tennessee: great smoky mountain national park

Friday evening Nancye asked which which sounded better of two national parks: Cumberland gap, or the smokies. After spending a few minutes looking online, I chose the great smoky mountains national park.
Saturday morning we ate breakfast, hopped in the car, and took off. Funny story from a petrol stop along the way: I went into the store in a petrol station to pick up (unhealthy) snacks, and realized it was also a drive through station! People could drive up to the window, and the clerk would run around the store picking up the snacks they requested. Americans really are lazy. I know my food wasn't healthy, but at least I came into the store myself to get it!
A bit over two hours later (it should've been faster but I failed at my job as navigator) we arrived at one of the entrances to the park. There were a lot of people, not enough parking, and a bit of chaos.

We got a basic park map and asked one of the park rangers for information. I'd wanted to hike a specific trail to a waterfall, but we were nowhere close to that trailhead, (one of my failures as the navigator,)  and would've had to drive more, which neither of us wanted to do. (Not more than a few minutes anywho.)
We decided to go to clingman's dome first. The park ranger promised great views over the entire area, and a short hike.
After figuring out which way to exit the parkplatz we drove the twisty road to another, smaller, parking area. This one was basically 4 rows of diagonally parked cars on top of a mountain. The views along the way were also pretty nifty looking. We got lucky, and found an empty spot, there were almost none of those; there were a number of cars circling the area.

To get to clingman's dome we walked about half a mile up a paved path. Kinda steep for a walking path, you could see some people having a bit of trouble. It's the kind of steepness you feel in your calves, even if you're in shape.
Clingman's dome is not a natural formation. It's cement, almost like a tower reached by a curving ramp. When you get to the top, you have 360 degree views, and signs showing you what you can see. As we were there on a relatively clear day, we could see quite far.
One of the uglier things we could see was right up close: the awful effects of acid rain, which happens all too much in this area due to pollution. This pollution also stays in the area on 'clear' days, so you can't see as far as you once could from this spot.
The overall effect was beautiful though, and I'm glad we saw it.

If you ever hike the Appalachian trail, you'll go through this park. Suiting our walk up to the dome we saw a couple signs for trails of the Appalachian trail.
Then it was time for a picnic lunch. Nancye is awesome, and had packed some food for us. I'm terrible at thinking about those things (I'm good at remembering water, but not much else,) and I was starving by that point. What is it about spending time in a car that makes you so hungry even though you haven't moved too much?
As we ate, we sat on a wall that allowed us to look out over the mountains. Beautiful. Way off in the distance the mountain ridges look blue. So peaceful.
We briefly stuck our heads in one of the ranger stations up there, it was also a store. Surprise surprise, I bought postcards. :)

After lunch we drove back down, stopping for a while at a creek. It's fun to play in the water and walk on the stones. We took photos, of course.
Our next stop was a place called laurel falls, one of a bunch of waterfalls in the park. Not surprisingly, I failed again at my navigator job, and we accidentally drove out of the park. Ooops. We got a chance to turn around, and took a photo by the park sign (you know, that whole gotta prove you were there photo.)
After another stop at the information center, we figured out how to get to the falls, it wasn't far. If I remember correctly, the distance from the trailhead to the waterfall was about 1.5miles.
We were the only people on the trail, but there was a general sense of quiet, which I loved. Since we were walking through the forest, the views were completely different than what we had seen earlier. One group we passed said they had just seen a baby bear. Nancye knows bears like I do, (enough to know you don't get close,) so we looked for the cub but weren't too upset when we didn't see it.
The waterfall wasn't big or stunning, but it was nice. Another photo, of course. I loved that kids were playing in the water. It's always good to see families/people outside, enjoying nature, being active.
On our walk back to the car Nancye and I each checked our pedometers, (smartphones have them these days,) and had totally different numbers even though we knew we had walked the same distance. Just a note to those dependent on their Fitbit/Apple watch/etc: they're not always accurate.

We left the park a different way than we had come in. Neither of us wanted to deal with the traffic mess that is gatlinburg. This different exit is what we should've used in the morning to enter the park. Oh well. It got us back to pigeon forge a bit more quickly, where we were again stuck in traffic. People who live in the area must hate it every weekend.
On the way to the park in the morning we passed heaps of pancake/breakfast places, and decided to visit one of them for dinner on our way home. Go figure, most of them seem to close at 1300 or so. How annoying. Who doesn't want breakfast for dinner? Eventually we found a diner which had a reasonable sounding menu.
We made it back to Bristol all safe and sound and happy.