Clingmans Dome (10/16)

Surprise, surprise, we woke up to rain again this morning. It rained most of the night too.  No hiking today.  Instead we are taking a drive up to Clingmans Dome, the highest point in the Smoky Mts.  It is 6,643 ft high.  They have a cool tower there that over looks the Smokey Mts.  It is a little bit of a drive to get there.  Part of this road we drove on Monday.  Today it is cold and rainy.  We stop at the visitor center and look around.  I bought a Smoky Mt pin.  I have been collecting pins from just about everywhere we go.
Back on the road it is getting colder, 47 degrees and dropping.  The scenery is spectacular. It is extremely foggy.

The fall colors are amazing.  The rain makes the colors more vivid.

We have to drive through several tunnels to get  to Clingmans Dome and it gets even foggier and colder.  At the top it is 39 degrees and raining.

We jump out of the truck and it is really cold.  I am not sure I want to go to the tower.  I make it as far as the visitor center and let Joe go by himself the rest of the way. I am so cold!!!!   While waiting for Joe I do a little shopping and buy homemade strawberry preserves and home made jarred peaches.

When Joe gets back he looks like a drowned rat.  I missed my opportunity to take his picture, I just wanted to get back to the truck and warmth. Here is what he saw at the top.
















So foggy you could not see much!

Now we head to Gatlinburg and lunch.  It rains off and on all the way home.  I am glad to be back home with the heater on, it is 51 degrees at the park.  I think I am in for the night.

Tomorrow we have a 8.5 mile loop hike planned.  It is suppose to be 71 and sunny all day.  Keep your fingers crossed for us that it really is sunny.  We have had enough of rain!!!!!!

Abrams Falls (10/15)

It is not raining this morning but rain is predicted for this afternoon.  Hopefully it will hold off until after our hike.  As we are getting the fifth wheel ready to move at 11, the mover comes over and wants to move us in 10 minutes. We put things in high gear to get everything put a way and slides moved.  They bring this big tractor over that has several hitches on it including a really cool fifth wheel hitch, wish we had one like that.  He aliens the hitch with ours and uses a lever to fit it into place and lifts the fifth wheel up.  We pull out levelers we have under the legs and before you know it we are moved to the new space. They did everything including leveling it in the new space.

So much better!!!! This is the view from our back window.







Now that is done we are ready to go hiking.  We drive to Cades Cove once there we have to take an 11 mile one way road to the trail head.  What a mess, it is bumper to bumper traffic and not moving very fast.  It takes us one and a half hours to reach the trail head. At times traffic totally stopped for about 10 minutes.
The Abrams Falls hike is a 2.5 mile, one way, to the falls. It is not as crowded as Laurel Falls, but still a lot of people.  The trail is very rocky and a lot of up hill then down hill then up hill. I am feeling so good I am actually keeping up with Joe and eventually leading him.  It has been a long time since I hiked this fast.  We are at the falls in about one hour, There were several bridges we had to walk across, I use this term loosely, the pictures will explain what I mean.

 I even go brave and crossed a couple of them without holding on, there were four log bridges in all. This is such a beautiful hike.  We both are in heaven.

One last up hill and a steep down hill and we are at the falls.  It isn't a really big falls but a lot of water is pouring down from it. It is an amazing sight.

I got brave and walked out to the falls!!!!

As much as we hate to leave, it is time to start heading back to the trail head.  That really steep down hill into the falls is now a steep up hill.  After sitting for half an hour I am having trouble breathing up it. Finally to the top and I am feeling good again and have my pace back.  On the way back we talk to a couple that said there was a bear cub above us, we couldn't see it so took their word for it.  Someone else told us that a bear and two cubs crossed the trail in front of them.  Wish I could of seen that, but we didn't have any bear sightings ourselves.  I am not wanting this hike to end but like most good things it must.  It takes us a little over one hour to get back to the truck, a total of 3 hours to hike and see the falls.
The tree canopy is so thick on the trail that we didn't notice that the sky was really getting dark and it starts to rain just as we reach the truck.
Back to the one way road and bumper to bumper traffic.  At least the scenery is nice to look at.  We pass several old homesteads.



















Traffic is so slow I was able to roll down my window to take these pictures.  Again it takes us about an hour and half to get to the exit then a quick thirty minutes to get home.

What a great day.  I am so glad the rain held off until we were done hiking.  It is suppose to rain again tomorrow so not sure what we will do.

Rain, Rain, Rain (1014)

As predicted it is raining this morning, they didn't miss their 100% chance of rain.  It has been raining most of the night. This is our front yard at 8 this morning.

No hiking today :0(    We went for a drive to Maryville, which is the next town over.  Had lunch at Popeye's and went to the Foothills Shopping Center to a movie.  We saw the Maze Runner. It is a good movie but so much action I was tired when it was over.  It is kind of another Hunger Games, in it involves using kids to experiment on.  Of course it left it wide open to a sequel. If you like action movies this one is for you.

After the movie we drive around trying to figure our route for when we leave on Sat.  Road signs in the south leave a lot to be desired.  We finally figured out we needed the 129 to the 140. Hopefully this helps us when we leave.

Back on the home front it is still raining.  We have to take our shoes and socks off and roll our jeans up just to get out of the truck and wade to our front door.

They are moving us in the morning.  I will be glad to move.  The new space is on higher ground and we will be parked on a cement slab.

Laurel Falls (10/13)

It is still raining this morning, it rained most of the night. I didn't mention that it rained most of yesterday and our spot at the RV park is a lake, fortunately ours is not the worst. It made for a real mess trying to set up.  This doesn't show it very good, the water is about 3 inches deep in the grass coming up to our steps.  The space is small we can barely park our truck with the trailer and then we have to move to another spot on Wed.  At least the new spot has a concrete pad and backs up to the river.  The park will move it for us so we don't have to sit around and wait for the occupants of that site to leave.


It finally stops raining so we head to the visitor center to see what we want to do today.  Hopefully we can get a hike in.  Map in hand we head for Laurel Falls.  It is a little bit of a drive with lots of traffic to see the colors.  The scenery is breathtaking.  I can see why this is a popular spot.

 Once we reach Laurel Falls we had to park about 1/4 of a mile away.  Lots of people here.  This is only a 1.3 mile walk on a paved trail. Luckily everyone is spaced out well so we are not walking close together.  It is a very relaxing walk to the falls with lots of color.

It did not take long to reach the falls.  They are pretty but smaller than I thought they would be.  The trail go's up further from here to the top of the ridge.  We went up it about another mile to get away from all the people.  There is suppose to be an old growth forest of Popular trees.  We didn't make it to the area they are in but did see some along the way.  I was more impressed with the huge Oak trees.



 Once we get back to the truck we head back to Townsend and lunch.  We stopped at the Little River Bar-B-Que for some good pit barbecue. I am picky about my barbecue and this did not disappoint us. I had a half rack of baby back ribs so tender is fell off the bones along with the best fried Okra I have had in a long time.  Joe had the pulled pork sandwich which he said was very good.  Now with a full belly and a nice easy hike under our belts we head back the park and a nap.  We are so full that we skip dinner since we had lunch at 2pm.  No movie tonight, Dancing With the Stars is on tonight and for once I can get the channel. I took a good nap so am not tired and stay up late reading.  It is suppose to rain a lot tomorrow, 100% chance for the day.  Not sure what we will do if it rains as predicted. Oh well, tomorrow will take care of itself.