Been going to the Topton USPS just about every day for 3+ years to drop off outgoing mail. Can't…read moreleave it in my mailbox due to theft. Small post office but very friendly and helpful.

I grew up just down the road from the Topton Post Office and I can honestly say it is lacking. They…read moreonly have one postmaster and often times the mail is not sorted by 10 am or 11 am. This is not the fault of the postmaster, it is simply understaffing. My parents had two mailboxes at this particular location and anytime I would get magazines or comic books in the mail the would be bent or creased which obviously is not what I was hoping. There are only about 150 mailboxes at this particular Post Office. Many of the locals get mail delivered but it is an extremely remote part of the country. In many of my other Topton/Nantahala reviews I mention that cell phone service is non existent. There are no restaurants or gas stations in Topton either. If you decide to move to this part of the country please be aware of the fact that technology is non existent. It is one of the most beautiful parts of the country but they are a little bit behind the times. When I visit I will have zero cell phone coverage for well over 20 miles. The Post Office is what it is. You cannot expect it to have all the amenities of the newer post offices in progressive areas.

Amazing to watch the shadow come around and morph into a bear! If you are in the area in mid-late…read moreOctober, make sure you check this out! Bear comes around 5:30 pm but definitely get there early as there is limited parking.

Are you looking for something to do this fall? Have you ever heard of the "Shadow of the Bear" in…read moreNorth Carolina? This was highlighted in "Our State" magazine, I think last year but I could have saved the article from the year before, but this was one of those items on my "local" bucket list to see. I love the Shadow of the Bear in Cashiers! The "Shadow of the Bear" is visible for 30 minutes daily (on sunny days!) between 5:30-6:15 PM from mid-October through early November as the sun sets behind Whiteside Mountain between Sapphire Valley and Highlands, North Carolina. It's best seen on clear days around 5:30 p.m., with the show lasting for about a half-hour. The photos below are from 2022; I'm pretty sure we'll visit again this year. PS I agree with Ginger L. that the camaraderie with all the people standing on the side of the road to watch is an experience in itself. A note of caution, to view the bear, you park your car on the side of a road hugging the edge of a mountain and people crossing the road that has a curve around the mountain so use caution while driving through the area and walking along the road!!!! But its all worth the view!!!

Love the city and the locals! Wonderful hiking, beautiful…read moreNational Park. Low low low crime, thanks to the amazing LEOs there. Traffic can be bad, stay away during weekends & summer if you hate traffic. And be sure to park properly or you might meet the wonderful people at Everything Auto Towing!

Gatlinburg is a tourist town near the northern entrance of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The…read moretown is filled with restaurants, souvenir shops, attractions and hotels. During our visits, the traffic was a nightmare and the streets were crowded with tourists. We visited last week to see the sights and have lunch. The town has an arts district, filled with merchandise, some by local craftsman. The restaurants are mostly local and good, we checked Yelp reviews before selecting a spot. The souvenir spots were packed either merchandise, some had sales that were really enticing. My granddaughter bought a nice sweatshirt. There are tons of interesting bars, many with mountain themes. We didn't get to try out the bars because we had the grandkids either us. The attractions are overwhelming. We saw an incredible amount of roller coasters and rides that wind up and down the sides of mountains. The kids visited haunted houses and took heart-stopping gondola rides. Every attraction had long lines, even though we were there in off season. Public restrooms were hard to find. We found a set tucked in a walkway. Sidewalks are wide with occasional art sculptures. Pedestrian walkways are clearly marked with buttons to stop traffic. Parking is a challenge, but the town has the foresight to offer a free trolley service (with free parking). That said, even the trolleys have trouble accommodating the large influx of tourists. In general, I'd say the infrastructure of Gatlinburg is at its limits for the influx of tourists, but the town tries to address the need. I'd go for the restaurants.

Similar to what everyone says, the City of Helen is a tourist trap and a little on the cheesy side,…read morebut that's exactly what my family and I wanted for a quick weekend getaway in North Georgia. We stopped by in Cleveland to check out a dog friendly waterfall, and drove about 20 minutes to our cabin in downtown Helen. Tubing was great! Unfortunately, we visited during peak season, so it was slammed - but it was a great experience nonetheless. There's a ton of hidden natural beauty on and around this city. We were able to fully unplug and just enjoy each other's company while doing something each of us wanted to do. Traffic can get a bit overwhelming, but the walkability in this city if great. My advice, do what you need to do on the earlier side of things to get ahead of the crowds. Overall, we had a great time. Helen is a great beginner level city for those wanting to explore the North Georgia mountains.

Lovely cute town in a world of its own! Helen is a German themed town that makes you feel that…read moreyou're literally in Germany. From the Oktoberfest to the beers and restaurants and souvenir shops along with the architecture of the buildings, Helen is a must visit. Stop in the welcome center for much needed information on where to park that's free and where you have to pay. Grab a list of restaurants and coupons to enjoy. You can walk main street from or end to the other in minutes and enjoy the sights and many restaurants and shops. Was there on a Sunday and it does get crowded by the afternoon. Many things to do locally and plenty of places for accommodations as you visit. Great city that's clean and fun. Definitely worth a visit for a weekend but not sure if it's a destination to revisit as it's good to experience. But if you want to celebrate Oktoberfest, this is the place to be!

I was enjoying a walk at the botanical gardens and saw the sign near where I'd parked. It's a…read moresteady, mild incline 1/2 mile up and down a gravel road to the viewpoints. Not by any means the prettiest trek, but lovely views at the top of course. I did encounter sections of monster mosquitos about 3/4 the way up and around the rocky viewing areas. I didn't arrive at sunset or rise, so I can't account for that aspect. But I found some of the other viewpoints in the area equally pretty, so I probably wouldn't go out of my way for these. And, I enjoyed the setting of the botanical preserve trails below much better. Still yet, I'm sure it would've been a different experience during the right time of day.

Loved this place! It's a half mile walk in a gravel road but to be able to watch the sunset was so…read morebeautiful!! Will definitely be back.

If you have kids and are in Tennessee why not bring your family here. There are so many…read moreopportunities for clean family fun your head will spin and your kiddies will have a blast. Lots of fast food like Arby's, McDonalds plus even Golden Corral buffet, IHOP, and more. Great Smokey Mountain National Park with no Ranger station to pay entrance into the park but you need to pay for parking at the Visitor Center. We were hoping to see black bears but maybe we'll have a chance tomorrow.

City of Pigeon Forge is definitely a fun vacation city and has wonderful business owners. I struck…read moreup a relationship with an elderly woman that had a doll and teddy bear shop. She passed away a long time ago. After I returned to Florida from vacation in Pigeon Forge I still ordered Teddy Bears for my collection and she mailed them to me. Who doesn't love Dolly Pardon and Dollywood? I had the best time there with my daughter. There are theaters with live performances. I needed a lot more time to visit Pigeon Forge. I would definitely go back for a four day weekend!

This beautiful Classical Revival structure is the Henderson County Courthouse and it was completed…read morein 1905. It was designed by Richard Sharp Smith, the former resident of the Biltmore Estate. Smith is also responsible for the Madison County Courthouse (Marshall), the Jackson County Courthouse (Sylva) and the Swain County Courthouse (Bryson City) among others. The building is two stories of gray colored stone atop a marble staircase with six stunning columns that rise to a pediment. Henderson County was established in 1838 from the southern portion of Buncombe County and is named for Leonard Henderson who was Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court (1839-1833). Hendersonville has been the county seat since 1847. There is street parking nearby and a parking lot adjacent. On a quiet weekend morning, there wasn't much going on so I had plenty of time to walk the grounds and peek through the front doorway. I'd love a tour but that was not available today. [Review 1144 of 2025 - 4373 in North Carolina - 24697 overall]

The Henderson County Courthouse was built in 1995 when the historic courthouse was condemned…read more Henderson County had also grown and outgrown the space the historic courthouse provided. Padgett and Freeman were the architects. The current courthouse was modernized and made ADA-compliant. It also meets the current fire codes and has a security system. If you are looking for the Historic Henderson County Courthouse, constructed with brick and the gold dome, that building is located at One Historic Courthouse Square, at the corner of 1st and Main streets. It was turned into a museum, so you can visit and tour the building when the Heritage Museum of Henderson County is open.

No "shadows of a bear" for me, I passed through Highlands in order to see this famed covered…read morebridge. There really aren't many of them left in the US and very few remain in North Carolina! The bridge is the entrance to the Bascom Center, a six-acre campus of indoor and outdoor artworks. It was named for artist Will Henry Stevens (1881-1949) who lived and painted and taught here in Highlands. The bridge dates back about 200 years when it was originally build in New Hampshire over the Warner River. Disassembled rather than destroyed, it was put into storage in 1966. And then purchased and moved here to Highlands forty years later. Now it's been recreated as an Ithiel Town lattice using traditional techniques and materials including 1100 tree-nails, towels and trunnels with no metal fasteners! Unfortunately, when I arrived it was closed for reconstruction and repair. Blocked off on both sides and surrounded by piles of rough-hewn beams and planks. I'll need to come back when it's all fixed up. [Review 20018 overall - 3458 in North Carolina - 993 of 2023.]

I came to Highlands, NC in search of a bear, or more accurately the "shadow of a bear". A natural…read morephenomenon that happens from mid-October through early November when the setting sun casts a shadow onto the valley below Whiteside Mountain. The shadow takes on the appearance of a bear and I simply could not not miss this one-of-a kind opportunity. The shadow begins at 5:30 p.m. I arrived in town super early (around 1pm) so I decided to do a little exploring. There was a waterfall here I wanted to visit, but I discovered The Bascom Visual Arts Center and decided to make that my first stop. To know me is to know I have a profoundly deep love for old structures, particularly covered bridges. So to discover a covered bridge I was not aware of (that was also historic) in a gorgeous mountain setting was almost orgasmic... and I mean that literally. When I get super excited about something, it makes me wanna go poop! TMI right?, but it's true. There is no greater laxative for me than showing me a picture of someplace gorgeous that I've never been. It's why I keep travel magazines in a woven basket in our bathroom. The excitement for new adventures twists my stomach into knots. So, actually realizing I'm live on location of a place I would have seen in the pages of a magazine brings on a different excitement! LOL --- THE BRIDGE You simply can't get more picturesque than Will Henry Stevens Covered Bridge. A little research revealed this bridge was once considered the oldest covered bridge in New Hampshire. It was named Bagley Covered Bridge and it crossed the Warner River, until it was considered a hazard from its aging condition. The bridge was scheduled to be destroy until Milton & Arnold Graton, lovers of historic bridges, purchased it in 1966 and placed it in storage for the next 42 years. The bridge was built in approximately 1807 out of old growth pine. It is around 14 feet wide and almost 88 feet long. In February of 2008 it was gifted to the Bascom Art Center as a perfect entrance to their facility and reconstruction completed in 2009. This bridge looks like a totally new structure, but in fact is now over 200 years old. The design is Town lattice and uses over 1,100 wooden fasteners in keeping with the original 1800's bridge building traditions. I'm guessing the flares at the bottom were not original to the bridge, but are characteristic of Carolina-style covered bridges. SIDE NOTE: Famous people said to have once crossed this bridge are General Lafayette, President Theodore Roosevelt & President Franklin Pierce. --- FINAL THOUGHTS I am in awe of the dedication to conservation that led this bridge from New Hampshire to the Mountains of North Carolina. What love and genuine concern for the preservation of such an important artifact from a dying era! It truly brings a mist to my eyes to know that someone loved this bridge so much that they saved it, carefully dismantled it, stored it, nurtured it for 4 decades, and rebuilt it once they found it the perfect home. In Georgia, there were once over 600 covered bridges, but only 15 historic ones remain. Most met their end by arson or neglect. So I am very proud to see one of these beauties survived by being blanketed with a great deal of love. I wish we all honored such important structures & relationships in our lives and were less quick to deem things that were once important as antiquated and useless. I read an article about the father and son who saved the bridge, the Grafton's. It highlighted a quote which stated: "To me, to write-off the remaining usefulness of so faithful an old bridge... is like sentencing [someone] without hearing [their] witness. Should not this old bridge have a chance to be heard even through an interpreter?" AMEN 2016/119

Extremely professional, courteous and efficient! We walked in without an appointment and were seen…read moreright away. The whole process of renewing military ID's took about 10 minutes. Many other services are also available making this facility a great and convenient location.