Bald River Falls, just a little detour off the 100 million dollar Cherohala Skyway highway. It was a beautiful drive with plenty of overlooks.
Beautiful fall colors in the Smokies. The Smokies were pretty awesome to see and just when we thought driving through Yellowstone was bad, this was worse. Busy time of year but talking to the locals, it’s always busy.
Observation tower, Clingmans Dome, it’s a gradual (I say this loosely) incline all the way. Over 6000 feet above sea level and the walk was a 330 foot increase in elevation in 3/4 of a mile, you almost need brakes for the trek down.
In the Gatlinburg area they estimate 1500 black bears living in the near by mountains. As we were driving through this guy decided to race us.
Cave bacon in the Lost Sea Cave. Cave bacon is a formation officially known as layered flower stone.
They tagged a bunch of rainbow trout and released them in the lake. They were hoping they would find a way out and be caught. So far they all seem to be still in the lake. More than 13 acres of water have been mapped and it is over 70’ deep.
Confederate soldiers would come into the cave to get saltpeter (potassium nitrate) to use for making gunpowder. This was plentiful in the cave due to bat guano.
Tsali Notch Winery, cute little winery. Sweet wines but that’s what they drink here AKA “adult Welch’s grape juice.”
View from the winery, if the temperatures would of been ten degrees warmer we would of sat and had a glass while we soaked in the view.
The Palmer Express 