Wednesday in the mountains

Wednesday we slept in a bit, since we didn’t get back to the hotel from seeing the fireflies until well after midnight.  We got up and hit the road back to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park as soon as we could, though, so we could spent the day getting some hiking in.  We stopped at our first overlook of the day, looking down on the city of Gatlinburg, before we ever even got to the park.  It’s just so beautiful there, and you can definitely tell why they’re called the Blue Ridge Mountains in this picture.  We could also see evidence of the wildfire two years ago.

We checked out the visitor center, went on a pretty short hike to show Mason his first waterfall, and then decided to drive that beautiful (curvy) road from Gatlinburg to Cherokee. We stopped at Newfound Gap, right on the TN/NC State Line, to explore there for a while – rain or no rain 🙂