Mmmm. It was a great sleep. We head off with renewed vigour. After breakfast at a local one of a kind breakfast place (McDonalds….have you ever heard of it?), we head down the road. We hadn’t gone far when our conversation turned to where, in Steinbach, the Krahns live. ( I am completely unsure what convoluted conversation took us to that topic, but I can assure you that the conversation was very important and it was VERY necessary to establish exactly where their house was.) The discussion got heated (but only slightly). Rudy was sure that the street (he called it a bay) curved. I understood this to mean that it curved back to Henry St.  I was sure it was straight. I knew it was, since I was sure that it intersected with Hespeler at a right angle. We argued over the street’s name. I won a point in the discussion by identifying the street as Evergreen Avenue. Rudy, seemingly annoyed by my knowledge, took another tack. It had to be curved because Beaver Crescent was behind the Lutheran Church. That seemed irrelevant to me and I stated as much.  He said it was of no importance what the name of the street was but rather the fact that it was curved. At this point I took out my phone to check it all out on Google maps. Rudy’s feelings of annoyance escalated and because he could not see the map, he announced, quite emphatically, that he would just PULL OVER. Despite the busy traffic he pulled onto the shoulder and we examined the map. He was happy to find that the street was curved and therefore felt he had won the argument. I also was happy to have won as Evergreen does straighten out and intersects Hespeler at right angles. Both, being contented with our superior knowledge, happily continued our journey.

We decided today to take an 11 mile loop in the Great Smoky Mountains through Caden’s Cove. It is a very slow drive that winds through beautiful scenery (do I say the same thing every day?). The weather was overcast and cool. We stopped at some old homesteads and walked through the trees.

After spending much of the morning idling our van in bumper-to-bumper single-file around the busy one-way circuit, we exited the loop and headed to Pigeon Forge. I imagined a rustic place but when we arrived we were shocked to find that it is more like a Las Vegas for the christians of America. It is filled with a million amusement parks, hotels, arcades, souvenir places,  and ice cream shops. All of the amusements are geared towards wholesome family fun. I noticed a comedy theatre that offered daily shows and immediately googled it, only to find that the program was mostly juggling and corny (but ‘clean’) jokes. We found a laundromat and did our laundry and then checked into our hotel. Tomorrow we will head to Gatlinburg which seems like it will suit us much better. Apparently we’ll find hiking trails and more scenic drives in the Smoky Mountains there.