Cades Cove - July 8, 2010

Thursday was the only day we actually went out and did anything remotely "vacation like" on our trip to the cabin. Even then it was late in the afternoon when we finally did it. Earlier this year the road thru Cades Cove was repaved. Which is FANTASTIC because it was flat out AWFUFL. I can't imagine that anyone riding a bike would actually want to bike thru there on that road. It's a beautiful ride now.

You can read a little about the park and the project HERE

Right off the bat we ran into turkeys. 

Gobble gobble gobble!

Not too far down the road...

we saw the first deer of the afternoon...

Off the paved road...

We stopped by one of the old churches...

Here are a few shots taken in the cemetery there at the church...

beautiful setting in the forest...

Revolutionary War...NC Militia

Russell Gregory was murdered by North Carolina Rebels

I really liked this monument...the designs on each side were beautiful. 

After our church stop, we drove on down the road...

enjoying the beautiful weather and the rolling hills of East Tennessee.

We crossed over the river...

and spotted some more deer in the forest

We passed an old homestead...

I adore old barns...don't you? Then we came upon a traffic jam...turns out it was caused by these two...

Mama and her little one decided to take a stroll down the newly paved road too.

This is just on the other side of that big tree in the last photo. Mama gracefully hopped right over that construction fence...but the poor little guy was just too small. 

He kept trying to jump over it and follow mom...but he just wound up tired and kept getting tangled in the fence and falling back to the ground. It was sooo sad to watch!

When mama didn't seem too concerned about leaving the little one behind, we got out and flipped up the fence and left it so he could get under it...of course he flipped out and ran into the little wooded area. Not wanting to cause him any more stress we drove off...hopefully he caught up to mom.

Then we picked up a hitchhiker...well not intentionally. It flew in thru the open sunroof...like I said, it was a beautiful day so we had all the windows and the sunroof open in the truck. After I finally got a pretty good photo of our passenger, we stopped to shoo it out...the park signs clearly state that you are not molest the wild life or pick the vegetation. We also didn't want to take butterfly too far from "home".

We passed an old log cabin...looks a little drafty...

and ran into Buck walking down the side of the road. He wasn't in the mood for photos...

There you have it...you might as well have been ridin' shotgun with us!