Great Smoky Mountain National Park

We arrived in the Smoky Mountains Wednesday amid the storms they were having all around. We did stop at the Tennessee Welcome Center on I-75 for a break and when we checked their weather radar we decided to just stay in the rest area for a little while. It had been quite windy on the road and the radar showed a huge storm right over us. It is a beautiful welcome center so we just took our books in and set by an unlit fireplace and read until the storm passed over.

We decided to stay at a KOA just outside of the park in the little burg of Townsend. It is much quiter than Sevierville or Pigeon Forge.  We went into the park Thursday and checked out several places.  They have a very nice visitor center at the main entrance as well as smaller ones at other entrances.  We also checked out a couple of the campgrounds in the park and they are nice but have no hookups.

I took this picture of Marcia next to one of the huge tulip trees that abound in the park.  We were on a trail through an area that was supposedly not cut when they harvested the timber early in the last century.

Then Marcia took a picture of this mountain man she found wondering in the woods.

This is just one of the many little drainages that all flow down to the river eventually.

We toured the Cades Cove loop yesterday and this was one of the earlier cabins in the cove.  It was remarkably well preserved.  The cove is one of the few areas that they have left some of the original structures when the park was formed.

There are several little churches on the cove loop.  This one was very interesting as it is similar in size and design to the Powers Church.  We toured the church and the cemetery behind the church and discovered some fairly recent grave markers.  As we proceeded around the cove loop we came to another little church with probably fifty cars parked along the road and I realized they had funeral markers on the cars.  They were having a funeral in the little church.  I later asked about that and was told that funerals and burials are still allowed as long as the person is a direct Cove descendant.

A picture of the interior of the little church.  It is a little more rustic than Powers Church.  It was built about ten  or so years after the Powers Church.  It replaced the original log structure.

The picture does not do justice to the scene.  This was looking up the valley in Cades Cove.  You can see why they are called the Smokies.

This couple was at the Cades Cove Visitor Center on the porch playing mountain music.  It was very entertaining and Marcia even bought a cd they had produced.  He played the dulcimer, banjo and guitar and she played a barrel base.  It was homemade from a cardboard drum with the strings running down and attached to the drum.  It produced a good base string sound.

We are enjoying our time here and will be moving to the North Carolina side of the park tomorrow and staying a couple of days in Smokemont Campground in the park.

I have edited the blog entry to update the photos.  Apparently they did not load the first time with the shortcut I used from Picasa so I have reloaded them from a drive.  We have not had cell service or internet connection for several days so it has taken me awhile to get it done.  Hope you like it with the pictures.