Our final two days in Gatlinburg were spent in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
On Tuesday we decided to drive to the North Carolina side of the park to visit the waterfall trails we'd discovered on our last trip. The park in that area is just outside of the Indian reservation town of Cherokee. There are a lot of exhibits of Native American history to visit, everything from an outdoor drama telling the Cherokee story to history museums. As of yet we haven't seen any of them, but I think it would be interesting to do someday.
Once we hit the park our first stop was the Juney Whank Falls trail. Unintentionally, we'd picked the steepest trail to begin our hikes. Good plan. You want a workout? Try pushing a baby in a stroller up a friggin' mountain. On the way up we encountered two people riding on horseback along the trail. Tessa's eyes got huge, you could just see her thinking, "That is the biggest doggie I have ever seen!" The falls themselves are fairly small, but beautiful and seen from a bridge that goes just in front of and over them. Great, but the others are more impressive, so...
Next we went to the trail that goes to both the Tom Branch Falls and Indian Falls. Tom Branch Falls are seen from across the river. It's a popular spot for sitting and relaxing on the many benches, photographs and splashing around in the river. This trip however was much different than our last as in March it's a nice peaceful spot. In the summer though, it's over run with inner tubes and the people who use them.
Okay, I expected the trails to be more crowded than last time, but I didn't expect about a hundred plus tubers glutting the trail wearing swimsuits designed for bodies they didn't have. Not only were they pervasive on the trail, but there were so many people on the river that they wound up getting into clusters of people uglying up the scenery. You see, the river that runs through this part of the park is a little on the small side and it's full of giant rocks. So naturally when one person gets stuck on a rock, about five or six others get stuck too, until somebody can get the first person unlodged. Is it just me, or does this not sound fun? I mean, on a patch of clear river with a few rapid spots I can see where tubing could be an enjoyable way to spend an afternoon but this just seemed like a waste of time.
Also, it kind of made me sad that most of these people are only concerned with the tubing part and not taking in the beautiful scenery around them. In fact, I heard more than a few people being annoyed with, and saying rude comments to the people who wanted to stop and take it in. "Daddy look at that waterfall." "I see it. Let's keep moving." Just sad.
So, having the first falls somewhat spoiled I was kinda down about the day and only going up to the next set of falls out of obligation. Much to my relief we passed a sign that read "No tubing beyond this point" and were rewarded with the last part of our hike to Indian Falls in relative solitude. Best of all, when we got to the falls we were all alone to take in the beauty. If you blink you'll miss the entrance to Indian Falls, but it's worth looking for. I was able to take Tessa to the far side of the falls and let her enjoy playing in the pond a little. I must admit it was worth all the other stuff to get to that place of tranquility and family togetherness.
Wednesday we decided to start the day with a hike to Laurel Falls (we love us some waterfalls in the Brink household!). Sometime on Tuesday I caught a bit of a stomach bug, which hadn't been too big of a problem so far, but that morning I was feeling pretty sick. I didn't want to spoil the trip so I went ahead with the hike. Although the trail wasn't quite as steep as the previous day, it was a little too much for me to push Tessa up the mountain in that state, so Valerie and I pushed her in shifts. They say that waterfalls release negative ions into the air which causes a reaction in people and makes them feel happier. The temperature also drops at a waterfall, which will definitely help a sweaty hiker feel better! Even though it decided to rain on us about halfway up, the Falls were quite enjoyable. Once again, we were all able to play in the water a little, and we even got to bring Tessa right up to the falls and let her touch the cascading water. Pretty cool. And after leaving the falls-I felt fine the rest of the day. Yay ions!
After lunch at one of our favorite restaurants, The Old Mill (where we discovered Tessa likes lemons), we got all spontaneous and decided to head back into the park for the Sugarland Valley Nature Trail. It's a small looping trail, paved, flat and it follows the little pigeon river for the first half. Here's where Tessa had the most fun. We went off the trail to the river banks and let her play for almost half an hour. She loved wading in the water, splashing it on her face, and throwing river rocks. Once again, here we were mostly on our own. This one little off the cuff trip wound up producing the best family moment. We got to enjoy the majesty and beauty of God and his nature as a family-you can't get better than that.
Thursday was back to Nashville for a night, but we left via a detour through the GSM park via the Little River Road. It follows the Little River (duh) and is a slightly winding road, with lots of great scenery and if you roll down the windows, the sound of the rolling river is about as peaceful as it gets.
Did you know wild turkeys can fly? Yep, it's true. We saw three different turkeys on our trip, but as we left the park one flew across the road from one tree to another, like about ten feet in the air. Apparently the farm raised turkeys are too heavy to fly as they're being fattened up for Thanksgiving, but wild ones actually sleep in trees and fly. I googled it. So we didn't see any bears, but a flying turkey is still pretty cool. And less dangerous.
Sorry for writing a novel here, but i wanted to get everything covered. I've kinda been busy the last two days, what with our three year anniversary (thanks Valerie for 3 wonderful years) and watching Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog (thanks Elizabeth for loaning me the DVD). I'll try to get some pictures up here soon of the vacation.
Peace out.
No comments:
Post a Comment