Invasion of the Minis

Thursday, 19 April

We’ve been invaded by the minis!  But that’s for later!  Let’s talk about our day first.

We were up and at ‘em really early this morning … our goal: to finish exploring the Cades Cove heritage sites before the crowds showed up.  We were on the road shortly after 6:30a and were amongst the first few cars to enter the loop when the gate was unlocked at sunrise.  I don’t know where the others went, but we were the only ones at the Cable Mill area during the first hour of our visit there.  Perfect!

We explored the sites along the dotted red line shown in the inset.
[GSMNP map courtesy of the nps site; inset map from smokiesweb.com]

I’m going to do a separate post about the heritage sites, but in the meantime …

An ‘Old Timey’ look at the heritage sites on the Cades Cove Loop.

We didn’t make too many stops when we first entered the loop.  After all, our goal was to beat the crowds to the Cable Mill area.  But a few scenes that caught our eye just had to be photographed and taped. 

Breakfast time for the horses that are stabled in Cades Cove.
By the way, that’s fog behind the treeline.

Nice to have a built-in fly swatter.

Wild turkeys strutting their stuff during a morning stroll in the meadow.

Pileated Woodpecker
(or so a birder standing nearby told me; horrible lighting, so you get a B&W Treatment.)

Glimpse of the distant mountains as the sun starts to burn off the fog.

In the language of flowers, the iris means ‘Good news’.
It takes its name from the greek word for rainbow.

The views that the native Americans and the settlers enjoyed back in the 1800s …

… we get to enjoy today.

We weren’t expecting to have to ford the creek on Sparks Lane, but the CR-V is up to the task.

We finished exploring the last of the heritage sites shortly after noon.  Time for lunch … but where?  After weighing our options, we decided to do something different.  Instead of eating at the picnic area near the NPS campground, we parked at the Carter Shields Cabin, one of the heritage sites.  Pulling out the picnic basket and our portable picnic table, we set ourselves up under the trees and had a quiet meal there, acknowledging the waves of visitors driving by.  Perfect.

Have picnic table … will eat anywhere we please.

Actually there was one other person who had the same idea as us — a biker who camped out behind the cabin to eat his lunch.  Later, he stopped by to share some berry preserves he’d bought at the visitor center; in return we gave him a couple of bottles of water and a bag of grapes.  It was an unexpected encounter that added to our pleasure in the day.

Our private picnic area — ain’t life great?

After lunch, we debated dallying around Cades Cove to try our luck with a few more bear sightings.  But in the end, with only one more day of our vacation left, we decided to return to the campground and enjoy the rest of the afternoon at home.  First, though, we detoured to the local IGA to replenish our fruits and veggies.  I don’t usually take pictures in the parking lot of grocery stores, but this time I couldn’t resist …

The minis — Mini Coopers, that is — have invaded Townsend.

They weren’t the only ‘minis’ in town.  When we arrived at the campground it was to find the far loop — and a few of the sites in our loop — filled with Casitas, Scamps, and other “egg campers.”  What a sight!  It was impossible to get a photo to show the full visual impact of all these mini-campers in one place.  But, I found some photos on Tremont Outdoor Resort’s Blog, which I combined into a collage.

Collection of photos from the 2012 Eggscursion of the Egg Camping Club.
According to the blog, there are 72 egg campers from 20 States and Canada at the campground. 
[photos compliments of the Tremont blog]

We later had an opportunity to chat with the woman who owns the Boler pictured in the bottom right corner of the collage — she’s our site-neighbor after all.  A former nurse from New York state, she travels by herself since her hubby prefers to stay at their stix & brix home.  I’m sure she would have been happy to give me the ‘grand tour’ of her Boler, but as usual, I was too shy to ask.

It sure looks like our Phaeton gave birth to a baby-camper!

And on that note, time to wrap up this post with a picture that I took early this morning.  I saved it until last, because it just screamed …

The End!

Fauna, Flora, and Water

Monday, 16 April

After relaxing at home on Sunday (post here), we woke up to a warmer day that allowed us to eat breakfast on the deck.  Yay!  Though we were tempted to laze about again, we decided to take an exploratory drive into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, specifically the Cades Cove area.

We’re just two of the millions of people that will be visiting the park this year.
With a  visitor count of 8-10 million, the GSMNP is the most visited national park in the US.

The drive from the Townsend Entrance to Cades Cove is 9 miles (14 km) of two-way, single lane traffic.  At this time of the year, we’re finding that vehicles are few and far between — except in the 11-mile (18) Cades Cove Loop.

The 20 mph (32 km/h) speed limit on the loop — 35 mph [56 km/h] elsewhere — and the curvy single lane road forces even those visitors who would like to whiz through the park to slow down and take it easy.  And if there is a wildlife traffic jam, then all bets are off — you’re not going to get anywhere fast.

But to really enjoy the park, one must stop and get out of the car.  There’s plenty of entertainment along the way — gurgling creeks and rivers; rapids and waterfalls; colorful wild flowers; birds, and bees, and butterflies; deer, elk, wild turkey, and everyone’s favorite — the American black bear.  Add to that the many, many hiking trails and you’re not lacking for things to see and do.

So, slow down we did.  In fact, we made so many stops and spent so much time at each spot that we only had time to see a few of the historic buildings on the Cades Cove Loop.  I’m going to leave the heritage sites for a separate post after we’ve completed exploring all of them, and focus on everything else that made up our day.

Here’s our story in pictures …

Just inside the Townsend entrance to the park, we make our first stop.

these waterfalls are easily viewed from the road; But that wasn’t good enough for us.
Scrambling over the rocks, we found this perfect spot to view the falls.

A short trail just before the tunnel gives us our first glimpse of wild flowers.
top:  Creeping Phlox; Bottom: daisy Fleabane.
[do correct me if I am wrong on any of the flower identifications.]

I was especially intrigued with this flower, which I believe is a Foamflower.

A close encounter with a millipede (aka thousand-legged worm) provides ample entertainment.

a White-tailed deer encounter during our short walk to the John Oliver Place.

Here’s your chance to see the very rare two-headed white-tailed deer (top left).
Just kidding, but the positioning of the two deer couldn’t have been more perfect.
the trio featured here were right next to the path and weren’t fazed in the least
by visitors walking to the john Oliver place.

Left: On the trail from the John Oliver Place to the parking lot.
Right: Mui with his trophy ‘ginormous millipede kill’ — that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

The lens needed to capture the wide open expanses has yet to be invented.
this is just a tiny portion of the meadow near the john oliver place.

We were alerted to this American black bear sow by a number of cars parked in
every possible spot along the road.  This bear was in a densely wooded area with lots
of branches and shrubs in the way.  She could have cared less about our presence …

… even though she had a yearling cub (top right) foraging a short distance from where she was ‘pretend-napping’.  The photos I managed to get may not be great, but they’re good enough.
After all, unlike some of the other visitors we witnessed approaching closer than was wise,
I had no desire to test mum’s patience and become bear bait.

You can see wild turkeys just about anywhere in the park.  This one  was one of two
that happened to be  foraging in the wooded area behind the cemetery at the Primitive
Baptist Church, another heritage site on the Cades Cove Loop.

Our second ‘close encounter’ with a black bear was after we exited the Cades Cove Loop.
Foraging for berries in a wooded patch below the road, this young adult was more
cooperative  in terms of providing us with a good photo op.

The ranger on crowd control duty at this bear jam told us that the national
Park service estimates the GSMNP black bear population to be around 1,500.

And on that note, we decided to call it an early day and return home to enjoy our campsite.  Comfy chairs placed near the railing behind the coach, we sat down to read, and in my case, process photos.  I didn’t make any headway :-) … hence the teaser post ;-)

I hope it was worth the wait.