This year's trip is "Smokies", because we didn't actually camp at Cades Cove, which has been our normal trip. Grandaddy's camper needed a lot of expensive work, and he's not much for tents, so he rented us a cabin in nearby Wears Valley. It was super-nice, and we were especially grateful that we weren't in tents, given all of the rain that we've had this year.
It mildly amuses me to see New Daddy's cabin fever hit when my family likes just sitting around on a vacation. Tuesday, we sat around until he pushed us out the door in the afternoon, and we did some shopping in the blistering heat of pavement-land, Sevierville. We were going to play mini-golf there, but the heat soon made us reconsider. Ice cream and a lengthy trip to Walmart won out. New Daddy and I had a date night, and we enjoyed our steaks at the Alamo.
A good thing about the shopping trip is that I had permission to buy a new dutch oven from the Le Creuset outlet. It was so hot, I probably could have cooked a casserole on the pavement with my new dutch oven. My other (cheaper) dutch oven's enamel finish had started chipping off, and the enamel ended up in my chowder one night. To the trash it went. My other Le Creuset piece is blue, and I chose coral for the dutch oven. I think I'll be going with a Le Creuset rainbow-theme. It sure beats trying to match a set that is assembled over many years.
All of Tuesday's heat gave way to an evening thunderstorm, which made Wednesday morning misty, less humid, and set a gorgeous scene for our Loop bike ride the next morning.
On Wednesday, we were up for a bike trip around the Cades Cove loop with no kids. Unbelievable, right? And we got out by 9:50. And we got to see a bear running across the road, up a tree, out on a limb, back down the tree, and over the hill in the field. It was our best bear-sighting, yet; though he seemed pretty agitated. We thought that he might have been just released. Next year, we'll probably have all of the kids, since Tater will be old enough to ride in the trailer, and the rest of them will be big enough to bike the road. There were some much smaller children than ours out with their parents, so I'm pretty sure ours can handle it, too.
That afternoon, we took the kids back to Cades Cove to let them play in the streams around the day-use picnic area. The kids thought they wanted to play in the deeper rapids first; but after ten minutes, they were ready for some shallower water that they could really enjoy. We moved to the stream below the road, and we stayed there for another hour or so. The dads napped in their cars, Tater loved the shallow water, Cutie created great splashes, Bubby hunted for crawdads (but he really wanted a salamander), and Precious enjoyed climbing the limbs that overstretched the stream. Great, vacation-y afternoon.
Thursday morning was still cool, so we chose to play mini-golf then. Our scores were exactly in age order for our family, and New Daddy beat me by one stroke. We had a good time, and the sun mostly stayed behind clouds for our game. After lunch at the cabin, we set out for the Trillium Gap Trail and Grotto Falls. Aunt R had packed a "Best 10 of the National Parks" book that listed this trail. Boy, was it ever right.
The falls were just outside of Gatlinburg, and very easy to get to. We drove past the hoards of humanity at Rainbow Falls (longer trail), continued on the breathtaking Roaring Fork Motor Trail, and arrived at the Trillium Gap trail to the cascading, meandering Grotto Falls that we got to walk behind. And the rest of the motor trail was just amazing, too. I think all of the rains have made the streams and falls absolutely spectacular. We were wondering, "Where has this place been all of our lives?" This was definitely the highlight of our trip.
We loaded up the cars on Thursday night, since checkout was at 10AM on Friday. Before we left, we all lined up on the stairs of one of the porches for a family picture before we departed. On the way home, we made a stop in Cherokee and let the kids hop around in the mountain fountain for a while. Even Tater had a big time, though he held my hand as he waded. He's starting to take a few steps here and there, but he wasn't quite confident enough to let go in the current.
We were very grateful for warm showers and a roof over our heads throughout the week of rains. But the kids missed camping. We had brought tents for them to sleep in on the back porch, but they ended up inside on the sofas and the sofa bed. We might plan a smaller camping trip in the Fall so that they can enjoy that experience, also. But the cabin was nice-- very nice, I tell you! It was a wonderful vacation, and we came home feeling rested.
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