The Great Smoky Mountains! Parents Edition

Will and I just got back from a Awesome, Wonderful, Fantastic trip to the Great Smoky Mountains.  We planned this trip back in February (when we have to plan all our trips for the year due to Will's work) we debated at the time if we should take the kids or go alone?  We decide it to go alone if the Grandparental Units were on board with it.  Mom and Dad were kind enough to watch the kids and the plans were made....and then about a week before we were set to leave found out the McQuaid family and cousins would be there and I knew the kids would have fun, then a day later a unexected trip to Illinois had the Stahr's being in Greenville for 3 of the days.  Again I was really happy for the kids that they would get so much cousin time, then I was a little sad I wouldn't be there to get to spend time with family, and then I was a little worried about Mom watching my 2 kids and hosting everyone else, and I was feeling somewhat guilty about leaving them.  So needless to say the day leading up to the trip I was a little bit of a mess.  But when the time came to go the boys were so busy and happy saying goodbye wasn't a big deal and we were off and everything turned out great.  The last time Will and I went on a big week long trip alone was our trip to Yellowstone 7 years ago!

Here is my slide show/ scrap book of the trip. I'll say a bit about our day but mostly let the pictures speak for there self.

Day 1: Getting There:  We had a 8 hour drive to get there the first day.  This was our cabin we found on VRBO for the week.  I was a ways out of town which had its pros and cons.  But overall we really enjoyed it and really only found ourselves there in the evenings.  It was pretty simple but had everything we needed.  We brought our own food to make all our own meals except maybe 1 day to eat out.  We could see the mountains from the cabin but it was somewhat of an obstructed view with trees in the way.  We were pretty close to a scenic overlook with really great view.

I loved sitting on this swing.

Day 2: Waterfalls and Trails

For our first day of official vacation we were very excited to get into the park and just explore and see all we could see.  Maybe too excited.  We started off the morning with a hike to see a waterfall, and by the time the day was over we had seen 6 other waterfalls (which all required some hiking) and had made several other stops.  Looking back at it later we realized we had hiked over 11 cumulative miles that day!  Also we didn't get back to the cabin until 9pm to eat dinner. If we had it to do over I don't know if I would actually change anything because it was a great day to just be spontaneous and go and see and do, but we said several time, its good the boys aren't with us today.

Day 3: curvy, windie, and a little sickie:

Did I mention is was very busy! In Gatlingburg, Pidgeon Forge, In the park, even on the trails.  The Smoky Mountains seems to be the place to go. This is just a sample of what a parking lot looked like at a scenic overlook and a trail head area.  We drove the scenic Cades Cove loop in the park and were bumper to bumper traffic going 10-15 the whole time.  It was a beautiful area so it wasn't so bad but it was just a constant traffic battle.  On the way back from Cades Cove we saw a bear!  Actually a Momma bear in stream and 2 cubs up in a tree.  We jumped out of the car and snapped a few photos.  It was definitely a highlight of the trip.  In the afternoon Will wanted to drive this road that is supposed to be famous for the amount of curves it has.  Knowing nothing about it I said ok sure, sounds like fun.  The road is called Hwy 129 (aka-The Tail of the Dragon) and it has 318 curves in 11 miles!  I am not someone that gets car sick, but this road had me sick!  When it was over I crawled out of the car, green, and dizzy.  And Unfortunately for me the only way to get back was to drive it all over again.  I drove it back, which did seem to help quite a bit and we all survived.

Look closely there are people jumping off the rock into the stream....we just waded.

the water was very cool but it felt amazing on your feet, even when you were in the car 10, 20, 30 minutes later it was like you could feel the coolness on your feet in your shoes.

Day 4: Shopping and Eating
This was our last day of vacation and we had both wanted to hike up to the top of Mt. LeConte to a primitive lodge and also to the 3rd highest point in the park.  But we also hadn't had a day to explore the town yet, and I was feeling tired and sore from our first day of hiking and a little worried about how I would hold up on the trail.  We decided to spend the day shopping and eat out and relax (isn't that what your supposed to do on vacation!?)  About half way through the day we kinda started getting this idea what if we stayed 1 more day and hiked the trail to Mt. LeConte on Friday?  After a call to Grandma and clearing it with the boy we were set.  It was kinda like the icing on the cake to be able to have the shopping relaxing day that day and still get to summit the Mountain the next day.

Downtown Gatlinburg was the busiest place by far.  We never even got out of the car we just drove through.

When you are on vacation you can eat ice cream cones for lunch

A view of Mt. Le Conte.  The peak on the left is where we would be in less than 24 hours

Day 5: Hiking a Mountain!

We awoke early loaded everything in the car so we could leave from the park and drive part way home when we were done.  The trail we hiked was called Alum Cave Trail (there are about 5 trails you can take to get to the top of the mountain).  All the way up we were both just in love with the trail.  It followed a beautiful stream for the first 1.5 miles, then there was some cool cave bluffs and great scenic overlooks all along the way.  We made it to the summit (6 miles up) in about 3 hours.  After some rest at the top and well earned views we headed back down.  The first 3.5 miles went very well, but the last mile and half just seemed to last forever and I was ready to be done.  It took us 3 hours to get down, which kinda surprised us but that is still a lot of hiking you have to do even though you are going down.

Day 6: Operation: Get Home to my Boys!

Our final day of vacation we awoke in Nashville and made it back to Greenville in time for lunch.  It was so great to get big hug and hear about all the adventures the boys had had all week and tell them about ours.  We will definitely be going back to the Smoky's in the future and we are excited to take the boys with us next time and share it with them.  

Here are a few other favorite pics from the trip: