I visited the Smoky Mountains last weekend. It was about a 6 hour drive from Raleigh. Krishna arranged the entire trip.
Smoky Mountains is a big range of mountains along the North Carolina border. The range has a lot of greenery, has hundreds of trails and a very long history aging back to the Native Americans. It boasts of creatures which are found nowhere else in the world. Wikipedia has a detailed description of the Smoky mountains.