The Rest of the Story

Methodist Church, Cades Cove

To finish up from the last post....

After crashing and burning Wednesday night from our Chimney Tops hike, We woke up Thursday morning and spent a bit of time recuperating in our wonderful hot tub as we enjoyed the mountains and nice fall weather. We both decided that we could easily get used to having a hot tub and even discussed having one here in Indiana.

Thursday afternoon we headed back out to the Smokey Mountain National Forest and meandered back to Cades Cove. We stopped and had lunch at one of the picnic sites and watched for bears. Much to Scott's dismay, they were all hidden away! Anyway, after lunch, we started on the 11 mile drive through Cades Cove. Many of the original buildings have been maintained, most close to their original locations. We were on a very narrow, one-way road and most of the time we crawled at a max of 20mph.

I have posted some of the pictures as we winded our way through the Cove!

Scott and our traveling companion, Bart, in Cades Cove

Blythe and Bart in Cades Cove

We continued on our drive through the Cove only to get stopped by traffic as they were all taking pictures of the White tailed deer that make their home in the National Park. The only annoying thing was the blatant dismissal of the posted signs stating "Do not Stop". We had about 3 cars in front of us stop each and every time they saw a deer, open the door, get out, and take several pictures! We were very grateful to reach the exit!!

We then headed back towards the entrance to the National Forest and stopped at the Laurel Falls trail and did a quick, "easy" hike. It wasn't bad, this was what we saw at the falls!

Well, needless to say, as of Friday, my left foot was out of commission, so Friday and Saturday, we were unable to do any hiking. We instead toured the craft community and downtown of Gatlinburg. Saturday we left the cabin and then headed thru the National Forest into Cherokee, North Carolina. We did an educational tour of the Cherokee Indians. It was really interesting and informative. After that, we had lunch at a place that we will never, ever speak of again. We then headed on "scenic" tour of North Carolina, back into Tennessee. We ended up staying Saturday in Knoxville and then headed home Sunday!

It was a great week and we are really, really looking forward to go back. We just have to make sure to keep hiking so no one injures themselves!