Monday morning we slept in a bit (or I would have if Steve hadn't been so raring to get the car packed so we could leave.)
We got on the road just a little after 10:00 AM and headed out of Gatlinburg. We only had one place we wanted to stop on the way, and that was Cade's Cove.
I don't know if you've ever been to Cade's Cove, but it is beautiful. It has a collection of historic homes, churches, and graveyards along an 11 mile loop that you can drive around to see everything. I assume that during it's time it was cleared for farmland and homesteads, and most of that is gone now, but there are big open fields surrounded by mountains and it is just gorgeous. We stopped at a couple of the buildings, and wondered through a graveyard. We also stopped at the visitor's center and saw a working grist mill. Somehow, we spent several hours there.
Seriously, I'm not sure how we spent so much time! We didn't stop at every cabin, or walk every trail, but somehow we didn't leave there till well after noon, so that when we got on the road in earnest, it felt like it was very late in the day. (Oh, and Anthony got a very passive aggressive little speech from a FORMER Illinois park ranger because he picked up a pine cone on one of the trails and had it in his hand when we got to the car. She was very Delores Umbridge-esque when she told him he'd get in trouble and have to pay a fine. Well, you know what, former park ranger? You can suck it. I'm not sure what happened to that pine cone, but I wish we'd told that lady to stuff it in her cram hole before she walked off.)
Oh, and I've learned that I hate something I didn't know I hated! We saw several old homes and buildings on this trip, and for reasons I will never understand, people go into these historic places and carve their names on the walls, or (like the most recent ones) write their names in Sharpie marker across the logs. I'm sorry, Taylor and Megan, but literally no one needs to know you love each other by reading it on the wall of a historic landmark. I hate when people deface things like that. It makes me want to hit them with a shovel.
ANYWAYS, we finally got back on the road in earnest and headed for home. It felt like it took us a full year to get to where we were going, but we did stop a couple of times for potty breaks and dinner. Oh, and it decided to come a full on flood the darker it got and the closer we got to home. Poor Steve was basically driving blind the last third of the way home. It was very tense!
Make it home we finally did, though, and happy to do so. It was a great trip and I'm glad we got to go!
I bet you're glad to get to the end of this, huh?
1 comment:
You didn't mention seeing any animals at Cade's Cove. Usually there are a bunch of them. We even refer to them as "paid employees"
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