The missus and I recently spent a couple of days at the Great Smokies National Park and Gatlinburg in Tennessee after a stop in Asheville, N.C., at the famed Biltmore house, places she'd never been.
Before we left, I'd heard stories that people who make their living on tourism in Tennessee were keeping a general lack of gasoline from visitors.
With family and a job in North Carolina, my wife Beth knew that prices had risen and remained higher there than in Virginia.
Reluctant to give up an already-paid-for vacation to some of the greatest public places on the East Coast — down the Blue Ridge Parkway and over to the national park — we carefully researched gas prices and availability before we got on the road.
Finding about six gas stations online where we could fill our tanks at our ultimate destination left us feeling reassured.
Gas prices in Hillsville remained about about $3.76 a gallon, as I recall, and they rose to just about $4 in areas of North Carolina, such as just outside the tourist trap created by Mr. Vanderbilt.
Those high prices didn't keep people from traveling.
In quick succession, Beth recognized a co-worker from her information technology department coming out of the mouth of Linville Caverns, and down the parkway at Mount Mitchell, highest place in the East, we had our picture taken by a couple from Hillsville.
A friend of mine from Indiana drove down for no other reason but to spend a few hours with us in Asheville. And my brother had made plans in July, separately from us, to take his family to Gatlinburg, as well.
Having attended post-college reunions in Gatlinburg, this was about the ninth time that I'd been.
Usually, the sidewalks of that city tucked in the valley at about 1,800 feet above sea level had been full to overflowing.
While others joined us at the window to the old-fashioned taffy pulling machines — that place has three within a couple blocks of each other on the main strip, as my gear-head engineer brother pointed out — there was no absolute crush of humanity gawking there.
Still, inside the Smokies the next day, when Beth and I took advantage of their picnic facilities, nearly every table hosted families feeding their faces, having a good time.
People on their way down from Clingmans Dome, the park's highest point, kept up their stream of encouragement for us climbing out of breath the steep slope to the observation tower.
A couple from Utah struck up a conversation with Beth at Newfound Gap about their joy in being in the Smokies and how far they'd come for a second visit, and we got tips on the side of a hiking trail from a local couple on little known and little accessible attractions.
With all those people around, it's a wonder there's any space left for the wildlife. But my brother's car came within about 15 feet of a black bear.
And a bunch of cars pulled over to the side of the Cades Cove loop for a rather obscured look through the woods of what we believe was an example of the Smokies' reintroduced elk population, but what another observer insisted to Beth was a really big deer.
The nine million visitors to the Smokies a year probably unconsciously understand something that a study just out in medical journal The Lancet confirmed — people who have green spaces to enjoy live better healthier lives.
Maybe that unconscious understanding is why so many people make an effort to go to the Tennessee mountains, despite the time and expense involved.
The recent study involved green spaces in urban settings where people could exercise and unwind, rather than remote nature preserves.
The BBC reported that having green spaces available halved the so-called "health gap" between the poor and the rich, who are better able to afford medical care.
Researchers Richard Mitchell of Glasgow University and Frank Popham of the University of St. Andrews saw a correlation between greens spaces and lower incidents of heart disease and stroke.
This may be from the ability of people to be more active, and they also found green space could lower blood pressure and even promote faster healing after surgery, the BBC reports.
So what can municipalities do to encourage better health in their citizens? Add green spaces, the researchers answer.
Parks will do a lot more than pretty up the place, writers in The Lancet added.
I learned the story of the Smokies being created about 75 years ago, when citizens and civic groups pushed for the preserve, cobbling the eventual park together from many home and logging tracts.
It wouldn't be nearly the challenge for a city to set aside an undeveloped tract for its residents to throw a frisbee, pass a football, take a stroll or just sit on the lawn and soak in the sun.
That bit of land, the study shows, could be the proverbial ounce of prevention.
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