Great Smoky Mountains National Park

We have just returned from our spring break trip to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We had such a wonderful time, and I will be doing a series of posts detailing all of the fun things that we did on our vacation. Our trip began last Monday as we made the long drive from Blackshear to the Wears Valley area (located just outside of the national park) where we had rented a cabin for the week. The already long drive was made even longer by poor little Owen who got car sick and threw up twice within the first two hours of the drive. After that, though, he felt better and did not get sick any more that day (he did get sick again twice on the way home). Other than Owen getting sick, the kids were excellent in the car. They did not whine or complain at all.


We arrived in Cherokee, NC in the late afternoon and then crossed the Smokies into Tennessee via the Newfound Gap Road. This is a scenic drive that runs through the heart of the national park. It took us quite a long time to drive this road from one side to the other because we got so distracted by the scenery. We stopped and got out of the car four or five times so that we could take in the beauty of the area. This road had it all- mountain vistas, roadside streams, waterfalls, and various types of woodland areas. The kids were in awe because they had never seen terrain like this before.

We were almost finished with the drive through the national park when we spotted a large number of cars parked along the side of the road and people outside of those cars looking into the woods and taking pictures. There was no spectacular view, so we wondered what all of the commotion was about. We got out, and then we saw them- two bear cubs! According to the other bystanders, the mother bear was down in the forest, too, but we didn't see her. I couldn't believe it- we hadn't even made it to our cabin yet, and we had already seen wild bears! At that moment, I knew that we were going to have an awesome vacation.