Gatlinburg is burning

YF needs to have boots on the ground STAT! to solve the Mystery of the Mysterious Mansion. It sounds like CNN has proclaimed some sites are destroyed when they are not.

 

Red state insurance fraud

 

There are a few sites that TEMA originally declared destroyed that have turned out to be OK. No word on whether this was shiftless lifer bureaucrats screwing everything up between coffee breaks or their earnest, God-fearing Republican overseers being misunderstood by the evil media.

 

Aww, those roads are just a little bit curvy. You want a really windy road, scoot east a bit to the Tenn/NC border around Fontana Dam and find the Tail of the Dragon. Beloved of motorcyclists and sports car drivers, it has 318 curves in eleven miles, most of them with a rock face to one side and a dropoff on the other.

 

Home to the Tree of Shame

 

For the Anything Is a Story file ...

Dollywood employee finds burned Bible page after wildfires

 

Yeah. Last time I took my Miata up there two guys on crotch rockets had killed themselves that week trying to drive faster than their skills allowed. It happens. You can bend your vehicle even if you're not being foolish.

It can be a scary drive. There are places where taking a curve at thirty five feels insanely fast, because you're taking a blind downhill curve and all you can see is a rock wall with the road disappearing around it and thin air on the other side. You take a lot of curves praying that whoever is coming the other way stays the hell on his side of the yellow line, because otherwise it's a head on and nowhere to go. Once in a while you'll get some idiot eighteen wheeler driver taking a "shortcut" or following a GPS. Once they get in there they can't back out, and they can't take the curves without crossing the lines.

 

This isn't a new sentiment, but Dolly Parton is an amazing woman.

Dolly Parton Promises $1,000 Per Month to Families Who 'Lost Everything' in Tennessee Wildfire

 

Fontana Dam is where some of The Fugitive scenes were shot.

 

You drive a Miata?

 

THat's a special person who lives her Christian values. I wonder of the Koch Brothers, who have sizable business interest in Tennessee will do as much

 

Yeah. We've had five now. Best smile to the mile ratio I know of. Fun to drive on the twisties or motocross, inexpensive to buy and to drive, parts are cheap and easy and there is a lot of internet support if you want to wrench on it yourself but aren't the best mechanic. Insurance is cheap. It is probably the most commonly raced car in the country, to boot, not that I do. My pockets aren't that deep.

They make going on a grocery run fun.