Caching NC to Tennessee

I added Tennessee to the states where I've cached recently. We traveled from Greensboro, NC to Athens, TN one beautiful, sunny Saturday. Interstate 40 is completely blocked and will be through about April 2010 due to a huge rock slide near the state border. We chose to travel through Boone, NC in order to cross the Smoky Mountains headed to a place that is dear to me. East Tennessee is where my mother is from and where we have a lot of rich family history. It was fun to visit Appalachian State University in Boone, NC on the way over. Paula and I graduated from ASU in 1977. That ages us doesn't it? We stopped at an earthcache called Trash Can Falls (GC1MSAC). It was fun picking up a few smileys along Lake Watauga on the Tennessee side. Another earthcache is Sycamore Shoals State Historical Park (GC1WVZ2). This area is so rich in history. Sycamore Shoals is historically important as the site where about a thousand frontiersmen gathered and set out across the mountains to fight the British invasion in the Carolinas. They met the British at the Battle of King's Mountain in 1780 and delivered a tide-turning defeat to them. The old fort was full of folks reenacting life and costume of that time period. Once out of the mountains we headed south along Interstate 81. We stopped at one rest stop that was home to four caches, one a TB hotel. Getting that many caches in one rest stop is pretty good. We found all of them. During our several days in Athens I got out and found a few caches there. One that I didn't find but wanted to was The Woodlawn Ghost (GC1G6KC). We accompanied my 79-year old uncle to the Senior Citizens Activity Center in Athens one morning. He plays in a gospel music group on Tuesdays for the folks. While they set up I walked the .16 miles to this cache. It wasn't on the site of the Keith Mansion but at a nearby business. It looked like an LPC but I didn't get the opportunity to find it for the muggles. I got a picture of the Inn. According to the owner of the cache it is haunted. I couldn't find anything about that on line. Probably most memorable was my trip out to the family home place. As is the case with many folks, when they get old in order to cover their medical bills they have to give up their farm land and move to the city. This happened to my grandparents in 1980. The farm where I spent many a summer and where I have lasting good memories is still owned by second cousins but the old farm house is falling down. I took a few minutes to walk through the old house. Wow, what memories! The whole weekend was a chance to ask my uncle and aunt about life when they were young. I gathered some great stories for my genealogy research. On our way back to North Carolina we passed through Mosheim, TN. I had not known that my father pastored a Methodist Church there during his college days. We stopped for cache Oldy (GCPX38). This one was on an old condemned bridge along the road to Mosheim. It might have been there when my parents lived there so many years ago in the early 50's. I guess my family is getting used to it. My wife says that you don't travel from point A to point B anymore. It is now point A to point A-1, A-2 and so on. I guess she's right. You just can't ignore all those neat caches along the way.