Guest Post: Driving Through Wears Valley

The following blog post was sent to us by a couple that recently visited Wears Valley for a rainy afternoon and took a drive through part of the new Foothills Parkway addition that connects Wears Valley to Townsend through the new extension. They wanted to tell us about their visit and showcase some pictures and video they took:

“Hello! We recently had the opportunity to take a little afternoon drive through Wears Valley as my husband and I hadn’t been through there in a while and wanted to find the Foothills Parkway entrance [from there].

We unfortunately chose a time of the day when the storm clouds were covering the sky and didn’t know if it was going to burst or not, so the pictures and video we took probably don’t look as great as pictures people take when it’s bright and sunny out, but oh well! My husband and I like storm clouds, anyway.

We couldn’t tour much of Wears Valley, so we decided on only a couple stops along before the Foothills Parkway. We didn’t eat yet and we really like donuts, so the first place we wanted to try to get some energy to start with. I had a glazed donut and a blueberry donut and they certainly woke me up! A nice treat that I plan to get the next time I come back through here. My husband had a chocolate iced and a maple frosted. He seemed to like the chocolate one more than the maple (he’s a chocohollic, so no surprise there) but he shared my sentiment of coming back to repeat the order. After that, we went next door to the Wears Valley Antique Gallery. I’ve been here a few times before, but it had been a few years since the last time and maybe a third of the store had been remodeled or was different than last time. They still had some really neat things that I wished I had room and money for, but couldn’t get. They had some moonshine and other locally made food items that I wanted to send back to family in Hawaii where I originally came from and I was happy to see they had sugar-free variations of those items for my mom and elder relatives (those aren’t too easy to find around here). Great sightseeing, and if I only had one stop I could make for fun in Wears Valley, it would be here.

After that, we were still hungry and ready for a proper lunch meal for the day. We debated between Hillbilly’s Restaurant and Geppetto’s Italian as we wanted to decide between a heavier food or an Italian kind of taste. We decided to go for a heavier food and went to Hillbilly’s. I thought the car on the sign was impressive enough, but I wasn’t expecting to see another one inside the restaurant! It wasn’t busy when we got in, so we got our food pretty quick. My husband had the Hillbilly Deluxe burger and I had the Little Granny’s (which was already 1/3 of a pound of hamburger and more than I could eat in one sitting, personally. If that’s the “Little” Granny, I wonder how big a “Big” Granny would be). The service was excellent and the sodas were crisp, which is a big thing for me and my husband, and after that it was time to take our trip to see the Foothills Parkway.

The video of that and the rest of the story are in the video link below. We did have a camera malfunction and some of our pictures didn’t come out right, but the video turned out well and other pictures that did come out right are attached. Thank you!”

– Ge’ne Kea

We got permission from Ge’ne Kea to post this blog here and on our other networks. Thank you Jeff and Ge’ne!