The Great Smoky Mountains

Eek, been super busy. Here's a quick update.

The next stop after Virginia was Tennessee and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I'd organised another awesome cabin. This time we had a spa in each room as well as a big one on the deck. Here's a pic from the outside of the cabin.

And here's one of inside.

The first day we were there it absolutely poured with rain so we couldn't head out into the park. That wasn't a problem though because the area that we stayed was the most touristy place in the world. So off we went to mini golf which we had the choice of about 10 just on one street. We chose one and the woman working there said it was really hard. I got a hole in one on the first hole which probably tells you how hard it was. Not very!!!

The next day we knew we had a clear morning so we got up early and went out into the park. I'd been chatting to a guy in a hiking shop the day before and he'd recommended a 'fun' hike for us to do. So off we went to the Chimney Tops Trail and I laughed as I saw the sign for 2-3 hours of hiking. The first half was really quick and easy but it suddenly got quite steep and the next thing you know we're all struggling a bit. Neil who put away several beers the night before nearly had a spew. And Nate went to urinate in the bushes and fell over on the way back and ended up with a muddy bum. All fairly amusing.

Anyway, here's a pic of me at the start of the hike...

And here's Calli at the top. Apparently you need to climb to the top of those rocks to see the view but it had been raining and it wasn't safe so that was as far as we went.

After that we were going to go for another hike but it started raining and we were fairly unprepared so we went for the scenic drive instead. Here's a few pics from the Roaring Forks Scenic Drive. These are some old houses from when people used to live in the mountains. Here's a picture of one of the houses and also some storage shed they had.