Smokeys, Rockies & Red Rocks

We traveled on to the Great Smokey Mountain National Park. First stop Oconaluftee Visitor Center. We made a quick lunch of Doug's homemade chicken salad with my freshly grown alfalfa sprouts and our new chili oil and pomegranate vinegar. Yum.

Behind the visitor center, there is a live demonstration of primitive mountain farm life behind the center, so we headed there first because the rain had given us a bit of a reprieve. We approached the farm house that was built by a man and his two young sons by splitting cypress trees length-wise so that the outside of the log cabin was flat. The nails were made in the blacksmith shop out back and each link on the chain on the doors looked like a looped infinity sign, each interlocking the next. "Hi, Ma! What's for lunch, Ma?" Doug addressed the pimitive woman who was making cornbread on a dutch oven in the cabin. She broke character and started laughing. We asked her if we could sample her cornbread, but she said that she is not allowed to feed it to visitors. She feeds it to the park Rangers if they want it and if not, it goes to the hogs out back. We walked past the hogs and down to the creek.

The water in the creek was clear and the rocks glistened. Fallen orange leaves floated atop them. My Tevas made excellent grip on the rocks as we walked into the creek bed. Doug bent down to look closer at the rocks and he picked them up one by one to study each. I had his phone, so I took pictures and videos as I waiting for him to find gold... or something. Twenty minutes later... I had four collected rocks in my pocket. Doug is a "stop and smell the roses" kind of guy. I really like this about him. He knows how to live in the moment.

At the visitor center, I found my Smokey Mountain National Park magnet for the back of my van. Yes, I'm starting a collection of all the places that I've traveled. We purchased a National Park Passport, the Collector's Edition and got it properly stamped with today's date at the stamp table.

It's a beautiful drive through the park toward Gatlinburg. Today it was cloudy and rainy, so there was nothing to be seen at the overlooks besides clouds. In case you didn't know, the fog of the Smokey Mountains on any given day gives a smokey blue hue in the mountains like looks like smoke, and this is why they call it the Smokey Mountains. But today it's more than smokey; the white clouds block the view of any vista.

Our goal is to arrive in Knoxville by 4 pm so that we can have dinner with my daughter and son in law. So we pass the overlooks, Gatlinburg and drive on through Pigeon Forge to make our destination on time.Read more