Camping Trip, Part 1

I know I won't be able to finish this whole post about my camping trip; if I do, then I will still post some pictures. Either way, there's going to be a part 2, perhaps a part 3.

Our fall break started Wednesday afternoon, because it was a half day. It went through Friday, and of course the weekend. It's usually not this long but, this year we were glad it was. I went to the Great Smokey Mountains with a good friend(and her family), the Morris family. I had to finish packing on the day we left. And soon after I finished packing, we left. I brought 3 cameras because I knew I would need them. That part of the story is later. Back to the point. Now, I haven't been to the Smokeys in probably about five or six years. So I was so excited. When we were close to the Smokey Mountains, I was just amazed at how beatuiful it was, even though we were about a week or two early for the trees to turn. We do have one picture of them when I was alot younger and the trees were all different colors. I might try to find that picture.

We stayed at the (national) park (I think it was a national park) in Elkmont. We got to our campsite around 5 or 6 o'clock. We looked around, even though it was darkening. There was a small river, or large creek, near our site. we set up the tents, the thing over the picnic table, and the hammock. After we did that, we went to go eat in Gatlinburg. I had armadillo at a place called Texas Roadhouse. We walked off our dinner by looking through differnt stores down the road. There was this one coffe cup I saw that I wanted to get for my dad. It said, 'Life is Good' and below that there was a little stick person with it's legs crossed, and there was another one, but I can't remember what it was. We had to leave before I could decide( I didn't get it). I wanted to find him one with a guy fishing, but I couldn't.
So, we got back to the site, and um, didn't really do anything, and went to bed.

We got up the next morning around 8 or 9, and my day started out with hot chocolate. then we had eggs, bacon, and grits. Mmmm, there's nothing like a good meal in the mountains, with fresh air and the sound of a river/creek flowing, birds chirping, and leaves falling. My friends older brother and sister and two of their firends were going to hike to this place and spend the night. So they had their packs, but all we were going to do was just hike to Andrew's Bald and back. But before any of us parted our ways, we were all going to hike up to the highest point of the Smokey Mountains, Clingman's Dome, I beleive. So we while we were dirving up to the parking lot,( quite a ways, I might add) I enjoyed the veiws on the way upo. Mr. Morris (My friends dad) said look to your left and you can see North Carolina. I was amazed. we got to the parking lot and started walking up the walk to Clingman's Dome. I took a few pictures on the way up. When we got there, It was still cloudy (which was really cool, the fact that I was walking through a cloud) and we had to walk up to the thing, I'm not exactly sure what it was, but when it wasn't cloudy you were able to see really,really far. Unfortunatly, it didn't clear up enough for us to be able to see those veiws.

We started down the hill, and went off onto smaller trail and hiked, lesss than a mile, before we said our goodbyes (sp?) to the kids, teenagers actually, and we split onto different trails. We found out we were actually hiking to Andrew's Bald. It was a tiring hike, and when we saw the opening to ANdrew's Bald we were so happy!! That was a sight, sadly I ran out of pictures on my first camera, so I'll have to get a picture form my friend. It was open with tall and short grasses, and you had a great veiw of the mountains. There were layers upon layers of moutnains. I actually left out alot of detail about our hike on the way to our destination. There were evergreen trees everywhere, and I just love that smell! The trees were starting to turn, it seemed like it was up hill, but on the way back it also seemed like it was uphill. So now I know what parents mean when they tell you, ' When I was in school we had to walk 5 miles in the snow with no shoes, uphill both ways'. It was a trail scattered with rocks and trees, and leaves and moss. The good thing was I only tripped 2 times and once I sortive hurt my hand, but it's fine now. We were worn out after that hike, and we thought we deserved a patch (joking of course) That day we hiked 4.5 miles.

That night, we built a fire. It's so fun to have a fire. I forgot to mention that we had lunch on Andrew's Bald and it was just so peacful and quiet, we had the whole place to ourselves, it seemed like. Anyways, For dinner, we had barbecue chicken. yum. I slept good that night.

The next day we got up at 8 o'clock and once again had hot chocolate, and this time for breakfast, we had a simple bowl of cereal. We were going bike riding that day in Cades Cove. We picked out a helmet, and a bike. I had a cool little red bike, and my friend( mallory) and her parents had, blue bikes (which were a little bigger).The man who worked at this place where we were renting the bikes, showed us the routes, told us important stuff, etc. We started off, and it didn't seem that hard. There were lots of places to stop and see, so the first stop was John Oliver's House. For all of you who don't know, John Oliver was the first white man to settle in Cades Cove ( I don't know the details). I got a picture of that. We got back on our bikes and began to ride again, I think the next stop was an old Primitive Baptist church. That was wonderful to see!!! I'm mad and sad at myself, because I didn't get a picture of that church, ut I did find osme online. Cades Cove PB church was established in 1827. There was a graveyard behind it and we walked through it. I remember going to that church when I was probably around 5 or 6. We stopped at many other places. I hated to ride my bike up the hills, it was very hard. We finally got to the mill. We stopped and ate lunch, then looked around. We got to see the corn mill and how everything works. Then we went into this one house that, is no bigger than the average house today, but I'm sure t was like a mansion back when it was first built. We saw a few other buildings, then we saw a sugar cane "juicer" thingy. I'm not sure was it's called. It was really cool. ONce again we started back on our bikes, and the second part of the road we were on seemed even harder, becuase we were all worn out already. I enjoyed it, but it was very very very exhausting. Finally, I saw the "exit" sign and was sooo happy. We had biked 11 miles. We returned our bikes, and looked at the sweatshirts and I saw one, the same one my friend also saw, and we both got it. It's says Cades Cove on it. The Morris's treated us all to a very large ice cream cone. It was so much!

We got back to the campsite, and I changed out of the shorts I was wearing, and into somelong pants. I layed down on the picnic bench, pulled the draw strings from my sweatshirt tight, and sortive fell asleep. I had fallen asleep on the way back to our site. I slept even better that night.

For dinner that night, Mr. Morris made beef stew (and I also realized I lost my ring) but I'm not a big fan of beef stew, and never have been, so I had something else. For desert, he made berry cobbler. That was so good!! I slept even better that night.

Sadly, we only stayed about 3 days, so the next morning was our last day (saturday). We had the most delicious pancakes ever. Made by Mallory's dad. Also bacon. We had milk and then hot chocolate. We took down the tent and all of that stuff. we played a frisby game called razor. It's really fun, and I won once. After we were al loaded up and everything, we went down to a different river, and took off our shoes, rolled up our pants and walked on the rocks. Mr. Morris got in the river, and so did Mallory's brother, Taylor, and his friend Jared. I sat on a rock and slid in (accidentally) only one leg got get, but it felt great. Mallory's sister and friend dipped their hair in the river and we did the same. we felt refreshed. We ate lunch at a little place, and I changed out of my wet jeans and into dry pants,comfortable for the 4 hour drive back home.

I was so happy, to finally be home. BUt since my dad was in Alabama and my mom had to work I had to stay at my friends house, so I was still happy I was in Franklin.

**I didn't put all the details in here, so if you would like to ask me some questions, feel free to. You can comment :)**

It was a trip I will definatly remember. Also I will tell you about my Cameras later. My hands are really tired from typing, so Have a great day!!