Observations of A New Hiker

I have only hiked a few trails but I've walked enough to make a few observations.

1.  Hikers are friendly. We have met lots of people from all over the world and they all say hello. I don't know if it's because they are glad to be out amongst nature or they're just glad to see another person. 

2.  Hikers lie. You hear it all. "It's not much further!"  It's all downhill from here!"  "You're almost there!" They're lying!  Or maybe they are just disillusioned or suffer from wishful thinking. Mostly it's parents lying to their kids. Anything to get them to keep going. 

3. Hikers are crazy.  I can't tell you how many people we've seen hiking in flip-flops!  Ouch!  Saturday we saw two different people carrying their dogs up Abrams Falls Trail. The sign plainly says no pets allowed but these people were toting their dogs!  They put their kids on a leash and they carry their dog?  Go figure!  We also saw a man carrying not one, but 2 babies.  He had one strapped on the front and one strapped on his back. Just imagine toting that uphill for 5 miles! I tell you, hikers are crazy!

4. Hikers going up the trail smell better than the hikers coming back down the trail. No explanation is necessary!

5.  God knew what he was doing when he created earth!  I just hope we hikers love it, appreciate it, and respect it!

The Perfect Holiday Weekend

I love long holiday weekends because it gives our family the opportunity to spend more time exploring the mountain and Our Memorial Day Weekend was the best yet!  

We kicked it off with a Friday night baseball game between the TN Smokies and the Huntsville Stars. Huntsville won the game, but at least the fireworks were great!

On Saturday we drove over to explore Cades Cove. That was such a great adventure that it got its own blog so you can read all about it in a prior post. We want to go back in the fall and see the Mill and the other cabins that we missed. Don't think we'll be hiking Abrams Falls again anytime soon though!

After our long day we had an impromptu Cheese & Wine Party in the hot tub. Sometimes the unplanned events turn out to be the best! (No photos of that!)

On Sunday we went to Dollywood for Bluegrass & Barbecue. We went to 2 shows. Ricky Skaggs and The KY Thunder were great. As a child, Ricky was a neighbor of ours for a short period of time. He and my brother were friends and classmates. His family sang at our church once. So it was awesome to hear him talk about singing with his Dad and growing up in the church. I've never been a particularly big fan of Bluegrass music, but he won me over!  He sang about Jesus and he sang about The TN Stud. And we learned that "You Can't Hurt Ham!"  His show was just too short. I could have listened a lot longer. And I was also glad to hear Andy play the fiddle. Andy Leftwich plays fiddle and mandolin with KY Thunder. I've heard about what a good fiddler he is ever since he started playing. You see he's my brother-in-law's nephew. Well, he's really good and he's living his dream!

We also went to the Valerie Smith Show. She kinda made me doubt my newfound love for Bluegrass. She was a little zany and not anywhere near as good as Ricky!  I'm still trying to figure out how "I'm Not Lisa" is a bluegrass song?

After Valerie we headed for the Barbecue stand because we were hungry and the aroma was torturing us! For $10 it was pretty good eating!

After lunch we headed back to the hacienda to rest up and get ready for our evening cook-out. We grilled steaks on the deck and of course that aroma brings out the wildlife. We kept hearing something thrashing around below but couldn't see anything for the trees. Earlier in the week we thought we heard a bear, but it turned out to be a great big groundhog. But this wasn't a groundhog because I heard tree limbs snapping as it wandered around. I told the others: "A bear sighting would make this a perfect holiday weekend!"  We ate our steaks and finished off our meal with Peanut Butter Pie!

After dinner we settled down in front of the television. Keith and Jeff went outside to water some plants and before you know it Jeff comes running back in yelling: " Bear Cubs! Bear Cubs!  Bring the camera! Bring the camera!" We all jumped up and ran out with the camera and saw Mama Bear. Keith said, "There's two of them." But when I moved a little closer, I whispered, "No there's 3 of them. No wait, there's 4!"  WOW!!  Finally I got the shot and my weekend was perfect!

Our neighbor's trash can cage has a screened top so the bears can see and touch the trash bags, but they just can't get them out! But boy did they try. It was fun to watch. 

After all the excitement, we settled down and watched The Avengers. 

On Monday we discovered that the bears came back and figured out that trash can!  Somebody sure has a mess to pick up!  I hope the owner will break down and by a sturdier cage with a solid top. 

After our late breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, fruit, pancakes, biscuits and Smoky Mountain Cherry Butter, we headed over to the Sugarlands Visitor's Center. There is a nature trail there that leads to Cataract Falls. It's a nice, flat, easy short (less than a mile round trip) walk.  I can't believe we've been here a year and are just now finding out about that!

After our hike we went back to the house to snack on pizza and chicken wings. Cassie was watching closely, hoping we would drop her a few crumbs. We also discovered that Papa Bear came to visit the looted trash can. I was glad that our trash man came today and hauled off all of our trash.

We wound up our big holiday weekend with hamburgers and hotdogs on the deck and then the kids all headed home so they could get back to work tomorrow. I don't know about them, but I'm already looking forward to our next big holiday gathering!

Cades Cove

We've been wanting to take the auto tour through Cades Cove and Memorial Day weekend seemed like a good time for that so off we went. The weather was perfect. Even though the temperature hit record lows for May the night before, it warmed up nicely and we had great walking weather. Yes, I did say auto tour, but there's a lot of stopping and walking. 

Our first stop was a cute little cabin. I was astounded to hear that the owners raised 7 children here! They must have slept on the porch because the loft was tiny. 

I was particularly excited to see all the deer that were hanging out around this cabin. They didn't seem to mind having me right beside them. 

We also stopped at several churches.  The first was the Primitive Baptist Church, founded in 1827.

We also saw a Missionary Baptist Church and a Methodist Church. I'm not sure where the Presbyterians were.  

One of the churches still had an old piano, but it hadn't been tuned in a long time. I would hate to try to sing with that!  it was also interesting to read some of the messages that visitors had left in the Bibles in the pulpits. (Religious version of graffiti?).

 It was fascinating to walk through the cemeteries and see all of the graves. We saw one grave of a soldier who died in the Civil War. It seemed only fitting that we pay our respects on a Memorial Day weekend. 

It was getting to be lunchtime so we drove on over to the Abrams Falls Trailhead and had ourselves a little picnic.

After lunch we were ready for a hike so off we went in search of Abrams Falls. This was a rather challenging trail that went up and down and then up and down some more for 2 1/2 long miles. It was very rocky and we had to play close attention to where we walked. You don't want to attempt this trail without good hiking boots and a sturdy walking stick. All the way in I kept thinking, "This is gonna be rough on the way back!" It was, but the scenery was beautiful and the falls were awesome and it was so worth it!

By the time we got back to the car we decided to save the rest of Cades Cove for another day. We headed home and hit the hot tub to soak our weary bones. All in all it was a perfect day. 

Bears

I guess the first question everybody asks about living in the mountains is: "Do you ever see any bears?"

Well, the answer is a big yes!  The previous owner of our house warned us that we would see bears frequently and to be alert. Don't go out front without looking first and don't ever leave any kind of food in the car!  They also told us that we have a lovely trash can holder somewhere on the property.  They failed to tie it down so the bears tossed it around trying to get in the trash and it rolled down the mountain! It's too heavy and the mountain is very steep, so instead of retrieving it, they bought a new heavy-duty trash cage that they cabled to the telephone pole!

 So far we've experienced three actual bear sitings, (two of which were on our property) and countless evidence of bear presence (scat and scattered trash).  No, the dogs didn't get in the trash. No dog in his right mind would roam these woods!  Most of the homes in our area are rental properties and the visitors keep their dogs on a leash. You just don't see many animals roaming around loose, except for bears. 

Our beautiful, sweet Cassie had the first bear siting. (Cassie is my grand-dog).  We stayed up late watching the fireworks on the Fourth of July and Jenny and Bobby had to go back to work the next day. "Just sleep in, we'll get up early and leave quietly," Jenny said. They were quiet until Jenny came bounding back in the house squealing, "There's a bear in the tree, there's a bear in the tree, there's a bear in the tree!" They had let Cassie out to do her business and she walked right up to a bear.  The dog ran to Bobby and the bear ran up a tree right beside our driveway! It was gone before any of the rest of us could get decent enough to go outside. So alas, no photo.

Keith saw a bear in the middle of the road on the way back from Lowe's. He had to wait for quite a while before he could proceed.  If anybody ever asks you, "How does a bear cross the road?"  The answer is slowly!

I experienced our third bear siting.  I was sitting on the deck and I kept hearing something below. I figured it was a bird or a squirrel, but it was a big beautiful bear.  I spoke, we had a fine (one-sided) conversation about the weather, and the bear went back in the bushes. Again, no photo. Most mornings I get up and go to the deck first thing to admire the view and look and listen for bears. This season I'll take my camera with me and someday I'll get a photo!

The Aquarium

One of the Crown Jewels of Gatlinburg is Ripley's Aquarium.  It's not that I'm a great admirer of fish or anything fishy, but I do appreciate the beauty of the creatures and I like the fact that you can photograph them from all angles. 

The aquarium is a great place for kids. I know our church takes a bunch every year for "sleeping with the sharks". That's a big educational sleepover, and yes, you sleep on the floor right under the shark tank!

 

There are lots of play areas and opportunities for interaction. You can buy a penguin painting and touch the stingrays. 

 

I enjoyed having our own personal tour guide. Bobby, our diver is very knowledgable when it comes to creatures below the water. I think he wanted to jump in the tank with them!

I guess my favorite exhibit is the jellyfish tank. I could sit and watch them dance to Beethoven all day. Very beautiful and very relaxing. 

I like the fact that we can take a trolley from the Gatlinburg Visitor's Center straight to the aquarium. It's a nice place to visit, especially on a rainy day. 

Let's Eat!

After reading back over my posts I discovered that I seem to mention food a lot. That's because one thing we do a lot (too much!) of when we're on the mountain is eat!  On the way up we always stop at Food City and stock up on the essentials. If I don't feel like cooking we'll pick up some of their fried chicken for dinner or chicken salad for lunch. 

When we were house hunting we ate a lot of lunches at Blaines which is right downtown Gatlinburg. I like any sandwich there that has barbecue sauce on it. 

Our very first mountain meal was delivery pizza on the deck. Not a bad dining view!

But when I do start cooking, my ham & cheese omelette with homemade biscuits and Smoky Mountain Cherry Butter just seem to taste better on the mountain!

We enjoyed our first big Fourth of July Burger cookout and we had a veritable feast for Thanksgiving. It was warm enough to go out on the deck and smoke a turkey. 

But of course I don't spend a lot of time cooking. After all, the Gatlinburg area boasts about having over 100 restaurants to choose from. I'm convinced that most of them are Pancake Houses and Ice Cream Shops. There seems to be one of each on every block!

Of course we've had time to try a few other places and have selected some of our favorites. 

We all love The Peddler because we can sneak in down the back side of the mountain. They have great steaks, fresh salad bar, and decadent desserts all beside the flowing water. 

We also like The Cherokee Grill because they have adequate free parking and great food with cute shops and fun things to see and do nearby. 

If we're hungry for pizza, you might find us at the Mellow Mushroom or at the Smoky Mountain Brewery. Now that's a good place to see a game and eat pizza if you want to get out of the house! 

  

Oh, and if you want Christmas anytime of the year you might try The Partridge & The Pear in Pigeon Forge. It's located in the Christmas Village across the Parkway from the Christmas Inn and all of it is decorated for Christmas all the time!  Even the food on the children's menu has Christmasy names like Frosty The Pancake, Santa's Ho Ho Hamburger, Elf Noodles, and Tiny Tim's Chicken Tenders!  I was very tempted to get a piece of one of their seven-layer cakes even though we were there for breakfast. Gotta go back!

I had a nice cup of Mocha and a Cinnamon Roll in The Village and for lunch, I just love those Seafood Hush Pups at Bubba Gumps!  

We also like to eat at Firehouse Subs or Holston Kitchen in Sevierville on the way up the mountain. Love those subs at Firehouse. Holston Kitchen is new and they have a broad selection of entrees, appetizers, and desserts. Their food is mighty fine!

 

Are you hungry yet?  (I really shouldn't be writing this so close to supper time!)

A lot of the old favorites like Burning Bush and Open Hearth are no longer there, but there are still a lot of good places to eat and we plan to try a bunch of them. I particularly want to go to The Bear Creek Grill just so we can eat on the creek under the crying tree.  

I gotta stop!  I guess it's only fitting that my longest blog is about food since I sure do like to eat! (And I didn't even begin to talk about all the candy stores!)