Thursday, April 19, 2012

The Great Smoky Mountains

With Libby hanging out with Nana and Plap plap in Pennsylvania, we decided to take advantage of our only child situation and offered to take Anna on a bit of a pre-birthday bash to the Great Smoky Mountains.

We left after breakfast on Saturday and returned in time for supper on Sunday, so it was a quick trip for sure!

The weather was perfect and, with the exception of an unfortunate path crossing with a very very large group of car enthusiasts blocking the main drag through Pigeon Forge,  it was blessedly non populated as well.  In the park, anyway.

The trails were gorgeous...

Cataract Falls

Posing at a cabin in the woods

Sun dappled trail

Earl giving a hearty welcome to his dream house

The beautiful Smoky Mountains

Earl and I spent a week in the Rocky Mountains last summer, and after seeing those amazing, unbelievable peaks the Smoky Mountains looked a little "ho-hum".  They are beautiful in their own way, and had an ancient peaceful feeling the Rockies didn't seem to have (or I just missed it since I was distracted by that awesome view around every corner).

Anna enjoyed herself, even if her first assessment of our retro motel was "Well, THIS is NOT the Hilton."

Yeah, kid, don't we know it....


We forced her dragged her enjoyed a hike up the 1/2 mile incline at Clingman's Dome to watch the sun set.

It's never to early to instill a healthy appreciation for the natural beauty of a daily occurrence!

We were not disappointed.

Standing at the highest point in the park, we gathered with a rather eclectic group of hikers and photographers.

I've witnessed sunsets in many places, and I never get tired of the hushed awe as the sun begins its descent....

and turns into an orange glowing orb, lighting up the sky with various colors.
It's amazing, don't you think?
The paved trail to the top of the mountain intersected the Appalachian Trail.  Anna was amazed to hear that we had marked the trail in Pennsylvania many many years ago!

Ahhhh......beautiful!

The parking lot had filled with dozens of photographers and I must admit I was more than alittle intimidated by their tripods and fancy L lenses.... =)

When we returned to Gatlinburg we had a nice dinner at a restaurant and then took our tired girl back to the motel and tucked her in for the night.

We had another fun day planned for Sunday!



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