Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail

Aug 8-12, 2012
(I wanted to do just one post for our stay here but the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail was so nice that it deserves it’s own post.)

Sevierville, TN
River Plantation RV Park site 165

We thumbed through the cg brochure that was given to us at check-in and decided to take this nice ride in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park near Gatlinburg.  It was wonderful!  It’s a five mile long narrow winding road with mountain streams, cascades, moss covered boulders, and green forests by the roadside.  It’s like taking a hike without any of the effort!

 

We lowered the windows on Suki and opened the sunroof to let our ears and noses enjoy the ride too.

 

There were several places to park and take real hikes but we enjoyed the few stops at the overlooks.

 

I have always loved the lush green foliage that is found in the Great Smokies.  There was green everywhere!

 

There was moss growing on everything that didn’t move.  Tree trunks were covered even before they fell to the ground and the boulders were green with moss!

 

We could see and hear the mountain stream that flowed along beside the road much of the time.  So refreshing and cooler in the higher altitude.  I just had to sit on a rock and enjoy it for a while.

 

 

The tour took us by a few buildings that were left by the families that lived here before the National Park was created.  We were just more engrossed with nature.

 

I have always enjoyed rock outcroppings too.  There were several boulders along the roadside with trees and bushes growing right out of them.

 

 

But the most exciting thing that happened to us to make this day so very special was our own personal bear sighting.  I drove very slowly on this auto tour and any time a car rolled up behind us, I would pull over and let them go by.  There was no one else around when this juvenile black bear sauntered across the road only 20 feet in front of us.  The pics are a little fuzzy because Gin was so excited she couldn’t hold the camera steady.

 

 

The bear took it’s time wandering across the road a couple of times while foraging for food.  She never paid any attention to us in the car.  It was very magical for us.  Gin took a brief video of the bear as it left the road to return to the woods one last time.  This is dedicated to Tricia who would have thoroughly enjoyed this too.

This Bear’s for you Tricia

Thanks for dropping by and enjoy each day of your life’s journey by finding beauty in the ordinary.

River Plantation RV Park (TN)

Aug 8-12, 2012
(Catching up in the Great Smoky Mountains.)

Sevierville, TN
River Plantation RV Park site 165

We stopped by here for a few days to enjoy full hook up on our way to visit family back in NC.  We really wanted to go to the Cable Mill Visitor’s Center of Cades Cove and get some Caribbean pancakes at Flapjacks Pancakes which is right next to this RV Park.  Many of you are familiar with this place because we were at the RV Dreams Rally in April of 2011.  There is a new office to check-in at in the park and it is still a well maintained park.

 

The first order of business for the day was the Caribbean pancakes.  We had enjoyed some when we were here a year and a half ago and our taste buds were ready for some more.  We sat down in a booth and saw that it was no longer on the menu!  I asked our waitress about it and she said that it would be no trouble for the cook who could whip up some just special for us.  They were good with coconut, banana, pineapple and nuts on them.  Yum!

Next, we decided to take a ride on the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail.  It was so nice there that I’ve decided to do a separate post on that soon.  It started raining as we finished up with that but we still drove over to Cades Cove.

 

In our previous visit here we had stopped at most of the restored pioneer buildings and I did a post about them that day.  We just enjoyed our ride today by finding some wildlife in the meadows.

 

 

Much of the attraction of driving to Cades Cove is the drive itself.  There is a stream that runs along beside the road most of the way there and there are lots of squiggles (curves).

 

We could tell that a strong storm had hit the mountain not too long ago.  There were several places along the road that had many trees down.  I think that some of them had been cleared away but most of them were still laying there.

 

I guess it’s nature’s way to open up the canopy to let new growth sprout forth.  This rainy day also helps with the new growth and keeps everything a very lush green.

Thanks for dropping by and enjoy each day of your life’s journey by finding beauty in the ordinary.

Cades Cove and Bear Butt

River Plantation RV Park site #435
Sevierville, Tn

Many Rally attendees left on Sunday after the farewell breakfast.  The park really emptied out.  We stayed around and relaxed joining the remainder of the rv-dreamers in a campfire at Howard and Linda’s site in the evening.  It’s sad but we know that we will meet many of them on the road and stay in touch by following blogs and such.  It’s a great community of like minded people.

After saying good-bye to several more friends on Monday morning, we decided to go to Cades Cove in the Great Smoky Mountains for the afternoon.  It’s a beautiful, long relaxing ride up the mountain.  There’s a bubbling mountain river right beside the road most of the way up.  We had to pull off a couple of times to just soak it in.  We love the mountains.  It’s a Sylville kind of place.

 

A guy was enjoying his kayak in the cool mountain rapids.  Don’t worry.  We have no intentions of white water yakking.

We enjoyed a cone of soft-serve ice cream at the store just before entering Cades Cove.  This is a park dedicated to preserving the lifestyle of a mountain farming community from days gone by.  It is an 11 mile one way auto-tour that has about 80 buildings and several trails to enjoy.  The first building we came upon was the John Oliver Place which was built in the early 1820’s.  This shot was taken from about a quarter mile away (nice zoom).

There were many other people out enjoying this beautiful day.  The next building was the Primitive Baptist Church which was built in 1887.  All of the churches are right beside the road so I got out to walk around.  My grandparents were active in their own Primitive Baptist Church many years ago so I couldn’t help but to think of them.

 

Next came the Methodist Church built in 1902 by JD McCampbell.  It was built in 115 days at a cost of $115.  If you are into genealogy, it would be interesting to check out old cemeteries like these.

 

The next church is the Missionary Baptist Church.  This building dates from 1915.  It was only a small cemetery there.

 

The next place that we stopped at in the loop was the Cable Mill Historic Area.  Gin was pretty exhausted so she didn’t get out of the car so I took a quick shot of some of the buildings.  It is an area devoted to show how life was lived back then.  We sure do take a lot for granted now.  Click on any picture to enlarge.

 

Our next stop was at the Dan Lawson Place which was built in 1856.

This area must have been what Pigeon Forge and Sevierville looked like many years ago before it was overly commercialized.

 

The next homestead was the Tipton Place.  Traffic was backing up so we didn’t know what to expect.  There were barns on one side of the road and the house and barns on the other side.

I guess the bumper to bumper traffic was about a half mile long.  Then we realized why.  A black bear was 15 feet from the road.  We slowed down like everyone else and tried to take a picture.  I didn’t want to stop entirely so this is the best shot of a bear’s butt peaking out from behind a tree.

A little further ahead, the traffic slowed a little bit because there were three white tailed deer right beside the road.  They still have thick winter fir.

After driving the Cades Cove loop, we enjoyed our ride back down to present day living.  We did have to stop at a pull-out to soak up a little more time in Sylville.  It is soo relaxing and peaceful by a mountain waterfall.

 

Thanks for dropping by, and enjoy your life’s journey by finding beauty in the ordinary.