The Great Smoky Mountains

Taking full advantage of our Fall Break, we headed out Monday morning to the Great Smoky Mountains for a camping trip. We had an amazing time!

On our way to Atlanta we saw the Lodge Cast Iron Factory Store and had to stop. We ended up with a great deal on a little dutch oven. Here's Rob and Grace getting it all set up. Man, dinner was tasty!

Grace was a great helper and loved everything about camping...

...especially the s'mores!

Rob and Grace were telling each other stories over dinner clean up. It was so sweet!

The next morning as we were cooking breakfast, out of the corner of my eye I saw some big black animals and thought "gosh, I can't believe someone is letting their dogs run around the park unattended with all the bears around!"...

Oh wait...those are bears wandering through our campsite! A mother bear and two cubs just wandered through our site 10 feet from where we were cooking some delicious smelling bacon. I ran to get my camera and caught a few not-so-hot pictures of them as they wandered away. The picture on the left shows some perspective of our site to where they were (this was after they'd gotten farther from our site). Can you see the shining eyes of the bear cub on the left of the right-hand picture? The mom and sibling are more toward the right of that photo. It was the coolest thing to see!

The second coolest thing of the camping trip was the hammock. We spent some delightful time relaxing in it.

Grace used it as a swing and had to be pushing whoever was lying in it. We all loved cuddling in it!

The set-up. Ruby hung out in her pack-and-play because the ground was wet from the rain and we didn't want a muddy and cold little babe on our hands. She also loved camping.

Another awesome thing about this trip was the Fall colors! There are so many different species of trees in the Smokys that all turn different colors at different times and the result was absolutely breathtaking! I couldn't help but shoot picture after picture of the colors, but didn't come close to capturing their real-life splendor. I made Rob pull the car over a few times so I could get out and shoot :)

We went on a hike to Laurel Falls, which was categorized as "easy" and "wheelchair accessible," neither of which it really was. There was a pretty decent altitude gain and despite being paved, was pretty rough in spots. We were wishing that we had packed Ruby instead of taken the stroller, but we ended up having to carry big sissy, so it was nice that we didn't have two kids to carry to the falls :)

After the hike we stopped at the Visitor Center and Grace made friends with Ranger Frances who got out her special collection on real animal skins for us to see and feel. It was really special that we got to see that because not everyone does! All of the animals were really soft. It was so neat to see and feel those!

On our way out we made the drive to the North Carolina part of the park (it's always fun to cross state lines). The state line is pretty high up, so we got to drive through, and see from above the cloud that covers the Smokys and gives them their name.

It was such a fun trip, we definitely want to go back if we get a chance!