Smokin

Road far far away
Bee on raspberry blossom

Were were there!

Ok, so I didn't really hike on it

A quiet day at a Park viewpoint

Don't know, but pretty

Chimney tops we were there on a previous visit

Old mill--turbine powered

Elk

Join us on a trip to the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. We left this am and drove to Townsend and the woodcarvers' shop for some supplies before we hit the park, then spent the rest of the day leisurely driving roads like the one in the above pic (you can also see where the Smokies got their name) and stopping for beautiful vistas. We visited both visitors' centers--in Tennessee and in North Carolina. We stopped in a little diner off the main drag of Gatlinburg for lunch, in Cherokee (NC) for ice cream for a snack and in a Shoney's in Pigeon Forge for supper. We didn't really plan on doing anything in particular. We took our hiking shoes just in case, but didn't get inspired to use them. Instead we used the beautiful sunny day to stop at a lot of overlooks. The pix of the elk were taken outside the visitors' center and historic farm on the NC end of the park road. Someone said the elk had just recently been reintroduced into the park. In the first pic you can see the tag on its neck just at the antler tip. The grist mill was unique in that it was built in the late 1800's and used (uses) the diverted water to power a turbine to turn the stones. It has been refurbished and still grinds corn meal for sale there. The Chimney Tops is a very popular hike--there were several people up there in the pic. We actually hiked the 2 miles up there years ago. This time we contented ourselves with just looking. Duane wanted to go today because he thought there might not be many people there on a Monday. Wrong! There were tons of people there. The popular hikes all had overflowing parking lots. The visitors' centers and main overlooks were crowded. There were strings of cars on all the roads. Fortunately, it is still early in the season, so things weren't unbearable. The weather was perfect. A cool front moved in last night and left us with very pleasant temps in the valleys and cool temps on the mountaintops. We had a very pleasant, and decided that we would return another day for some hiking.

Enough for now

Louise and Duane