Wednesday? Already?! OK. We kind of slept in – I was the first up (well, not awake but up and out of bed) and made a mess for breakfast. A mess is a concoction of hash brown potatoes, eggs, ham and spices. We all decided that today was to be a light day. After the 8+ mile hike yesterday (plus my klutziness) I simply couldn’t do another hike of any distance. I felt kind of like a fourth leg on a tripod because the others were ready to hike some more; I didn’t want to hold them back from the fun they came here for.
It was decided that we do an “Auto Tour” of Cade’s Cove. Cade’s Cove is a sizeable area carved out in the mountains that is really a neat place. The folks at Smoky Mountain National Park have set up a nice little tour where you pick up a brochure (for a donation) and drive from place to place. At each place, there are volunteer park rangers who will tell you about the particular place where you are. We went from place to place to place along the Auto Tour. It was all quite interesting. I’m no history buff, but I do enjoy looking at historical buildings and appreciating the effort and time it took to make such structures without the advantages of power tools that we have today. Plus, the way the Auto Tour was set up they started with the most primitive structures there (which dated back to 1826) to the most recent structures (dating from 1910) you could really see how things had changed over that time. Of course, they aren’t the exact original structures but they have been maintained pretty true to the original buildings.
The coolest part of this was when we got to the Carter Shields Cabin. Here, we saw a bear in the stream behind the cabin. It was about 4pm and we were just getting the first indications of sunset. The streams in all of The Great Smoky Mountain National Park have been relatively dry this year, and this stream was no exception. The bear was making his way upstream, flipping over stones in the stream as though he was looking for something. Every now and then he’d look around as if to see if anyone was there. We were all about about 30 yards from the bear, so my photos aren’t exactly works of art. But, we did get some nice pictures of the bear!
After leaving Cade’s Cove, we went on a short hike to Laurel Falls. Let me tell you, my knee didn’t like the 1.7 mile hike there, but the end of the hike was worth it! What a beautiful sight! While the water has been in short supply, Laurel Falls still had some water coming down. VERY nice!
When we got back to our cabin, we had a nice dinner (beef hot dogs on the grill and baked beans) and again were quite tired so we went to bed at a decent hour.
