What a beautiful drive we had today winding our way north to Cade’s Cove in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. The forests are absolutely a brilliant green with trees shrubs, vines, and grasses all showing their new spring growth. We saw gorgeous trees with large purple blossoms, Princess trees, growing on the hillsides. The dogwoods are still in bloom up here along with some azaleas. We had an unexpected surprise as we came around a bend in the road. We saw the Bush’s Beans canning company. They have a very new looking big store and museum across the street. We pulled in to find it pretty darn fascinating. They had a movie with just enough slap stick with Duke the dog to make it both fun and interesting. It’s another great family success story. Back at the turn of the century, Father Bush needed to find something other than teaching to make enough money to raise his family of six children in the hills of Tennessee. He made the right move and his business of canning tomatoes was going strong by 1908. He moved into canning all kinds of fruits and vegetables. Generations later, the family came up with their secret baked beans recipe in 1969. They keep coming up with new combinations of all kinds of beans. By the 90’s, canned beans were their focus. The big canning company is right behind the old family home. We didn’t have time to spend in the museum but it looked like the displays were really well done and surprisingly interesting. Every table in the restaurant was full. They had a bag of 1 ton of pinto beans on display and said they have about 770 of those 1 ton bags in the warehouse ready to cook at any one time. The canning process is very modern and innovative with care of the environment. They seem to be a family run business with lots of integrity and a focus on the small community of Chestnut Hill. I don’t think that was just a “selling” line. They must be providing lots of jobs for this out of the way area. They won us over. We will only buy Bush’s Beans from now on!
Pigeon Forge is a thriving community with all kinds of tourist entertainment. I think you could pay an entrance fee to some tourist attraction for a week and see all they have to offer from a Titanic Museum to Ripley’s Believe it or Not to Magic Quest, a comedy club and a few dinner shows thrown into the mix. It has grown by leaps and bounds since I was here with Doris back in the mid 90’s. Nine million people go through the Great Smokey Mountains NP each year and those visitors are leaving $818 million as they pass through the surrounding communities. Over 11,000 jobs are generated. It is the most visited park in the National Park system. Second is the Grand Canyon. Surprise, surprise! They can’t charge an entrance fee to the NP due the to original contract when the park service bought up the land. People in North Carolina and Tennessee raised $5 million and Rockefeller donated the other $5 million back in the early 1930‘s. They included a stipulation that an entrance fee would never be charged when the contract was drawn up. It’s wonderful on one hand but must be a huge drain on the park system on the other hand. Anyway, we love being back in the mountains and camping in a National Park!
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