This Land, Your Land

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park has received $12.2 million in additional stimulus fund money to improve hiker parking areas and resurface two roads, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported last week.

The extra money will be used to pave the Foothills Parkway-East, the Smokemont Campground and the Heintooga Ridge Road, and to create new hiker parking lots and repave the roads leading to the popular Little River and Jakes Creek Trails in the Elkmont area.

The park has received a total of $77.5 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds, the newspaper said.

The Blue Ridge Parkway has initiated a Twitter account and is tweeting since earlier this month.

The Asheville Citizen-Times' Girls Gone Outdoors blog quotes the parkway's chief of maintenance and engineering, Mike Molling, who says the Parkway will send out updates on the status of openings and closures along the 469-mile scenic roadway.

It's also sending notice of public programs along the Parkway and, in an April 23 message, mentioned a couple of special visitors.

Catch the BRP's tweets at @BLUE_RDGE_PKWY.