Day 4

We headed back into GSMNP for another day of sightseeing.  Hudson wanted to hold Dad's hand again. :)

If you don't know the history of GSMNP, it's really pretty cool.  The government started fundraising and buying land in the 20's because so many people were living up in the mountains.  Lots of these families had lived on these pieces of land for many, many years.  Our first stop was the Ogle Farm.

This beautiful river is just a short walk from the house.  The park is just gorgeous. 

Me and my boys 

After a short hike, around the Ogle place, we headed back to the car for our next stop.  We were planning on going on a 2 1/2 mile round trip hike to a waterfall.  We were on a one way loop and all of a sudden stopped.

Some people went ahead to see what the deal was and some yahoo had run his car off in a ditch and was stuck and blocked the whole road.  So we rolled down the windows and broke out lunch. :)

After a few minutes people were so antsy, they actually got together and picked the car up to move it out of the way. So we were back on the road. We had such a huge back up of traffic, we decided to skip the hike and go on to to Cade's Cove.  It's a scenic loop with lots of little places to stop and look. First off was the John Oliver place.  He bought this land and built this cabin in the early 1820s.  And it's still here.  That is amazing to me!!

On the short walk to the cabin, the thunder started.  We made it in and a few minutes later the bottom dropped out of the sky.

We decided to wait it out- Hudson is not a fan of storms, so he was not pleased. 

The rain eased up after about 15 minutes and we made it back to the car. 

Our next stop was the Primitive Baptist Church

1887

A cemetery off to the side of the church.  Lots of the headstones were so old the engravings had been worn down smooth by the weather.

This is the Methodist Church built in 1902

Beautiful scenery along the drive

John P. Cable Grist Mill (and saw mill) 

Built in 1870

A house built in 1879 with lumber sawed at the above mill

Dan Lawson place, b. 1856 (we're talking 159 years old people!!!) 

He made the bricks for the chimney onsite

The Tipton Place, built 1870s

One of my faves- this tiny little cabin nestled in a little nook. Built in 1910ish.

Meigs Falls 

The Sinks - people were swimming here (you can see the people of the left) and it was a little scary.  There were signs about drowning- this river was raging. And I'm sure quite cold. 

Our last stop of the day was the Little Greenbriar School.  

We followed a little trail off to the side and it was kind freaky- really quiet and remote.  I took this little gem of Hudson though. :)

On the way back to our cabin, we took the bypass around Gatlinburg and we were able to get a good shot of it from above. 

Now we are safely back home, watching a movie and feasting on frozen pizzas. :)

Road Trip 2015 Days 1-3

We left for our yearly road trip on Staurday. We missed last year, so we have really been looking forward to it.  The boys were ready to go!

It didn't take long for everyone to make their own "space" in the car.

We drove for about 8 hours on Saturday.  We stayed the night in West Memphis, TN.  The next day we stopped in Nashville at Antique Archeaology (if you aren't familiar, it's a show on TV with two guys that go around and buy stuff from people and then sell it in their stores). We stopped because it was barely off the highway and didn't interfere with our schedule too much. It was smaller than we expected, but the boys were glad we stopped. 

We finished the drive to the cabin and and were very glad to be there.  We rented a cabin between Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge.  The roads were very windy and confusing, but we got there.  We unloaded the car and headed back out to have some dinner and pick up groceries.  This is a view from  the deck.

The boys at dinner. Cheese. :)

On Monday morning, we slept a little late and then packed up and headed out to see the park.  It was also our anniversary, so happy 13th to us! :)

It was so nice- 82 degrees at 11:00 in the morning!  I think it was over 100 back home.

Our traditional park entrance pic-

We stopped at the Sugarlands Visitors Center and watched a little informational movie.  There there was a short hike (1 mile round trip) that took us to a little waterfall. 

On the way back it started to rain and everybody got a little wet- it's a memory, right? :)

As we were driving on to our next location, there were a ton of people stopped on the side of the road and I thought it had to be animals... It was bears!! There was a momma and two babies up in a tree.  We were so excited. 

We stopped to eat lunch at a beautiful little picnic area with a river running beside it.  There aren't any food vendors in the park, so the night before I had cut up some sausage and cheese and also threw in some grapes, strawberries and crackers. 

After lunch, the boys all decided to jump from rock to rock in the river.  I'm not gonna lie- made me nervous.  Some of these rocks were pretty wet and slippery.

Sure enough, Brian fell in.  

Hudson also fell in and he was done after that.  But they played around on those rocks for a good 30 minutes. 

I love this picture. 

Next we headed to Clingmans Dome.  It's an observatory type tower up in the mountains.  When we got up to the parking lot,we had climbed pretty high up in the mountains and the temp had dropped to 66 degrees, so we broke out the jackets.  

The trail up to it the tower was STEEP.  It was only 1/2 a mile, but seemed SO much longer.  It was rough and soon the jackets came off. (This picture is not on the steep part- we are almost at the top here).

We did some of this on the way up... :)

We're almost there! 

It was a cloudy day, so the view wasn't as good as it could've been, but I'm glad we went.  It had to be another 8-10 degrees cooler at the top of the tower!

Hudson holding Dad's hand on the way back down.

One of my pictures from a random overlook.  So pretty!

On the way to the next place we saw an elk. 

Our last stop for the day was Mingus Mill.  It's a working mill from the 1800s. It was closed by the time we got there, but was really cool to explore the outside.

We headed back to the cabin and it started pouring rain.  Brian was driving on these tiny, twisty roads in the pouring rain and it was pretty dark... He was not a fan.  We got home and had chicken tacos (I had put in the crockpot before we left).  We hung out and enjoyed the rest of the evening.  A good first day.