Tennessee Trip: Day 7

I couldn't believe that I forgot to end the last post about our amazing sighting!  As we were headed to bed at our AirBnb, we were a little warm and opened some windows in our second floor room.  Mason and I were joking about hopefully a bear wouldn't climb a tree and break in.  Mason didn't seem to believe me that there were probably bears lurking around.   After a few minutes laying in bed one of the outside lights turned on.  I told him to go check it out, telling him it was probably a bear.  He was skeptical, but it turns out IT WAS A BLACK BEAR!  It was pretty large and was just walking up the road right next to our car.  It was too dark to take a picture, but it was definitely very cool.  The next morning Mason could tell a little ways past our house where the bear had turned into some of the brush and matted it down.

We ate some muffins for breakfast, packed the bag for the day and headed to the Smoky Mountain Park.  My goal for the day was to take the East-West Road, Little-River/Laurel Creek Road to the famous Cades Cove area.  There is an 11 mile, one-way loop drive through Cades Cove and we'd heard this was definitely a place see wildlife.  We saw many turkey, deer, an elk in the distance, and sadly no bears.  The day was pretty foggy, but mostly dry, so that was a plus.  I'd marked off that there was supposed to be a nice trail towards the middle of the hike, but it was 5 miles round trip and some books said that while beautiful, it might be too strenuous for kids, so we tentatively thought that we'd maybe walk a short bit of the trail depending on how timing and things were going for the day.

The road to get to Cades Cove was beautiful.  It was a slower winding road along a little river ;) that provided some great views, although we tried not to stop too much along the way.  Cades Coves was definitely a popular location, and I imagine on a clear, sunny, summer day, the road would take quite a long time to cover.  There were several spots where the cars would be backed up and we'd crawl along and then it would space out.  If we had a longer trip, I'd have spent another day doing the driving tour and getting out to see many of the points of interest/churches/buildings throughout the Cove.  We didn't stop to see many, but could see some from the road, and wanted to save our energy for the potential hike.

We were all ready for a bathroom break and leg-stretch by the time we got to the Abrams Falls Trailhead.  Mason carried the backpack carrier, while I had the water, snacks, and diapers, and we set-off.  Now, knowing my husband for so long, I should have know that we would be completing the entire trail and not turning around at some halfway point.  And you always think you're "so close" when really not so much the case.  Theodore and Woodrow traded off turns with the GoPro on the first half of the hike, so they were pretty distracted by the elevation changes and the distance we were traveling.  The path walked up and down along a river trail and lush forest.  Maximus was carried the majority of the way, but did walk some.

The hike was really pretty, and traveled up and down next to and above a flowing river.  I think I just end up being over exhausted from being out of shape, the duration of the hike, and all the additional energy I need to pour out to keep all the kids going and not drive Mason over the edge with all their talking.  By the time we got to the waterfall we were ready to sit and rest, have a snack, and shoot a few photos.  We didn't stay too long because we knew the uphill trek ahead of us and the time it would take to get back to the car.  When we returned to the car, we freshened up and got back in the car to complete the Cades Cove loop.  There were a few photographers out with their super lens taking photos of a large Elk, but it was a bit far for us to see.  On the Little River Road home we pulled over to snap a few photos of the flowing river and waterfall.

This was a pretty tiring day and we all passed out pretty quickly that night.