We started out with a beautiful drive (all 11 hours of it) to Pigeon Forge, TN to visit the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. The few days we were there the weather was not tremendously cooperative so there were many things we would have like to do but couldn't because of the rain. We made the best of it, though. During the times that it didn't rain:
1. We took a ride on a sky lift (scary!)
2. We hiked up to Grotto Falls (a less traveled hiking path). We didn't see any bears while hiking but we saw plenty of evidence (very fresh) that they were near!
And, of course...Grotto Falls...
And a few other things along the way.
3. Then we decided to head up to Clingman's Dome, the highest point in the Smoky Mountains, where there's supposed to be a terrific view. But the weather showed up before we got there and this is what we saw:
Notice the bottom half of the picture shows what we should have seen! Here are a couple more from Clingman's Dome.
4. The next day we went to Cades Cove which was a beautiful drive! The highlight were the mama bear and her cubs. See my bear post from last week for the pics. And we ate lunch at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. -- yummy food!!!
5. We went to the Ripley's museum and saw the longest gum wrapper chain which stretches over a mile.
Here's one for the road:
And the highlight...a mama and what we initially thought to be 1 cub, but turned out that there was a second cub in the tree that came down later. This family of bears was about 20 feet from our car. No, we did not get out of the car like some of the crazy people in cars behind us!!!
