After a long debated vacation plans, when checking the flights found some very good deal to Atlanta and made the plans to most visited national park in America! The smokey mountains national park.
I was little bit skeptical at the start about the number of days that we want to spend there. Finally decided 4 days should be good as there seem to be quite a few points and quite a few things to do there. Our journey started with flying from houston to Atlanta on Saturday. Its a nice short two hours flight and we reached there in no time. We visited Downtown Atlanta, checked out few places and had made a plan to celebrate 20th Anniversary of Olympics in Atlanta. Unfortunately there seem to be tornado forecast and seems like the organizers didn't want to take a chance and they postponed the program at the last moment that was quite a bummer for lots of people who gathered there including us.
Well that's ok, we started walking in downtown and few of the volunteers come to us and requests us to leave downtown and go home as for them it looked its going to be pretty bad. Well finally we decided enough for us and we started driving back home. (Btw don't think any tornado or even any rain came!). Checked-in in to the hotel and was looking for some halal places to eat found a gem of a place. PizzaWali, as surprisingly and shockingly our kids love pizza! We decided to visit this place and it was a small place, giving mostly takeout orders. They make mostly fast food, pizza, wings and subs and everything halal. Its an Afghani owner, more about him later and wonderful food.
Day 1:
Next day we started our journey to smokey mountains. Smokey Mountains national park is a park that's divided in to two states, North Carolina and Tennessee . North Carolina end is town called Cherokee and Tennessee end is with Gatlinburg. We had booked our hotels in Gatlinburg as that's supposed to be the main town to visit and stay. But since we were coming from south, google map showed us the way to pass from south end at Cherokee and pass completely through the park and reach to Gatlinburg. One pretty neat thing about this national park is, there's no entrance fee to the park. They expect donations when you pick up different materials from the visitors centers. There are quite a few visitors centers across the park. And each center is pretty neat, with lots of activities going on surrounding it. Showing lots of history and about the wild life in the park. Each of the centers in must visit when passing to it. It will also give the details about the different hikes and points of interest.
We decided to take a detour when going to the park by going via Blue ridge Parkway. This is considered as one of the most beautiful road in america to travel through, We drove about 15 miles of it and with lots and lots of overlook this is just an amazing drive. We were visiting middle of the July, peak summers so didn't expect to see any colors and while the views are really beautiful, I can bet this roads will be way to heaven in the Fall time.
On the Blue Ridge, we got bit adventurous and took a detour. There are lots of points with some funny sounding names and we started climbing in the car, completely unpaved road hoping to reach some nice view point. However after driving for about 20-25 mins and few miles we couldn't see end in sight and also one 7 year old scary little girl screaming in the back-seat we took a very tricky U-turn and went back. Luckily we had a small rental car so turning back was not a big deal however again having a small car driving on the mountains on unpaved road without 4 wheel drive was not a great idea either!
After driving slowly taking many stops and clicking lots of pictures our first stop to the park was Oconaluftee Visitor Center. We took a stop there and understood the map of the park. We visited the farm museum on the back of the center. Gave a glimpse on the life of the people staying in the park years ago. It was quite something looking at their houses, barns, mills, black-smith demo, chicken coup and meat house!. They really had a big storage house where they stored meat! And guess what we saw here, when standing on the veranda, I tell my daughter that look at that deer on the far end of the open field, and a lady corrects me that its an elk and there are few wild turkeys too. Both kids are excited and want to go closer to take a look, however you are not allowed to walk on the open fields as this seems to be a season for Elks and they come out quite a bit. I checked in the visitor center about any gas stations in the park and she tells me there's none, So I should get gas filled before entering the park. I go to Cherokee town and ooh la la there are many many elks in the open fields. It was some sight. And Kids were on top of the world!
After that we drove through the park. The road has a very funny sounding name, "Newfound Gap Road". This is a very interesting and beautiful road that passes through center of the park, one end at NC and another at Tennessee. This is a very interesting road where you are climbing up the mountain till you reach the highest point Clingmans Dome and then goes down. And its a mountain creates lots of scenic points all the way. Temperature also varies up to 10 degrees when passing through the mountain.
Clingmans Dome, as I said is the highest point in the mountain and in the whole state of Tennessee. They have built a really nice dome like structure from where you get a 360 degree views of the mountain and the park if you are lucky and day is clear. Unfortunately they say due to pollution most of the days you will really see a smoky! view of the park. Also the catch to reach this point is a nice about one mile steep hike on the really smooth concrete road. We are already in the park and in the mountains so get ready, take out your hiking or tennis shoes if you have not already and let's start walking! :)
After spending some time on Clingmans dome we decided to head to our hotel. However not before we took a stop at the Newfound Gap spot. Again nice beautiful serene views and lots of photo op. There are some really nice hikes also, we just did one small one as kids were tired but these are the places worth exploring!
After that we finally started driving to Gatlinburg. I was thinking it must be small cute sleepy little mountain town that we have been in our Colorado trip like snowmass village but ha! how wrong I was. As soon as I entered it looked like I have come to Vegas! Its a full tourist place with lots and lots and lots of family activities, surely family friendly version of Vegas, thousands of people roaming on the street and tonnes of places to eat!.
We were tired for all these and decided to head back to hotel and take some rest. As the next day is going to be equally tiring with still lots of things to checkout in the park!
Day 2:
Next morning our trip started with visiting Sugarland Visitor Center. This is at the Gatlinburg end of the park and very close to the town also the most crowded and most visited one from the looks of it. It has a nice museum on wildlife in the park, our kids had fun visiting it and planning to meet those animals in the park. It also has a theater where the nice video about park's history is shown and also a nice gift shop with lots and lots of brochures about the things to do in the park. We decided its time for us to visit the marquee point, Cades Cove, in the park today being a nice day and forecast of rains on other days! Cades cove is a one way loop that's close to Townsend and about 1.5 hours drive from Sugarland Visitor Center. Its a very beautiful scenic drive, with lots of points of interest, different houses of the people who stayed their in the past and also quite a few hikes on the way depending on your capacity and interest. Also this is supposed to be the best place to see wildlife and most sought after animals, Black Bears! We started driving through the road, we can see lots and lots of falls all the way decided to visit them on the way back. And just before entering the Cades Cove, We see lots and lots of traffic with people walking on the street. That surely means there's an animal in the nearby bushes. We immediately spotted a black bear walking in the bush. How exciting! We got down from the car and to our delight there was a small baby cub with the bear. It was a beautiful sight to see animal in its natural habitat and not in the zoo!
As you can see kids were pretty
excited to reach to the top (or bottom) the way you look at it. Its about 80
feet tall and beautiful sight to behold. Going down was pretty easy an smooth
as you will expect and as I kept saying Lulua, say thanks to gravity for that
:)
After finishing up with Ober, we took a nice little stroll on the strip by walking, The city provides tram service that's either free or just 50c one way for air-conditioned. The only and big problem is there are no fixed timings and its hard to really make a guess and wait. Its a Ripley's strip, so lots of activities includes Ripley's believe it or not!
I was little bit skeptical at the start about the number of days that we want to spend there. Finally decided 4 days should be good as there seem to be quite a few points and quite a few things to do there. Our journey started with flying from houston to Atlanta on Saturday. Its a nice short two hours flight and we reached there in no time. We visited Downtown Atlanta, checked out few places and had made a plan to celebrate 20th Anniversary of Olympics in Atlanta. Unfortunately there seem to be tornado forecast and seems like the organizers didn't want to take a chance and they postponed the program at the last moment that was quite a bummer for lots of people who gathered there including us.
Well that's ok, we started walking in downtown and few of the volunteers come to us and requests us to leave downtown and go home as for them it looked its going to be pretty bad. Well finally we decided enough for us and we started driving back home. (Btw don't think any tornado or even any rain came!). Checked-in in to the hotel and was looking for some halal places to eat found a gem of a place. PizzaWali, as surprisingly and shockingly our kids love pizza! We decided to visit this place and it was a small place, giving mostly takeout orders. They make mostly fast food, pizza, wings and subs and everything halal. Its an Afghani owner, more about him later and wonderful food.
Day 1:
Next day we started our journey to smokey mountains. Smokey Mountains national park is a park that's divided in to two states, North Carolina and Tennessee . North Carolina end is town called Cherokee and Tennessee end is with Gatlinburg. We had booked our hotels in Gatlinburg as that's supposed to be the main town to visit and stay. But since we were coming from south, google map showed us the way to pass from south end at Cherokee and pass completely through the park and reach to Gatlinburg. One pretty neat thing about this national park is, there's no entrance fee to the park. They expect donations when you pick up different materials from the visitors centers. There are quite a few visitors centers across the park. And each center is pretty neat, with lots of activities going on surrounding it. Showing lots of history and about the wild life in the park. Each of the centers in must visit when passing to it. It will also give the details about the different hikes and points of interest.
We decided to take a detour when going to the park by going via Blue ridge Parkway. This is considered as one of the most beautiful road in america to travel through, We drove about 15 miles of it and with lots and lots of overlook this is just an amazing drive. We were visiting middle of the July, peak summers so didn't expect to see any colors and while the views are really beautiful, I can bet this roads will be way to heaven in the Fall time.
 |
| Blue Ridge Parkway |
After driving slowly taking many stops and clicking lots of pictures our first stop to the park was Oconaluftee Visitor Center. We took a stop there and understood the map of the park. We visited the farm museum on the back of the center. Gave a glimpse on the life of the people staying in the park years ago. It was quite something looking at their houses, barns, mills, black-smith demo, chicken coup and meat house!. They really had a big storage house where they stored meat! And guess what we saw here, when standing on the veranda, I tell my daughter that look at that deer on the far end of the open field, and a lady corrects me that its an elk and there are few wild turkeys too. Both kids are excited and want to go closer to take a look, however you are not allowed to walk on the open fields as this seems to be a season for Elks and they come out quite a bit. I checked in the visitor center about any gas stations in the park and she tells me there's none, So I should get gas filled before entering the park. I go to Cherokee town and ooh la la there are many many elks in the open fields. It was some sight. And Kids were on top of the world!
 |
| Elks elks elks |
 |
| Newfound Gap Road |
Clingmans Dome, as I said is the highest point in the mountain and in the whole state of Tennessee. They have built a really nice dome like structure from where you get a 360 degree views of the mountain and the park if you are lucky and day is clear. Unfortunately they say due to pollution most of the days you will really see a smoky! view of the park. Also the catch to reach this point is a nice about one mile steep hike on the really smooth concrete road. We are already in the park and in the mountains so get ready, take out your hiking or tennis shoes if you have not already and let's start walking! :)
 |
| Clingmans Dome |
After that we finally started driving to Gatlinburg. I was thinking it must be small cute sleepy little mountain town that we have been in our Colorado trip like snowmass village but ha! how wrong I was. As soon as I entered it looked like I have come to Vegas! Its a full tourist place with lots and lots and lots of family activities, surely family friendly version of Vegas, thousands of people roaming on the street and tonnes of places to eat!.
We were tired for all these and decided to head back to hotel and take some rest. As the next day is going to be equally tiring with still lots of things to checkout in the park!
Day 2:
Next morning our trip started with visiting Sugarland Visitor Center. This is at the Gatlinburg end of the park and very close to the town also the most crowded and most visited one from the looks of it. It has a nice museum on wildlife in the park, our kids had fun visiting it and planning to meet those animals in the park. It also has a theater where the nice video about park's history is shown and also a nice gift shop with lots and lots of brochures about the things to do in the park. We decided its time for us to visit the marquee point, Cades Cove, in the park today being a nice day and forecast of rains on other days! Cades cove is a one way loop that's close to Townsend and about 1.5 hours drive from Sugarland Visitor Center. Its a very beautiful scenic drive, with lots of points of interest, different houses of the people who stayed their in the past and also quite a few hikes on the way depending on your capacity and interest. Also this is supposed to be the best place to see wildlife and most sought after animals, Black Bears! We started driving through the road, we can see lots and lots of falls all the way decided to visit them on the way back. And just before entering the Cades Cove, We see lots and lots of traffic with people walking on the street. That surely means there's an animal in the nearby bushes. We immediately spotted a black bear walking in the bush. How exciting! We got down from the car and to our delight there was a small baby cub with the bear. It was a beautiful sight to see animal in its natural habitat and not in the zoo!
My proper camera broke down when my son fell down at Cligmans Dome, an he was carrying it in his hands as a budding photographer :) So these are the pics from my phone's camera.
We spent some time here observing the bear jumping from one tree to another and then continued our drive to Cades Cove loop. As I mentioned before this is one of the most visited place in the park so expect lots of vehicles and crowd on the way. But this is really a beautiful place too. We visited few of the houses, it was a pretty hot day but we all had lots of fun. We also visited Cades Cove Visitor center where again there were lots of things to see and lots of things to do for kids. They have a junior ranger program going on in the summer and it was pretty hot with the kids where Rangers take few classes and you have to attend them and get points and finally get a nice certificate.
 |
| Beautiful Cades Cove loop |
This trip will take about 2-4 hours
depending on how much time you will spend on each pints and doing hiking. It
was bit hotter than our liking that day but we still got lucky to see bear,
deer and wild turkeys.
Returning back from the Cades cove
to Sugarland visitor center, there are lots of scenic views and quite a few
small and big water falls. We had decided to hike Laurell falls, one of the
really beautiful falls in the Cades Cove area. This is about 1.3 miles hike one
way but its climbing up on the hills so would go in to moderate level. We had
small kids and we decided to take stroller with us as most of the pathway is
paved though there are patches where its not possible to really drive the
stroller. Umberlla stroller came out to be pretty handy. My 7 year old daughter
was all gung ho and she climbed the mountain and did hike pretty easily but my
4 year old son who has become bit of a lazy boy, we had to bribe him with
candies and make him walk for bit and some way we pushed the stroller. Just a
warning, pushing a stroller does make you tired more! But once we reached the
water falls let me tell you it was worth the hike. Very beautiful and
magnificent waterfalls they were!
 |
| Laurel Falls |
After a wonderful day we were not
really done yet as there was a small hike still left, Cataract Falls. This was
really a very easy hike for everyone just 0.8 miles round trip and no climbing
up or down. Lots of vegetation on the way but very relaxing. Kids and all of us
had lots of fun doing this.
 |
| Cataract Falls |
The fall itself is
very small but nice little walk.
Now we all were done for the day.
Time to go back to hotel, have some dinner and sleep!
Day 3:
Today we decided to visit relatively lesser explored area called Roaring Fork Motor trail. This is a nice trailing loop not very far from Gatlinburg town itself. As the name suggests its a motor trail and there are lots of points of interests where you can park and trail around. Its relatively smaller compared to Cades Cove loop but lots of history associated with and a very nice places to hike around. The best place to hike is Grotto falls. Its a bit steep, I would say about moderate hike of 3.8 miles return trip. Its a beautiful place to visit and may be the only place where you can get your picture clicked just behind the falls. If you have small kids like we had, keep some candies handy to keep them motivated and also wonderful discussion about PBS cartoons will take you long way !
 |
| Grotto Falls |
After visiting few points of interests that includes few historical houses and in the end a very nice souvenir shop we decided to head back to hotel and have lunch and relax a bit, also kids were really looking forward to lazy river in the hotel. We spent couple of hours in the pool and decided to visit the charming town of Gatlinburg. As I mentioned its a strip made for tourist with tonnes and tonnes of stuff to do and places to eat. We decided to first visit the Ober Gatlinburg. This is actually a ski area in winter but there are many tourist activities that can be done over summer. First thing to do is take a aerial tramway to reach on the top of the mountain. This will give wonderful views of Smokey and Gatlinburg. The guides are super friendly and funny and its pretty ok price wise. Once you reach on the top there are few amusement park type activities but in the mountain settings and quite a fun. You can pay for individual rides or take a pass depending on the time and interest of your group.
 |
| View from ober |
After finishing up with Ober, we took a nice little stroll on the strip by walking, The city provides tram service that's either free or just 50c one way for air-conditioned. The only and big problem is there are no fixed timings and its hard to really make a guess and wait. Its a Ripley's strip, so lots of activities includes Ripley's believe it or not!
 |
| Gatlinburg, TN |
After having some pizza it was time to retire to the hotel and also almost coming to our last day of vacation.
Day 4:
Its time to end our vacation and start our return trip but not before we visit last beautiful sight in the Smokey mountains region. We discussed that we have an option to either stay in the smokey and do some more hiking or visit some of the other beautiful regions towards Atlanta or visit a very less explored area called Cataloochee that's part of smokey mountains. Cataloochee is a valley surrounded by many mountains in the smokey area. It is situated bit of south east side of main smokey area. This is relatively less explored mainly because of about 3-4 miles of unpaved road. It is still really confusing to me that why this 3-4 miles of road is not paved, if I have to think one reason might be to keep the inflow of tourist in control! We decided to go via blue ridge again and its about 2-2.5 hours drive from gatlinberg. Blue Ridge is always pretty and as I mentioned I was warned by at least 2-3 rangers that drive to the valley is bit risky. However, when we reached there, I have to tell that though road is unpaved and bit uncomfortable I would not say this as risky. Of course you need to be careful but that's for driving anywhere! Anyway, once we reached, this is a beautiful valley and there were people staying here for up to late 40s and early 1950s. It was again a beautiful drive, with lots of houses and some wildlife to see. We saw Elk, Wild Turkeys and lots and lots and lots of butterflies. Kids really had a great time catching and holding the butterflies.
Finally a drive back to Atlanta and meet my new friend Wali.
Day 4:
Its time to end our vacation and start our return trip but not before we visit last beautiful sight in the Smokey mountains region. We discussed that we have an option to either stay in the smokey and do some more hiking or visit some of the other beautiful regions towards Atlanta or visit a very less explored area called Cataloochee that's part of smokey mountains. Cataloochee is a valley surrounded by many mountains in the smokey area. It is situated bit of south east side of main smokey area. This is relatively less explored mainly because of about 3-4 miles of unpaved road. It is still really confusing to me that why this 3-4 miles of road is not paved, if I have to think one reason might be to keep the inflow of tourist in control! We decided to go via blue ridge again and its about 2-2.5 hours drive from gatlinberg. Blue Ridge is always pretty and as I mentioned I was warned by at least 2-3 rangers that drive to the valley is bit risky. However, when we reached there, I have to tell that though road is unpaved and bit uncomfortable I would not say this as risky. Of course you need to be careful but that's for driving anywhere! Anyway, once we reached, this is a beautiful valley and there were people staying here for up to late 40s and early 1950s. It was again a beautiful drive, with lots of houses and some wildlife to see. We saw Elk, Wild Turkeys and lots and lots and lots of butterflies. Kids really had a great time catching and holding the butterflies.
 |
Finally a drive back to Atlanta and meet my new friend Wali.
