Lots of high powered speed boats but also party boats, fishing boats, skiers, jet skis, and just swimmers -- busy place.
QT knows how to handle a busy place. When it gets too hot she loves to stretch out on the mat in the shade outside the motorhome, usually with us nearby. She still feels each campground is ours alone and faithfully fulfills her duty to warn us of all intruders (everyone else in the campground)!Blue Heron
Cades Cove
Cades Cove Campground is located in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This is one of the most popular national parks and was a priority in our planning. It lived up to all of our expectations. We enjoyed it so much that I almost forgot about our arrival.Sometimes I enter latitude/longitude coordinates for Gertrude to use. Usually that is no problem but this time it was. We got a little mixed up in Maryville, about 25 miles from the park but thought we were doing OK and that Gertrude was happy. We were definitely in a rural area with a narrow road but that's not unusual. I was a little concerned when we saw a sign suggesting trucks might want to use an alternate route. I should have been considerably concerned. The road quickly became very narrow, full of hairpin curves, and extremely steep. We were committed now with no turn arounds for even a car, much less a motorhome towing a car. Low gear at 25 - 30 mph was necessary much of the time and definitely the whole road for the hairpin curves. Once on top of the plateau going down was the same, using low gear to prevent overheating the brakes. We ended up in Happy Valley and Gertrude wanted us to take Abrams Creek, a gravel road with a Dead-End sign. We told her no. We stopped to get directions from a utility worker and he confirmed that Abrams Creek would take us to the park boundaries but with no entrance.
I will still use latitude/longitude coordinates but take greater care to be sure how Gertrude is getting me there.
The park is large and would take weeks to see all of it. We were especially interested in the wildlife and bears in particular. It was fun to see the one Pearl got a picture of. There was a mother and two cubs eating blackberries in a field of high grass. Periodically one would raise up high enough it could be seen. On another day, near dark, we saw a mother and two cubs up close in the forest right by the road and crossing the road in front of us.
There were two hawks that kept us entertained at our site in the campground, perching on low branches of nearby trees and even flying close to us from perch to perch.
The park has one of the nation's best collections of log cabins, barns and other structures. Most are located right where they were used by families in the Cades Cove community before the park acquired the property. Some are located at the Heritage Center in nearby Townsend.
A special treat for us was to spend an hour or so talking with a gentlemen camped next to us who was born in the Cades Cove community. His family moved out when he was a small child but he continued to visit his grandparents in Cades Cove until he was 18. Some of the log cabin structures we had looked at belonged to his relatives. He returns each year to spend some time camping in the park and lives only 25 miles away in Maryville.
Dick & Shirley
