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Published: September 25th 2007
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Some of Us
Parthenon at the background 17th- 18th August 2007 Karthik and I have been in Nashville since 2004 (me from 2002) but this is the first time, my aunt and her family from CA visited us. We were very excited and looked forward to this trip a lot. My aunt and uncle, their kids and my maternal grandmother came on the 16th. Their trip is divided into three blogs- local Nashville stops and the Smoky Mountains, Rafting at Ocoee and a trip to the Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky.
Nashville Stops As for any tourist visiting Nashville- we visited the usual spots-
The parthenon and
Opryland Hotel. These places impressed the Californians-which is something I'll say 😊😊 I'll let the pictures speak for themselves here.
The Great Smoky Mountain National Park This is Karthik and my fourth visit to the
Smokys. But nobody else in our party of 10 (including Anitha and Karthik's parents) had seen this place before. In the past we have stayed in a cabin and we have also camped. We both preferred staying in a cabin to camping and so did our guests 😊. Karthik did a lot of searching and he came across these cabins
rented/leased out by
Century 21 Cove Mountain Realty & Resorts . The cabins were amazing and were reasonably priced. If there is a next time and we go to Smokys, I plan to take a book and some yarn and just spend a week in the cabin knitting and relaxing, not doing much, a fine way to unwind. More about the cabin later. In the park, we planned for the usual tourist stops-
Cades Cove Drive,
Clingman's Dome, and Chimney Top Trail to name a few. We also decided to do the Aerial Tramway at
Ober Gatlinburg as all the locals promised the view was much better there.
Ober Gatlinburg This is a ski resort on top of one of the mountains at Gatlinburg, TN right before entering the park. The drive up itself was very windy and well worth it. The ski resort was of course closed as we went in August but the rest of the attractions were open. We went up only to do the Aerial Tramway. This took us slowly up the mountain on a cable car (really not very well locked or safe) and at the top there were these poor guys playing some country music ! We came back the same way instead
of taking the
Alpine Slide, which on second thoughts would have been fun. Apart from that we did not do much here.
Cades Cove Drive We went to the Cades cove drive after Ober Gatlinburg at about 5:30 pm which turned out to be the perfect time as all the animals were coming out at dusk. If you want to have a chance of catching any wildlife either sunrise or sunset works well. Guess what we saw..uh huh- a bear!! Apart from that we saw some deer and also I think antelopes.
Around the Bend This is where having
a GPS really helped. We were able to locate all the different restaurants for the various cuisines within a second. Also it directed us to our different destinations very efficiently (places where we were not able to use the maps). After Cades Cove and dinner at a local mexican restaurant, we went to the cabin. This was a 2 bedroom Standard Cabin. It came equipped with a hot tub, a fully furnished kitchen, 2 bedrooms (with 2 kings) and a queen bunk bed - with a capacity to sleep 10 people. It was only 2 years old and every bit as promised on
the website. As soon as we reached, all the kiddos went to soak in the hot tub 😊, and after watching Jumanji we retired for the night.
Roaring Fork Trail We started our day in the park with this trail. It was a nice enough drive -all lush and surrounded by greenery. Since we were looking to get to Chimney Top next we did not do justice to this drive and did not stop very much.
Chimney Top Trial This a strenuous but not a long hike. Will take at least 2 hrs for a reasonably fit person to do it. There is a nice stream as you climb up. This trail promises some of the best views at the top. However in the past it has changed ever time as we near the peak. Nevertheless, the view was well worth the climb.
Clingmans Dome This is the tallest peak in the park. Most of the way up is a drive (pretty windy and curvy) and the last mile or so is a steep climb. It is the tallest peak in Tennessee and the third tallest mountain east of Mississippi. The view can extend to 100 miles on a clear day but
En paasa thangai
angayavathu thingama irukalam la... air pollution limits it to merely 20 miles. Again, one of the must see spots in the mountains.
We spent some time walking about Galtinburg -sight seeing and window shopping, and then went back to the cabin. BTW-
Gatlinburg,TN is a total touristy spot with all kinds of attractions like Ripley's Aquarium, Guinness World Records, Haunted Houses and a whole bunch of shopping centers. One can easily spend a whole day just here. We had a great time at the mountains with our only regret being that we did not spend enough time in the cabin. The next day we were leaving to Chattanooga to do white-water rafting. To be continued in the next blog ....
P.S. This was a trip with 10 of us, fusion of 2 families so expect to see a lot of pictures with just people in it at the same place. Also some people in my family (need not mention who here) have a foto fetish...so please excuse the excessive solos 😊😊
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Mayura
non-member comment
When can I visit you? :P ;) Nice pics :)