Sugar and Slugs: Smoky Mountains

Each year thousands of backpackers climb the Great Smoky Mountains...Nature's peace flows into them as sunshine flows into trees; the winds blow their freshness into them...and their cares drop off like autumn leaves.

John Muir

Then end of October always brings with it my birthday and our anniversary.

To celebrate the big 3-0 this year and our 8th wedding anniversary, we headed to The Smoky Mountains.

Staying in Sevierville, this was our view from our hotel room.

We stayed in a very kid-friendly hotel that had a huge arcade, laser tag, bowling, pottery, putt-putt, this massive tree house (that Mason got lost in and I had to sweat my butt off crawling through there looking for him), and...

the thing that won us over - an indoor water park. Arriving at dinner time, we made the kids eat dinner before we dipped our toes in the water. Poor kids.

While we were only in Tennessee for a few days, we discovered that it's a place we'd love to go back to. There's so much to see and so much to do.

Our few days there were spent outside - exploring, learning, touring, experiencing...

Our first place to stop was Cades Cove.

Cades Cove is an isolated valley preserved to look like it was in the 1800s. It has original pioneer homesteads, barns, businesses, pastures, and farmland. It's a loop of road that takes you 11 miles through the valley by car, but also offers areas that you can walk by foot.

We saw old homesteads, a few old churches, a few old cemeteries...

It was beautiful.

Our second place to stop was Little River.

This was a little boy's heaven.

If it were up to Mason, he would have spent his entire trip here...skipping rocks, climbing rocks, collecting rocks.

It was beautiful.

What, mom?

Our third place to stop was Clingman's Dome.

Clingman's Dome is the highest point in the Great Smoky Mountains at 6,643 feet tall.
Our plan was to go at dusk to watch the sunset...but...we were up high - in the clouds, fog, and "smoke". There was no sunset to watch that night.

"...on top of old Smoky"

It was beautiful.
Even though we couldn't see across the mountain tops, it was still beautiful.

When we drove back down the road, we took a picture of where we were at Clingman's Dome...

somewhere in that smoke.

After our visit to Clingman's Dome, we went into Gatlinburg and did a little walking, people watching, and eating.

The Smoky Mountains are a composition of endless themes and variations, changing with every season, with every month, in every cove and hollow, on every summit, with every pair of eyes that sees them.

Michael Frome

Our fourth place to visit was Laurel Falls.

It is a beautiful 2.5 mile round trip hike. It is a paved path and a fairly easy hike...but...pushing a double stroller with 3 kids riding in it made for quite a workout! Whew! I felt bad for laughing at Kevin so I offered to push for a little bit...but I made it maybe 50 feet and couldn't go on.

it was a lot harder than what it looked likeit