, we still got out for a walk and it’s unlikely the waterfall would have be flowing given how dry the area had been. We’ll give this area another shot someday, since we know it has more camping and hiking like we enjoyed last fall, and there is still a huge section of the park (and several counties) we have yet to see along the Mississippi River. Instead, we continued our drive East to Cave-in-Rock, IL where we took the free ferry across the Ohio river into Kentucky. We had tried to take this route last November, but the waves had been far too rough to operate the ferry that day. Today we enjoyed our ride across, especially the brief glimpses we had of the bluffs and cave on the Illinois side.
For today’s drive, we planned to drive across the Southern part of Kentucky so that we could finish that whole row of counties. While that sounded fun and productive at the beginning of the day, it ended up just being a really long day of driving narrow and winding state and county highways. Kentucky is usually the state when we start to question our life and sanity during our Midwest to North Carolina drives, and today was no exception. As for stops, we first wanted to stop at a place that had the words “mounds” and “park” in the title, and we assumed that it would be some sort of historic mounds site like others we’ve enjoyed visiting, but then as I was navigating us there I realized it was just a big golf course and that was a big “nope” from both of us!
Desperate to find another spot on our route, I directed us to Old Mulkey Meetinghouse State Historic Site near Tompkinsville in the mid-afternoon. On paper it sounds interesting; a log church from 1804 with connections to the Daniel Boone family and the Great Awakening, but the site turned out to just be an empty log building and graveyard, with not much in terms of information or trails (all the placards in the graveyard were covered with black garbage bags). Oh well, at least we got to stop, stretch our legs, and eat a late lunch. After that, we pressed on a couple more hours to tonight’s campground, Alum Ford Campground near Whitley City — which we were surprised to learn was part of an NPS site: South Fork National Recreation Area. It wasn’t a huge campground, but thankfully we had it all to ourselves. We relaxed and colored in our county map just to make ourselves feel like we actually accomplished something today. Hopefully next time we’ll remember this experience and break up driving across Kentucky some more, or at least take a more direct and less windy route.
The next morning, we started our day with a hike to the Yahoo Falls Overlook. Just like in Illinois, this area had been pretty dry so the falls themselves weren’t very impressive, but we enjoyed the lookout over the river and Charlotte enjoyed her morning walk. We know there’s a lot more to Kentucky hiking (as evidenced by our fun experience in Red River Gorge in July), as well as South Fork NRA, so hopefully next time we choose a better route. But for today, we were mentally over Kentucky, so we drove to US-27 and went South into Tennessee.
Unlike Kentucky, our drive through Tennessee stuck mostly to major highways and even some interstates, scoring us some new counties. But we still found time to get out and explore a bit. For today’s main activity to break up the drive, we visited Andrew Johnson National Historic Site in Greeneville, TN. While here, we were able to see his house and other buildings associated with him in the downtown area, and then drive over to the cemetery where he is buried. As an added bonus, Charlotte was allowed in the house so we were able to tour it together. As the first President to have been impeached, I think most would place Johnson in the ‘bad presidents’ category. But we both thought the museum did an excellent job placing the man and president in the greater context of the Civil War and Reconstruction era; explaining why he believed the things he did, why others disagreed, and how Johnson ended up on the wrong side of history. It definitely gave us a new appreciation for him.
From Greeneville, we headed up into the mountains for that evening’s campsite, ultimately stopping on the TN/NC state line near TN-395 and right next to the Appalachian Trail at a place known as Beauty Spot. This spot was perfect for tonight: a beautiful view right outside of the van, the trail just a short walk away, and grassy places for Charlotte to enjoy a nap in the sunshine.
Curtis: It was still such a beautiful day, and there was plenty of daylight left that I felt I could make it the 6 miles to Unaka Mountain. After walking with Charlotte and Jess to the field of wildflowers on Beauty Spot, I turned North and followed the Appalachian Trail. The trail meandered around a nearer peak before going down to the gap between Beauty Spot and Unaka. I spotted a few thru-hikers camped off the trail, but was otherwise by myself for this part. Near the gap, I rounded a tree and looked down for my foot placement only to see a snake lying in the middle of the path. I recoiled and jumped to the side…the snake didn’t react in the slightest. I quickly took a picture but decided not to press my luck and pushed up the other side of the mountain. Based on the picture though, I don’t think it was a copperhead, rattler, or cottonmouth.
I passed two South bound hikers as I puffed my way up to the peak. I warned the first one of the snake on the trail and she was not to thrilled at the prospect. Eventually, I reached the treed summit of Unaka Mountain, which was darkly shaded with dark green conifers and no understory, giving a peaceful but erie aura. Beauty Spot definitely steals all of the views of this stretch of trail. I caught my breath, took my obligatory summit photo (#74), and then returned the way I had come.
The hike back was uneventful and snake free, and I eventually caught up with one of the South Bounders who I talked with as we rounded the trail to the summit of Beauty Spot.
Jess: While Curtis was gone, quite a few other hikers and campers came and went, but Charlotte and I found a spot out of the way to enjoy the day: Charlotte by napping, myself by reading. As the afternoon wore on, I heard more and more voices coming from the nearby clearing. I heard someone say something about a receiving line, took a peek to see what was going on and realized a wedding was about to start right there. The commotion woke Charlotte up, and it took an exceptional amount of strength and attention to keep her from joining the party. I texted Curtis to warn him, but it was over by the time he made it back things were wrapping up.
Once the coast was mostly clear, we made our way back to the van for dinner. Eventually the wedding guests cleared out, and people camping moved in for the night. There were a lot of rowdy kids tent camping, but thankfully our van blocks out most of the noise. At sunset, we returned to the clearing to enjoy the gorgeous colors before turning in for the night.
