Adventures in Gatlinburg: Sunsets, Waterfalls, And Other Views

The balcony of our condo had a lovely view of the Smokey Mountains and the clouds ever hanging at the tops.

And they turned beautiful colors when it came time for the sun to set (which was late, but my old self managed to stay up to watch, mostly because the kids were still up!).

We did two waterfall hikes and they were both spectacular. The first was to Laurel Falls, which was a nice trail and not too hard (even Edie walked the whole way) with the only sketchy part being a short section with signs warning us to mind the trail because the edge was a sheer drop and "falling deaths have occurred". We obeyed the signs and made it to the falls and back again.

The kids clambered around lots of random boulders on the way up and down.

, and one of the highlights of the hike was seeing a real dung beetle pushing a real dung ball across the path and over the hill. It's the kind of thing the kids thought they'd only see in nature movies! I failed to get a good picture, but we have the fond memories to take with us.

Agnes had been doing a bit better about the car before the trip, but after the day-long drive to get there, she got progressively more angry every time I had to put her in the car after we arrived. So when one possible activity for the day was an hour long scenic drive, I quickly opted us out and we ended up splitting our group into two activities for the day. Edie chose the drive with Grandma and crew, and the big kids joined me, Agnes, and Daddy for another hike. Our destination this time was Rainbow Falls. The hike was considerably harder: 2.7 miles straight up the mountain to get to the falls. I think Gussie was already a bit tired from the week because he's usually running ahead of us all but about halfway up he just hit a wall and refused to go on. We discussed turning back but Catherine (and I!) really wanted to get to the falls at the top and Michael and Mary were up for it. So we stopped at a little mountain creek and splashed water on Gussie's head and neck to cool him off, then I carried him for a few minutes, and he bounced back and made it to the top. The waterfall was very cool - it was worth the effort!

This was a little waterfall part way up that cooled us off.

There were several neat bridges made of logs or rocks on the trail.

And finally we made it to Rainbow Falls! We had to have a snack first, then we enjoyed the falls.

Agnes slept on my back almost the entire walk up, then woke up in time to splash in the water.

Michael took his bike and rode several climbs in the mountains, but the biggest was Clingmans Dome.

The view is best in the morning, so we had been undecided about getting up early one morning and making the drive and then hike to the top, but after Michael made the ride and showed us his pictures, we had to see it! Mary might still be in her pjs here.

The clouds settled into the mountain valleys was beautiful, well worth the mile hike to the observation tower (even after our 5.4 mile hike the day before!).

Can you guess which two kids don't want to be in this picture?

Catherine borrowed Grandma's selfie stick for the walk back down.

We also enjoyed some good restaurants and fudge and shopping downtown. The rest of the kids all saw at least one real live bear, and Michael almost ran into one on his bike on the way down from Clingmans Dome, but all I saw were bears like this. Maybe next time!

This doesn't show you much, but the kids LOVED the pirate dinner show we saw. There was a lot of acrobatics, and trampolines, and high diving, and climbing poles and swinging on ropes other high energy good fun. I'm pretty sure none of them ate any of the food because they were too captivated by the show, but that's ok.

And of course we did lots and lots of swimming at the condo. It turns out Agnes loves the water as much as the rest of them!

It's hard to believe we only managed a cursory exploration of a tiny tiny part of those mountains - there are so many beautiful places to see!

Adventures In Gatlinburg: Chimney Tops Picnic Area

There are a lot of picnic areas in the Smokey Mountains National Park, but we spent a lunch at Chimney Tops and it was a great choice! The picnic was definitely secondary to climbing in, around, and through the boulder-filled creek. The kids could have done this all day, and for miles and miles.

Do you think Grandpa is wondering if he is expected to follow Catherine as she leaps away?

Gussie gave me about a thousand heart palpitations while we were there. He HAD to leap. Every step was a leap. It didn't matter if it was a big leap or a small leap, or if the rocks were wet, or even if they had that green tint that warns you they are slippery... no, he was leaping. And this is why teaching by natural consequences doesn't always work for his type - he took a thousand risks and didn't come close to falling once.

But Grandpa was ready to fish him out before he got to the faster moving water, just in case.

The boulders were a little too daunting for Agnes's current level of clambering skill, so she focused on tasting all the nature.

Gussie is very pleased with his environment.

I'm pretty sure this butterfly didn't fly away because it had a damaged wing, but the kids were really glad to be able to watch it.

It's nice that Agnes will hang out with other family for short bursts so I can play with the big kids!

Adventures In Gatlinburg: Anakeesta

I have to learn not to take so many pictures on vacation - I get paralyzed by the task of processing them all and then it takes forever to get them posted!

We had a wonderful week in Gatlinburg with Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Sunny, Uncle Chris, and Olivia. The mountains might not be as tall as the ones in Colorado, but it was very beautiful and we enjoyed some great hikes and a lot of fun. Our first day there we went to Anakeesta, a kind of adventure park at the top of a mountain. We used our time waiting for tickets for some photos.

This was an example of the mountain roller coaster car - she got to ride the real one later!

We had to take a ski lift up to the fun at the top. It was a bit of a long ride, and there was a lot of stopping with a little bouncing and swaying. Let's just say I don't have any pictures of Daddy looking this happy on the way up.

Uncle Chris broke his foot just before we left, so he got to enjoy riding around the park instead. I'm sure he would have much rather been walking, but he made the best of it.

Agnes discovered she loves playing with ice cubes when it's hot.

One of the activities at the top was a mountaintop playground. Much clambering ensued.

They set up a lot of photo ops at the top. We apparently aren't very good at staged photo ops.

Shockingly, Gussie let me take this picture and did not demand that I delete it after he saw it. He's into the mountain man look.

We also walked on a series of treetop bridges which were super fun. We kept our eyes open for wildlife (especially bears!) but didn't see any.

All the kids got to ride the mountainside roller coaster, but it wasn't super visible so we don't have a lot of pictures. This was the ride back up the hill at the end.

The big kids and I even got to go ziplining! Catherine, Mary, and Michael Jr loved it. I didn't hate it, and parts of it were fun, but the two times we had to just walk off the edge not holding on to anything and just wait through a second of freefall before the auto belay caught us, well, it took me several extra seconds to convince my legs that wasn't one of the dumbest ideas ever. But we made it to the end and the kids are ready to go again. Probably we should wait until Agnes is a little bigger though - she did good for a while but we were gone for more than an hour and when she suddenly got tired she wasn't impressed that I wasn't there. 

Daddy took this video of us setting off on the first one, then said he couldn't watch anymore. Ziplining is not for him.