On our way back from Knoxville we decided to take a detour through Cades Cove in the National Park. It turned out to be a several hour detour but well worth the drive. We were hoping to see at least one bear along the way but that just didn’t happen. Bears just don’t like us I guess, and I’m OK with that.
We were lucky enough to get to Cades Cove around 4:30 in the afternoon which was great because most people were leaving so we didn’t have much traffic as we drove through the park. The best part about that was being able to slow down as often as we wanted without causing a traffic jam.
If you’ve never been, Cades Cove is a valley sourrounded by mountains and the drive takes you around the outside of the valley which is mostly open fields where most of the animals are spotted. It’s an 11 mile drive around the cove and the animals in the park are not afraid of the cars as long as you stay in them.
On our drive we saw deer… lots of deer and we even ended up at the front of the line of cars so we had a few of them cross the road and because we were being nice enough to let them cross we decided to get the entire thing on video incase any of the cars behind us wanted to see them as well. (There are benefits to reading the blog afterall!)
On our way back to Gatlinburg we headed through the park along Little River Road which winds under overhanging rocks and along steep drops to the “Little River” and we were the only ones on the road… and it was dark. So just as we were saying, “Wow… it would be really bad to get a flat tire out here because you probably couldn’t get a cell phone signal and you would have to wait for a car to pass you the next morning.” we came around a corner to find a freshly fallen tree blocking our side of the road.
This isn’t a wide road by any means and there was nobody coming so we were able to scoot around the tree and continue on. I was a little disappointed that we didn’t get to try out the FJ’s ability to crawl over the fallen tree, but Sandra probably would have freaked out if I had tried. ;o)
Anyway, we made it back to Gatlinburg after our senic detour and the pups were very glad to get dinner and a nap in front of the fireplace. Seeing deer for the first time as a dog is a very exhausting thing aparently.