We woke up early that morning and drove to Clingman’s Dome. These are some of the views along the way.
It is the highest point in GSMNP,
kind of like Cadillac Mtn in Acadia NP.
It was very cloudy/foggy and I read at the top of Clingsman Dome that
there is 80% more fog because of pollution.
Crazy. To get there you had to
hike half a mile directly up hill. Every
tenth of a mile there was a bench because you really did need to take a
break. Jeremy suggested that Boston
marathoners practice here and Heartbreak Hill will be a walk in the park.
I think my favorite part was when we were walking down the
hill, and n overweight boy about 10 was walking up the hill with his dad and
grandma. His dad was plowing ahead and
urging him to catch up and the boy, in his very thick southern accent replied,
“I’m not a billy goat dad!”
We couldn’t see ANYTHING but it was still cool.
After that, we went to the visitor’s center and asked if
they could suggest a hike for us to go on.
The woman suggested Charlie’s Bunion. (which isn’t as disgusting as it
sounds… I asked). So off we went.
It was about 8 miles round trip and pretty tough! Pretty much uphill the entire way until the
last mile. We saw only one deer that
hike and a salamander! They’re famous
there.
We met some nice people when we got to the bunion. An older couple who spend every summer
travelling the national parks from Waco TX and a family from Amish country (who
aren’t Amish). We talked about our trip
and they gave us some recommendations for other parks to visit along the way.
We headed back down the mountain for a full 10 mile
day. We were exhausted so rather than
cook at the campsite we decided to go to the RV park (no showers at GSMNP)
. We paid $3 per shower and it was a bathroom with individual shower stalls. Actually not as gross
as you might imagine but not great either. This is our AMAZING hammock. Literally. The best thing ever.
After the 200 creepy red daddy long legs that I visited in
the campground each night, the showers REALLY weren’t that bad.
That's a picture of the view when it cleared up... and my thumb. For dinner we went into town (which is like the most
touristy area I’ve ever been in my entire life.
Think Myrtle Beach on crack) and went to Joe’s Crab Shack for
dinner. We had never been there so
figured we would try it. We shared an
app and the boiled crabs. We got this
epic smore’s cake for dessert since it was kinda like camping ;) 
We drove the strip and headed back to the campground to
snooze before picking up the pups the next morning.
Next up: Nashville, TN AND how Callie liked New Mexico so much, she almost stayed behind...
No comments:
Post a Comment