Smoky Mountain Vacation - Day 7

We were all sad to leave our wonderful, relaxing mountain cabin, but Sunday morning it was time to pack up and head to the next adventure of our vacation ~ Nashville!  But first we attended church in a tiny little mountain Baptist church, where our family of 7 added considerably to the size of the congregation.

What a delight to worship God with other believers who had previously been strangers.  Truly, it is good to be part of the family of God!

Here's a little funny from our time at this church....having three tall handsome teenage boys tends to draw attention from young teenage girls.  During the meet and greet time before the sermon, a little gaggle of teen girls ran up to me and one of them said in a breathless yet hopeful TN drawl, while eyeing our boys, "are you guys visitin' our church to come here?  You gonna start coming here?"  I was a little sorry to disappoint them! Haha!

After the service we drove across the state to NASHVILLE!  Yay!  We met up with this cute couple (originally from back home) for a delicious Nashville bbq dinner.

For our two nights in Nashville we stayed in an airbnb house.  It was our first time to use airbnb and it was a great experience.  Much cheaper than two hotel rooms for two nights, and we had a kitchen and living room to boot!

Smoky Mountain Vacation - Day 6

After sleeping in to try and recover from our hike the day before, we headed out to visit the touristy town of Gatlinburg.  First stop, this alpine coaster!  It is basically a ride down a mountain on a long track.  Even I did this, and it was so much fun that we decided to do it again!

The ride up the mountain.

On my way up I got a quick pic of son L on his way down!

And here is daughter G on her way down.

After this fun time, we headed to the shops and restaurants in Gatlinburg proper.  I have been in a lot of cute towns, but I have to say this was one of the cutest.  So many little alleys that end up being full of shops and fountains like this one!  We window shopped and looked for souvenirs.  Very fun.

My hubby and a couple sons had a good bit of fun in this place, the Pepper Palace.  It was a hot sauce shop, and my hubs loves hot sauce.

After all this taste testing though.......

....son C needed some ice cream to cool off his tongue!  And he really did *need* it.  His tongue was so on fire, it was extremely uncomfortable for him.  Live and learn!

Some really lovely art galleries.

Our kids spent the most time in this shop of all places!  They all picked out a pair of socks as personal souvenirs, and we chose some socks to buy for daughter H, who stayed with others back home while we were gone.  They had every imaginable sock design, literally hundreds and hundreds of socks.

And on our way back to the cabin from Gatlinburg we took a detour to see this brother-sister duo, who are dear friends from back home but attending the same college in TN.  Very fun!!

Smoky Mountain Vacation - Day 5

Day 5 was our "wooded" hike, for completely different views.  We chose a 2.5 mile (each way) hike to a waterfall.  The entire hike was inside the Smoky Mountain National Park, and on our drive to the trail head we came first upon some beautiful horses, and then ....

...three baby black bears!

We never did see their mama (good thing!) but the babies were intent on eating and never even looked our way.  We got out of our car and stood about 30 feet from them, taking pictures.  I ended up seeing 5 black bears on this trip (the rest of the family saw 4), and it was one of my special blessings from this vacation.

Then we began the hike.

Every few feet there seemed to be a new view to marvel at.

There were about five of these log bridges throughout the hike.  We tasted the water in these streams; it was cold and delicious.

Resting on a natural little shelf....about halfway there!

Finally we made it to the Falls!  There was a lovely pool of water at the foot of the falls that people were swimming in.  We cautioned our kids against getting too close to the falls, where the water was deep and their were some whirlpools, but let them wade and swim in the shallow water farther out.  Across the way you can see son C looking at the water.

Little Man, taking his shoes off to swim!

Our children and my hubby all climbed the rocks next to the waterfall to get to the top.  They said the view was great from up there.  I was content to watch them from my vantage point beside the pool!

I admit, this made me a tad nervous.

The trail, the trees, the water, the rocks...so many different parts of nature to admire and enjoy.  We were exhausted by the time we made it back to the car at the trail head, but it was an amazing day well spent!