Next Day

Sunday—
Today, our “somewhat” plan was to do the National Park, then try McDonald’s for WiFi, and hit up the grocery store…and be back to the cabin for a reasonable bedtime. We also promised the children a “movie night”. I think Meg wanted to do some hiking in the park. I knew I wasn’t up to that but was willing to wait if she and the children did.
We slept in late. Had breakfast, etc. It was easily 1:30 or 2:00 PM before we started out. We decided that we should probably find a place for lunch. Along the way out of Gatlinburg, we ran into several pancake houses…all of which were closed! Hmmmm… Before we actually got out of town, we turned around to go back to find something open. What we found was a small place stuck up against a mountain backdrop, with local license plates in their small parking area. They would be open one more hour. The place was filled with locals that all seemed to be related. We picked items from the menu that sounded good but turned out not to be so. The kids were getting squirrely, so we departed as quickly as we could.
The entrance to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park from Gatlinburg can apparently only be approached from the southbound lanes of the highway . We were trying to get there from the north. When we hit the Pigeon Forge city limits, we backtracked…and finally found ourselves in the park. There is no entrance gate or entrance fee. You are simply there and need to know what you are looking for. We didn’t! We stopped at the Visitor’s Center. The children whizzed through a museum. My sister had recommended the Cades Cove tour, so we decided to take it. Twenty-four miles to Cades Cove. We took our time and saw the sights along the way. (We should have hastened along!)
Cades Cove is, essentially, an 11-mile one-way, one-lane loop around a meadow surrounded by mountains. It is gorgeous! The speed limit on the rough road was 20 mph, but we never exceeded 10 because of the people ahead of us. (Most of the time, our speed was 0-5 mph.) There were a few overlook/pull-off areas, but if anyone spotted wildlife, they just stopped in the roadway. We saw horses, wild turkeys, lots of deer, and a mother black bear with three cubs. (Meg also saw a squirrel.) We were halfway through the loop at the Visitor’s Center, when Meg had to go to the bathroom, but apparently so did everyone else in the Smokies. She found no good place to park so kept going. We realized that we were skewered by speeds of those ahead of us. An 11-mile loop at 10 mph (max) takes a whole lot longer than we had planned or hoped!
When we finally got out of the loop and back on park roads (speed limit 35), the rains came. Lightning, thunder, and some gully-washers. Meg did well to keep up and be on task…but suddenly, we were behind a dude who was doing 25, with an impatient tail-gater between him and us. After several miles of this, the slow fellow took a pull-off without a turn signal. The tail-gater nearly nailed him. It wasn’t fun, but at least our speed increased a bit after we got beyond him. When we got to the park Welcome Center, everything was dark…but thankfully, the restrooms were still open. Yay!
Okay…so we stopped at the cabin to pick up a laptop, then proceeded to McDs to see if they had WiFi. They did! The children and I ate while Meg connected with her Russian buddy in California. I took the kids to the grocery store to give her a little more time. When we all arrived back at the cabin, it was 10:30…way past the children’s bedtime…but we had promised them a movie… I burned the popcorn, and the children acted like children. In short order, everyone was asleep. Except me.
Tomorrow is our last full day here. We plan to go to Ober Gatlinburg. It sounds expensive, but I think the children will like it.