Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Our Great Big Fourth of July

Sometimes when July 4 falls on a Monday, Eastman people get both Monday and Tuesday off.  That makes for a nice long weekend.  We arrived at the mountain house on Thursday to stock up and take care of some chores.  We also took our usual hike on the Gatlinburg Trail. The rhododendron were blooming.


Jeff was able to get away early on Friday so we started our weekend off with dinner on the deck.



After dinner we decided there was still enough daylight to hike the Little River Trail (4.6 miles).  




FYI, if you're ever in the Smokies, early morning and early evening are the best times to see bears.  They like to roam when it's cooler. As we hiked, other hikers kept telling us to look out for the bear up ahead on the trail, but we didn't see him. We did see a snake and the rhododendron on this trail are huge!



We passed some more hikers coming back down the trail. We asked them if they saw a bear and they said no. We figured he had moved on. We reached our turning around point and sat down for a rest.

Jeff was taking pictures of flowers when he suddenly started making weird noises and frantically pointing. Mr Bear had arrived!  We were standing up on a bridge and he was down below on the other side of the river.  We were able to safely watch him.  We jokingly judge the success of our summer holidays by whether or not we see a bear.  Already, this holiday was off to a good start! We had already seen rabbits and turkeys.  Now we could add "bear" to our weekend wildlife inventory.


We finished our hike and made it back home before dark.

On Saturday, we decided to spend the day at the Deep Creek area of the park in Bryson City, NC.  We have hiked there before, but we had all agreed that some day we would go back and do some tubing, as well as hiking.  Since the temperature and humidity was very high, the timing was right!  And to add to our excitement, we saw an elk on the side of the road near the Oconaluftee Visitors Center!  No photos since we were in a moving vehicle and nobody could grab a camera fast enough. Oh well. 

Deep Creek is one of my favorite hikes because of the waterfalls. We started with Juney Whank Falls. 


We continued down the trail to Tom Branch Falls.


And we ended up at Indian Flat Falls.



By now we were hungry and soaking wet with sweat. We headed back down the trail to our picnic spot.  Lunch time!



While we were hiking our shady picnic spot ended up in the sun.  We were definitely ready for some tubing!  Now Deep Creek is a great place for tubing.  You can go back up the trail and start at the scary fast part of the river or you can get in at the bottom of the trail and just float through the easier part. We opted for the floating part. The tubing would have been better if the water was a tad deeper. We kept hitting rocks (ouch!), but the water felt great and we had a blast with about a thousand other tubers. (Can you say crowded?) it is a very, very popular place in the summertime. 


After a couple of rides down the river, we dragged our weary bodies back to the truck, changed clothes, and headed back to Bryson City for ice cream at Soda Pop's. 

By the time we got back to Gatlinburg, it was time for dinner.  We were too tired to cook so we stopped for pizza at Big Daddy's. Big Daddy's, in Gatlinburg is inside Bennett's Barbecue (down the street from The Peddlar). One side of the building is BBQ and the other side is pizza. It was fantastic! Nothing like a long day at Deep Creek to work up an appetite! (As someone once told me, "That tubing is harder than it looks!"  He was right!) we ate and then headed home and crawled to the hot tub to soak our weary bones.  

By Sunday, I was ready for some "indoor time" (cooking and laundry), but the guys hit the trails again.  
They hiked 5.6 miles on Finley Cane Trail.  It's a relatively flat trail with beautiful rhododendron.  




After completing this trail, Keith reached the 500 miles hiked mark. He is the first of us to get his 500 mile pin!


As the skies started clouding over and the temperature started to drop we decided to spend some time "chilling" on the lower deck. We were just sitting there enjoying the view when we heard the unmistakable sound of a large mammal down below.  Our neighborhood bear had come to pay a visit!


We knew he had been snooping around our persimmon tree because he left a hint.  When a bear finds fruit, he'll tear the tree down trying to get to it. 


We enjoyed watching him and then headed up for dinner.

On Monday we rested up and got ready for our holiday feast.  The guys played some cornhole while I prepped for our meal.


Then Keith grilled the ribs.




Red, white, and blue fruit pizza is a regular at our patriotic holidays!  We decided to have dessert on the deck and once again our neighborhood bear came back to see us. He passed up the persimmon tree and climbed to the top of a wild cherry tree for his holiday feast. He provided us with perfect entertainment! 



After dinner we went back to Gatlinburg for fireworks.





During the night, the rains came so we chose an indoor activity for Tuesday in the park.  We drove over to Townsend and visited the new Smoky Mountain Heritage Museum. It was very interesting and quite informative and worth the visit.







We made it back to Gatlinburg in time for a late lunch at Old Dad's.  They make the best sandwiches in town!


The skies finally cleared (or so we thought) so we decided to get in one more hike on the Gatlinburg Trail. Once we were about 2 miles from the truck, the skies opened up again and we got wet. I didn't mind since I was sweaty already and I had an umbrella. It was invigorating!



We headed back to the house, dried off and warmed up.  Then Jeff headed for home. About 5 minutes after he left he called us. Our neighborhood bear crossed the road right in front of him!  What a send- off!




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