We did a lot of driving today because there is a loop that you can drive through to see the mountains. It was a lot of fun. 
This post will be a lot of pictures. We took our time and slowly drove through the mountains. 
They had a few tunnels that went through the mountains. The tunnels were made to look very nice.
As you will notice, when Matthew is around, there isn't such thing as a serious picture.
The early settlers that lived in Cade's Cove (where we were in the Smokey Mountains) had to clear out all of the trees in order to have a place for farming and to live. You can see the trees in the background and how thick they were and how much work it would have been to clear the land.
We were able to see a few different types of wildlife. We saw some wild turkeys.
We saw some deer in two different places during our drive. They were hard to get a good picture of.
We also saw a momma bear and her two little cubs. It was way hard to get a good picture of them. They were up in a tree at first and then the climbed down the tree. We thought that they had moved back deeper into the trees, but then my mom saw them across the street out in a big open field. I was able to record it and will post a video of it the next post.
In the next picture you can kind of see the bear up in the tree. I was looking right into the sun so the quality isn't the greatest.
The next picture is the bear in the tree too.
It was extremely cool to see the bears. In the picture right about this you can also see where the baby cub was climbing up the tree too. In the next picture you can see the momma bear and one of the bear cubs right above her. Before we got to where the bears were we were contemplating stopping and looking at some of the old cabins and cemeteries from when people lived in Cade's Cove, but we decided not too and if we had we would have missed the bears. 
Here is a picture of the two baby cubs. Lisa is the one that took this picture!! 
After the excitement of the bear we went and looked around the visitors center. It had a lot of old buildings and things around it. They also had some people playing blue grass music. It was fun to listen to.
Lydia was asleep in her stroller during our stop at the visitor's center so that is why she isn't in any of the pictures. Matthew pushed her around while mom, Lisa and I walked around. Matthew and Lisa go there often so it wasn't like he was missing anything. Such a nice big brother!
The water mill in the picture above would create the power needed to operate the corn grinder in the picture below. It was pretty interesting to watch.
The buildings were all kind of interesting looking too.
In the next picture we are trying to look like we are holding the building up from falling.
After we had walked around the visitor's center we went and ate a picnic lunch that Matthew and Lisa packed for us. I think Lydia liked being able to get out and roll around and play.
Matthew had to hold up the tree.
After lunch we continued our drive and headed to a look out point in North Carolina (a new state for Lydia and me). We made a few stops on the way there to get some more pictures.
At one of our stops the girls were out exploring and Matthew found a new friend that he wanted to introduce Lydia too.
It was a caterpillar. 
Lydia really liked it. She kept trying to reach to it and at one point she took it out of Matthew's hands and tried to put it in her mouth - don't worry she didn't get it in her mouth and I washed her hands when she was done playing with it.
The next pictures are of us at the look out point in North Carolina.
The first pictures were of us in one state and the next pictures are of us in another state.
The next picture is of the Appalachian Trail. As you can see in the sign, it is 1972.0 miles long. I guess it is pretty cool to be able to say you walked it. Now we can say that we also walked the Appalachian Trail (or at least the width of it).
Lydia definitely likes Matthew and Lisa.
The next picture is the view from the look out point.
After we did the look out point and North Carolina we drove to Pigeon Forge to watch the Dixie Stampede.
The Dixie Stampede is a dinner show. The next picture is before the show started with one of the cast members.
This horse is one of the Percherons that was in the show. Isn't he gorgeous!
For dinner, they serve everybody the same thing for dinner: soup, roll, whole rotisserie chicken (yes, Matthew had to take all of my chicken off of the bone for me), pork loin, corn on the cob, a potato half, and an apple turn-over. It was delicious. They have the servers come out and serve one thing at a time while the show is going on. It was fun to watch. You can't take pictures during the show because it could scare the horses.The show is supposed to be a contest between the North and the South during the civil war. Each act in the show is a competition to determine which side is going to win. The different acts consisted of various horse acts, like vaulting, poles, jumping through fire, and carriage races. The show also had pig racing, little ponies racing, and a lumber jack contest. It was a lot of fun to watch.
Our third day in Tennessee was a lot of fun!
1 comment:
I can see you are wearing your hair curly. Humidity getting to you?
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