These are just observations:
1. Tennessee appears to have mostly put COVID behind it. They are going through the legal motions, but are so over COVID.
2. Restaurants in Tennessee are open, but the hours are reduced.
3. Waiting in line in Tennessee seems to be a way of life.
4. Fried apple pies seem to be a big thing in Tennessee. After sampling several, not a very good thing.
5. Customer service in Tennessee seems to be hit and miss.
6. Hotels in Tennessee are open, but pricey. They are also filthy, and haven't been kept up. Cabins are even more pricey, but are maintained somewhat better.
7. The water in Tennessee is HEAVILY chlorinated. This extends to sodas, teas, lemonades, etc. Milk and alcohol seem to be the only safe drinks.
8. The roads are OK, but people crawl along at jogging speeds. Also, although there are great bike trails, the bicyclists all seem to insist on riding on the car roads.
9. The only places that are closed are the ones that get tax dollars whether they are open or closed. Not all. You can get into the parks, but most of the facilities are closed. The visitor centers are half-open.
10. We tried food at more than 20 places. I would rate the food as poor to OK. None of it was actually good. None was terrible, either, but the pulled pork was sub-par. The best was a smoked chicken salad sandwich. Not so much the salad as the croissant. We tried some other salads, but the salads just did not taste good. I'm not sure if it was the water or lacking freshness. We tried desserts, also. Not a fan of the aftertaste in the ice cream. The blackberry cobbler was rather poor. The fudge was...passable. The chilli was mostly grease. The toast was tasteless. Not sure what that bread was. We tried the fresh applebutter. To be fair, good applebutter is rare, anymore. The pancakes and waffles were OK, as was the syrup. I was going to try the apple cider, but had had enough chlorine. About the only things we didn't try were the wine and fish.
11. Some pools are open, but other pools look like the one from Last Man on Earth.
12. We found people from 36 different states there.
13. Tennessee was fairly busy, but the restaurants have reduced capacity. The hotels, resorts, and cabins seem to be at less than half capacity. The touring places seemed to be about 20% capacity. Of course, that is based on my efficiency standards. Several of the places seemed to have found less than efficient ways to operate. For example, one restaurant had 14 wait staff members with whom we were required to interface. The tourist places had staff waiting for other staff, who were themselves waiting on other staff...which would explain their prices. We found a place that processed us faster than we could have been waited on, in the other place.
14. People park just anywhere. They stop in the road, rather than use the nearby pull-off.
15. Just about every business on the Parkway seems to be hosting a daily car show. The cars park wherever, intermixed with the business' patrons.
16. Fuel was generally about $1.89/gal.
