Putting the truck into park, my girlfriend, Sarah, and I finally returned to our quaint apartment in downtown Waynesville Monday evening. After a long journey from the North Carolina coast back to Haywood County this weekend, it’s been a whirlwind of emotions.  

A contractor for the N.C. Department of Transportation will finish paving a section of White Oak Road in two weeks instead of months during a full road closure slated to begin the night of Sept. 3. 

Clingmans Dome Road will be closed the mornings of Sept. 10, 12 and 16 to facilitate special educational programs for students at schools in Cherokee.

The road will be closed at midnight the night before each event and will re-open at 1 p.m. 

National Park Service (NPS) posted the Foothills Parkway Section 8D Environmental Assessment (EA) today for a 30-day public comment period ending Aug. 21.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park received approximately $11 million in funding from the Great American Outdoors Act Legacy Restoration Fund to rehabilitate a two-mile section of Newfound Gap Road near Gatlinburg. The rehabilitation project will include single-lane closures. 

Lakeview Drive in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park near Bryson City is now open, but rehabilitation work on the road is still ongoing.