Our Smokey Mountains Vacation - Day Three, Part One: Cades Cove Loop Road

This post is part of a travel series of our vacation in the Smokey Mountains.  To start at the beginning, go HERE!  The rest of the post in chronological order are HERE!

After a very rigorous hike to Rainbow Falls the day before,  our aching bodies were ready for a more relaxing day so my husband and I decided to drive the Cades Cove Loop Road.

When I was planning our trip to the Smokies, the Cades Cove Loop Road constantly came up in my Pinterest feed.  It is one of the most popular scenic roads in the park.  When I looked at other people's pictures, I will be honest, I was not impressed.  I couldn't understand why this road was so popular.  Nevertheless, I had to see it for myself to find out why this place was so well-loved, and once I did, I understood why!  Driving the Cades Cove Loop Road was one of the biggest highlights of my time in the Smokies!  The landscape was so serene and peaceful.  The prairie land looked so beautiful with the scenic mountain back drop.

When preparing for our trip I read a lot of blogs where they talked about how busy this road was and how you could be stuck in traffic for hours, but that was not our experience.  We arrived at the entrance to the loop before the gate was open and waited in line.  We had to ride in a caravan of cars for a little while, but once we pulled over to the first stop all the cars went past us and we pretty much had the place to ourselves.  

It takes over an hour just to get from Gatlinburg to Cades Cove, but the road just to get to the gate was part of the adventure.  We drove through tunnels, saw rivers and waterfalls, and a turkey!

Cades Cove is an 11 mile, one way loop.  Allow two to four hours to tour Cades Cove, longer if you plan on doing any of the trails.

There are many, many stops along Cades Cove Road.  There are hiking trails (we didn't take any this day as we were spent from yesterday's hike), churches, scenic views, and many homesteads.  So many people just drive the loop and never stop, but I think we stopped at almost all of them.  We especially loved the churches.  

There is supposed to be a guide that you can buy for $1.00 at the start of the loop, but all the boxes were empty when we were there.  The guide apparently tells you the history of all the stops along the road.

There are three churches in Cades Cove.  We missed the first church but thankfully caught the next two.

This church had a cemetery right outside its windows.  It seems kind of eerie to have a cemetery so close to a church (although I know that was common back in the day) but I can't help to wonder as people sat in church and saw the gravestones right out the church window if perhaps they paid better attention to the sermons 😀

Cades Cove is so rich in history.  If you're a history buff, you will love Cades Cove. Cherokee Indians hunted this land for hundreds of years.  The first European settlers arrived in 1818.

Here are pictures of the insides of two of the churches we stopped at.  They are very plain and simple.

Deer, black bears, coyotes, and turkeys are frequently spotted in Cades Cove.  When we were there we saw deer, a coyote, and lots of turkeys, and one bear so far in the distance I couldn't even make him out.

I could not get over the beauty of the landscape. Pictures do not do it justice.  No wonder I was unimpressed with the photos I saw on Pinterest.

We finally spotted some deer!

About half way through the loop you come to the Cades Cove Visitor Center.  Here are restrooms and a small gift shop.  On the grounds is the Cable Mills Historic Area.

There is a beautiful old farm along a river on the grounds.

Cable Mill

I was so happy that we were able to go inside all these old farmhouses and cabins.  It was so interesting to see how the settlers lived back then.

Every barn we saw in the park had this same shape.  They are very different from Wisconsin barns!

Can you see the turkey walking in the field below?

After our tour of the Cable Mills Historic Area it was back in the car again, but we stopped many more times to tour all the log cabins and farms along the road.

I think I fell in love with every cabin and said to my husband "I'll live here".  I imagined myself sitting on the front porch every morning with a coffee and Bible in hand looking at this gorgeous Mountain View.

This is the backyard of the house whose front porch I was standing on.

Then I arrived at the next cabin and I wanted to live there!  I loved how this one was nestled up against the woods.

Another funky looking barn.  How do those overhangs not collapse?

This cabin looked so similar to the one above that I had to recheck the pictures to make sure it wasn't the same one.  Just like the suburbs today where all the houses seem to look alike, so did the cabins of Cades Cove!  😀.  Each one though had a very unique property, it was so hard to decide which one I would rather live on.  They were all so beautiful in their own way.

This is one of my favorite pictures of Cades Cove.  I feel it really symbolizes the history and the serene beauty of the area.

Oh, I loved Cades Cove.  It was such a beautiful, relaxing morning.  But our day wasn't over yet, we were up so early that we had plenty of time to explore more!  So come back next week for Part Two!

Finally, here are two very short videos to give you a sense of the peaceful beauty of Cades Cove.

Have a Great Day! Amy

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Our Utah Adventures: Getting There Via Scenic I-70

I am so excited to begin a new travel series!  Last month my husband, son, and I took a road trip to Utah.  We drove 3,146 miles round trip and visited three national parks:  Zion, Bryce Canyon, and Arches.  

The best part of road trips, is all the sights you see and fun you have along the way.  We left our home  on Saturday morning and arrived at Zion by 4:00 on Monday.  We made brief stops in Vail, Colorado for lunch, and at Glenwood Springs, but like the first time we made the journey in 2016 we had the most fun on Scenic I-70.  

I already wrote a post about Scenic I-70 HERE when we drove it the first time.   I don't want to repeat myself in this post but I did want to share a few snapshots and new experiences.  This time we took the drive we had a brand new SUV to drive, and let me tell you that Kia Sportage drove those steep inclines and curves like a dream!  What a difference from driving a small car vs a SUV.  

It was my son's first time out west.  The only other time he saw mountains before was at the White Mountain Forest in New Hampshire, so he was pretty excited!

The landscape on Scenic I-170 is like nothing you would see anywhere else in America.  There are plenty of rest stops on the drive where we you can pull over and enjoy the scenery, walk around a bit, and read about the area.

My son was pretty blown away by the landscape.  It was far different than the White Mountains of New Hampshire and even more different than the forests of Wisconsin where he grew up.

Everyone always asks me when we do long road trips how we can stand being in the car that long, the answer:  have fun along the way!  Now,  I know that's impossible in some states (I'm talking to you Illinois, Nebraska, and Kansas 😊) but it's very possible in most.  On this trip, the first day was the worst (getting through Iowa and Nebraska), but by day two, once we reached Denver, we were already seeing some amazing views!

It's so hard to capture in photos the size and vastness of the Scenic I-70 landscape, so I always try to put people in the photo for perspective  Look how small the people are  walking a path in the picture below.

In this next photo, we captured a train going by.

All along this highway is one jaw dropping view after another.  And ever rest stop has walking paths and look outs to get even better views.  I think we stopped at every single lookout as we were not in a hurry!

This is one of my favorite spots on the highway.  If you look to the middle, far left of the picture, that is the highway.  Driving through those mountains is such an incredible experience.

The last time we were in this area it was spring and there were so many beautiful spring flowers in bloom.  This time it was fall, so it was interesting to see the different plants.  There weren't a lot of flowers, but we saw lots of pretty grasses.

This yellow blooming plant was everywhere.

When my son saw this view he said "Who needs to go to the Grand Canyon?".  My husband just laughed and said that the Grand Canyon was a lot deeper.

So many people fly into Vegas and drive to Utah's National Parks, but when they do that, they miss the beauty of much of Utah.

Next week I'll begin with our first hike in Utah:  "Lower Emerald Pools".  I expect this series will last for many months as I plan to cover each hike we took of every park individually.

Have A Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!