Mingus Mill - Great Smoky Mountains

Mingus Mill - Great Smoky Mountains

Sometimes getting lost has it's benefits. Like locating the Mingus Mill in the Great Smoky Mountains. My intention was to find Clingmans Dome - the highest point in Tennessee. I was doing my best to follow the directions on my GPS which suddenly cut out right at the sign for Clingmans Dome. Clearly I should have been keeping an eye on the road, not the tech but I zipped right by the tiny sign for the turn off.

I then started an ear popping descent with hair pin turns and no possible turn around. Not until I came across this old cabin a few miles down the road and a few thousand feet down the mountain side. I was happy to pull over and pry my fingers loose from the steering wheel. We don't do turns and hills here in Florida and in the Tennessee mountains they don't do straight and level. Not even the parking lots. It was a bit of a driving shock.

In one of those "well since I'm here" moments and not yet convinced I was actually lost, I decided to take a look inside and ask for directions. It went something like this.

Me - "Can you tell me if I'm close to Clingmans Dome?"

Folksy guy in the cabin - "It's way up there on the top of the mountain you just come from son. How did you miss it?"

It might have had something to do with a two foot tall brown sign in the middle of a forest I thought but I kept that to myself. I did purchase a sack of fresh ground corn flour complete with instructions on how to bake cornbread.

It didn't take too long for the sounds of nature to calm me enough that my hands stopped shaking for these shots. Then it was time to mount up and head back up the mountain, exercising those lower three gears I normally only use when launching my vehicle the first five seconds from a dead stop.

Mingus Mill - Great Smoky Mountains