WHEELER NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE – Day 1.
Day 66 – At 6:30 this morning it was 41 degrees and sunny. We left for the NWR after driving through the campground to check everything out. There are 3 large loops of campsites; a few are near Lake Wheeler, all of them are in the woods and all but four sites have full hook-ups (water, electric, & sewer). The Refuge was about 45 minutes from the campground. We first drove to the Visitor’s Center. It turned out that it’s closed on Sunday & Monday. There was a gate closed & we couldn’t get in.
When we passed over the Tennessee River yesterday on the way to our campground, we saw people riding bikes on a trail in the Refuge right by the River. So we knew there was some way to get in. The kiosk outside of the gate to the Visitor’s Center had a brochure with a map of the Refuge. We started driving the little roads in the area and soon found roads to the Refuge that were not closed, so we spent most of the day driving on the Refuge roads. There were sections of the NWR on both sides of the Tennessee River. We just drove one side. The place was huge. This made us decide to stay another night at the campground so we could go back tomorrow when the Visitor’s Center was open & get more information, and drive the larger portion of the Refuge then. We ate our lunch at a lovely site right on the River. The only people we saw all day were a couple of fishermen & a couple of people riding bikes.
lick any picture below to see a slideshow.
We did some shopping on the way back to the RV – groceries & we needed to replace our smoke & carbon monoxide alarms. By the time we got back and had put everything up, it was dinner time. The high today was 57 degrees and it was sunny.