Day 3

Another nice day in the Smokies.  Ethan was up bright and early, as usual, and he and Will left to go for a run.  They came back like 2 1/2 hours later, so Eleanor and I decided to walk into town a bit.  We went to Dunkin Donuts, again for coffee and munchkins. We also walked past a few of the Ripleys places like the arcade and Haunted house. This place is so commercial, it is a bit ridiculous.  We haven't really spent any time in town, besides my moonshine adventure yesterday and in the morning to get coffee.  During the day, it is so crowded and there are tourist shops in every inch of space.

When we got back to the condo, the boys were back.  We finished breakfast, packed a lunch, and headed out to the national park.  First we did a short hike around the Ogle nature trail.  At the start, there are two old homestead buildings then there is a loop around.  Unlike some of our other hikes, this one had no incline and was also not very crowded.  I admit I was a bit nervous about bears.  Luckily, none came around. But Eleanor, with her impeccable timing, decided she needed to poop.  We hightailed it back to the car then and just went back to the condo since we weren't that far.  There are very few bathrooms at the trails and they are very primitive.  Well, we got back to the condo, but Eleanor decided she didn't actually have to poop.  But, it was not for naught...Ethan decided he needed to.

Back on the road, we started on our journey to Grotto Falls.  It is along a one way road, and the drive is slow and winding...but beautiful! We stopped off at a gorgeous vista to eat our picnic lunch. Then we parked down the road from the Grotto Falls. This hike was 2.6 miles round trip (same as Laurel) but a bit more strenuous and without a paved path.  I brought an Ergo carrier for Eleanor, which allowed us to do both these hikes.  She could have never made it, and we felt better with her not running along the path. This hike was hard, especially with an extra 30 pounds, but it was worthwhile.  The falls were cooler than the ones at Laurel, and we could walk behind them even.  Super cool.  There was also a nice place down below for us to get our shoes and socks off and play in the water.  Since our adventure yesterday morning, the kids have been wanting to do more rock collecting.  We saw some water striders and a salamander, too.  The hike down was smooth, and faster than the way up.  Ethan does pretty well.  His new thing on these hikes is to want to do everything on his own because he says, "I want to challenge myself."

We drove back into Gatlinburg then, looking out the window to beautiful mountain creeks and such.  Then it was back home for a swim, dinner, and bed time.  There is an amazing storm over the mountains with crazy huge lightning over the mountain.  Going to try to capture some on the camera. Tomorrow, we will hopefully be off early on our way at to Hilton Head.