So as I mentioned the boy and I traveled to the Smoky Mountains for 5 days of my spring break. We had a great time!
We stayed in a hotel in Gatlinburg that was probably a whole 2 minutes from the park entrance. In general, we woke up pretty early and went hiking in the morning. We did two major hikes. One was to chimney tops which is this small peak of a mountain.
It was very steep and I think I complained a lot on the way up. But when you got to the top you got to scale this rock face (which in hind-sight was pretty dangerous) and had awesome 360 degree views. Here is one on the top. It was pretty, foggy and cloudy so they view was hard to capture on camera. I really really regretted not getting a picture of the rock face - but not enough to go back up...
The hike we did the next day was my favorite. It was a little longer than chimney tops but not as steep. We followed this river for the first mile or so - and it had poured the night before so the river was BEAUTIFUL!
Then it started climbing up through some cool rock formations. This one was called Arch Rock.
By the time you got part way up the mountain, there was a nice clearing, and you had a gorgeous view of the valley and the mountains. The sun was shinning and this was probably the best view of the whole trip. I can just imagine how beautiful this would be in the spring when everything is blooming. I think we were like 2 weeks early, because most of the plants had buds but they hadn't opened up yet.
Then you walked up a little further to this bluff. It was bizarre because it was super dry and dusty yet surrounded by some of the wettest area in the US. At the point we turned around and headed back down the hill, but we could have gone another 2 miles up to the top of the mountain. I wasn't brave enough to try it, maybe next time.
Those were our two major hikes. We did some shorter ones out to some waterfalls and did a couple of motor loops that were pretty cool, but I doubt anybody really cares.
Onto the more exciting stuff, the places we ate and things we did. So I guess I didn't realize it, but Gatlinburg and that area is super touristy. Like family touristy so lots of themed dinner shows, amusement park rides, mini golf, and go-kart like things. I was kind of expecting more mom & pop like restaurants and stores, but Chris knew the great places to go eat so it worked out okay.
The three best places we went where the smoky mountain brewery (Of Course!), the apple barn, and the pancake pantry.
The brewery was very cool, and we visited it twice because the hotel didn't have a very good cable package and the NCAA basketball tourney was on. We had to see how Daisy's bracket would do (Answer = not well). They greatest thing was the first time we were there we got a sampler of all 9 of their beers. Each beer came in a 5oz glass for a total of 5.35! WHAT!? 45oz of beer for just over 5 bucks. Greatest deal ever. Their beers were actually very good. They are the only craft brewery I've ever seen with a light lager - and it was not good. But I guess it makes sense, there prolly aren't a lot of craft beer fanatics in bible belt country. Plus they dyed it green for St. Patty's day. Gotta love that green beer.
The apple barn was ridiculous. Just an obscene amount of food for pretty cheap. Each dinner came with your choice of homemade vegetable or chicken noodle soup, salad, two veggies, your main entree, and your choice of dessert. Plus every table got warm and delicious apple fritters plus this special apple/fruit juice. SO full, I didn't even try and eat my desert, they just packaged it directly in a to go container. Our mini-fridge in the hotel couldn't even fit all of our leftovers, so I was forced to throw out our fried apples. Or at least I thought I had thrown out the fried apples. Turns out, I actually got the two boxes mixed up and threw out Chris's country fried steak, and when he discovered that he was very sad.
The apple barn also has a winery attached to it. They have lots of apple wines, which I've never tried before, but are pretty darn good. Better than most of the wine out in that region. (TN wineries = not so good).
The last place we went was the pancake pantry. We actually went here for lunch because our breakfast had a free breakfast, and my mother taught me so well not to pass up free food. Well we actually did pass it up once because we left the hotel before breakfast opened so that we could get out this place to see wildlife in the early morning. In exchange we saw like 50 deer. I'm not sure what my mother would choose in that situation. Free food or deer? I'll have to ask her...
Anyway- the pancake pantry was like most pancake houses. Lots of pancakes in unique flavors. VERY GOOD. I was starving, so I devoured 4 of my 5 pancakes as my boyfriend watched in horror...
The other thing we did to take up our time was check out some of the wineries in the area. As I mentioned. Not so good. They have this local grape that is just nasty. Its called muscadine because it smell musky, ICK!. They were just like, don't smell the wine - just taste it. Mmmmm.... no. not how that works people! So no need to elaborate on that.
On the last saturday that we were there it was St. Pattys day. And it turns out they have were having a Santa Claus parade on St. Patty's day, because that TOTALLY makes sense. It was amusing and super bizarre.
Anybody else go on a cool spring break trip? Where did ya go?
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