Craig's blog

Today was planned to be our restful, camping day.  We had nowhere we needed to get to and a beautiful national park site.  However, we weren’t content to just relax and Patty and I insisted on going on a hike.  We decided on one of two hikes to large waterfalls (one was 5 miles, the other 8), but we stopped by the Visitor’s Center to get some advice.  The lady said that neither road to the trailheads was passable with a motorhome, so we had to change plans.  She convinced us to hike along the Appalachian trail north for 4 miles (each way) to Charlie’s Bunion.  The trail runs along the ridge of the Great Smokey Mountains.  It was a beautiful hike in a forest where we really only came out of the forest when we got to the “bunion”. There we were out on a rock outcropping that had a beautiful view of the descending ridges to the west.  It was a long, pretty hard hike and now that the girls are older, they are at least as fast as we are.  Maddie would have gone even faster if we’d let her (she was cruising at about a 4 mph pace), the rest of us at a 3 mph pace.  It had a couple thousand feet of climbing thrown in there too, so it was work.  But we all had a good time.

When we got back we suffered through a trip through Gatlinburg to go to the grocery store.  It took another 20 minutes to travel the 2 miles through town, but we took advantage of the time by having all the girls shower as we drove.  It was pouring during the drive, so we weren’t missing good camp time anyway.  By the time we got back to the entrance to the park, all 5 girls had showered.  There was a line at the dump station, so I showered while we were waiting in line.  Patty cooked dinner at the same time and then we drove back to our campsite and arrived at 8:00. 

Tomorrow it’s off to Nashville.  I’d probably visit the Great Smokey Mountains again, but not on a weekend during the summer.  The place is crawling with people (it is the most visited NP in the country!).