Day 4 (Delayed)

We woke up really early this morning, made a very quick breakfast and got into the car to head down to the Cades Cove area of the park. It's about a 20 mile drive, but it took above 45 minutes due to all the curves in the road. As I mentioned previously, on Wednesday and Saturday mornings, the Parks Service closes the 11 mile loop road to vehicular traffic until 10:00 am. It was a good thing we got there as early as we did, as the parking lot was almost full when we arrived.

We got on our bikes and started to ride. Shortly into our ride, we were greeted by this little fellow …

Not sure whether the picture expresses it fully or not, but this little fellow was REALLY close!!! Yes ... It's a real bear ... small, but still a bear!!!

If you ever travel to Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and can arrange to be there on a Wednesday or Saturday morning, I highly recommend this ride. The road featured a lot of rolling hills, some of which were a little bit steep, but it was a great way to spend the morning. Along the road, there are numerous old homesteads, some of which were very cool to check out.

After the bike ride, we drove back up to the area of the park near our campground. There's a hike to a waterfall nearby, and we were very lucky to arrive at the trailhead parking area just as someone was pulling out. We grabbed the spot and headed out on the hike. It was a nice hike that ended at a very picturesque waterfall. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the waterfall, I was busy trying to stay out of someone's picture and wasn't paying attention to where I was walking. Next thing I knew I was on my rear end … very embarrassing!!! By the time we got back to the car, I realized that my knee was a bit sore, so I told Josh that I thought it would be a good idea not to do any more hikes today. 

After that we drove back into the town of Gatlinburg, this time taking more time to explore it in the car. By the way, it was incredibly hot and unbelievably humid, so getting out of the car and walking around wasn't an option for me! Gatlinburg is an “insane” tourist trap town … I'd recommend avoiding it … at least on a weekend in the Summer!

We headed back to our campground and made lunch. After that, we spent the afternoon playing board games and relaxing. For dinner, we decided to make lasagna, using our new Coleman stove top oven. Let's just say that it worked out great!

Tomorrow we plan to get up early again, though maybe not quite as early as today, and head to the “top” of the park and probably it's most well-known feature, Clingman's Dome. Our plan is to do the hike and go to the top of the observation tower there, and then work our way back to our campground. On the way back, there are several hikes that we hope to do, though that's going to depend largely on whether or not we can get parking at or near the trailheads.