Saturday - I have to say again that I have been to this area at least a hundred times (maybe more) and I cannot remember it ever being so crowded in all my life! We had breakfast at a new(ish) restaurant called Crockett's Breakfast Camp... we had to wait an hour to be seated but man - the food was delicious! They have cinnamon rolls that are the size of my head - we ordered one to split but didn't manage to finish it - everything else was too delicious!
We had the whole day planned - we'd take the new portion of Foothills Parkway over to Townsend, drive through Cades Cove and then up to Clingman's Dome before returning to the hotel to change and meet friends for dinner at 6:00. Y'all - because of the traffic, we started and drove the Foothills Parkway but from there - it all fell apart.
It was about 12:45 when we reached the point where we had to turn right to go to Cades Cove or left to Clingman's Dome - and decided if we could only do one - we'd go right and head for Clingman's Dome. All was going well until about five miles from Newfound Gap (with still an additional 6-7 miles to Clingman's Dome) the traffic came to a standstill. The black bears have been pretty visible recently and we assumed that was what caused the stall - but nope. When we'd only gone a mile in 35 minutes and the traffic showed no signs of letting up - we turned back. *sigh*
We stopped on the way back down the mountain at a couple different view points - in particular the viewpoint for Chimney Tops - I've always wanted to complete that hike. It's on the list! We decided that since we wanted to do something outside and take advantage of the lovely weather, so we stopped at the Sugarlands Visitor Center and ended up doing the short hike to Cataract Falls for some outdoor time and views!
I slipped my shoes off and waded through the pool at the base of the little waterfall and while snapping pictures, I discovered a wee salamander clinging to a rock in the pool! As we made our way back, my Dad and I veered off to do an additional portion of hiking to a cabin in the woods - it was only about an additional half mile but well worth taking the little trail through the woods to see the cabin appear through the trees.
We ended up having issues again later in the evening when we had to push back dinner with friends because of the traffic in Gatlinburg - I ended up hopping out of the car; trapped in traffic, and walked back to the hotel and took a shower before my family ended up getting back! *facepalm* We took an alternate route to meet our friends for dinner and got stopped because of a terrible wreck that we came on - five people loaded onto stretchers - it was terrible!
We finally met up with our family friends who are like extra grandparents and had dinner with them before returning to their house for dessert and coffee! We made our way back to the hotel at the end of the night and reminisced on how much we'd planned to do... and how little we actually got to do - but then we'd made the best of the situation!
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