Advertisement
Published: November 13th 2011
Edit Blog Post
We’re now off to the mountains and hope the pace of our holiday is going to slow down just a bit.
As we drove towards the Smoky Mountains and could see them appearing in the distance we had high hopes for 10 days of relaxation. It’s been great so far and we wouldn’t change a thing, but we do feel a bit tired of always moving on. It will be nice to have the same bed every night! Or two beds really as we’re staying in two places, 5 nights each.
Our plans first of all are to stay for 5 nights in a place called Coker Creek, high in the southern Appalachian mountains, where we’ve rented a cabin. The actual area is part of the Cherokee National Forest and that’s all we knew about it...we’d found the cabin on the internet and booked it directly with the owners, so first of all we called into the town of Sweetwater where they lived to say hello. We were so glad we did that and hope to stay in touch with Louise and John. In fact we’ll see them again in a few days time.
Next stop was the supermarket to get
our provisions for the 5 nights as although we’d be doing a fair bit of exploring it’s a bit of a distance to the nearest shops and we didn’t want to waste time when we could be enjoying the beautiful outdoors.
We were both really tired by now, especially John who’d done all the driving, so shopping was a bit of a chore trying to decide what we’d need and examining labels to check what things were.
And by the time we reached the turn off to the cabin it was dark.
We hadn’t realised quite how ‘unmade’ the road would be although the cabin instructions had suggested a 4 wheel drive was recommended. But there was no way apart from ‘up’ and the cabin was signposted well at every place we might have turned the wrong way – apart from one sign that was upside down.....John said it was deliberate and the arrow did point in the right direction but I wondered if someone had turned the sign round as a practical joke and I wasn’t happy about having to back down the mountain in the dark. But John was right and eventually we found the cabin driveway, one
last burst of engine and there we were – lights on to greet us and what a welcome sight it was!
We were so happy with the Beehive.......it was everything we’d hoped for in a mountain cabin and we felt immediately at home. The back deck complete with hot tub was so inviting and the extra room beyond the kitchen (like an enclosed verandah) had a hammock/seat which had my name written on it! But we were SO tired and after a quick meal of takeaway pizza we crashed!
The next morning in the daylight we were able to see just how beautiful this spot is, totally secluded and a beautiful view over tree tops to mountains beyond. We knew there was a small lake with a boat somewhere so we decided on the trail we needed to explore and sure enough there it was – our very own lake with our very own paddle boat!! We manhandled the boat off the jetty into the water and off we went for a paddle.....but being fairly non-agile I didn’t manage the climb back up onto the jetty very well. Good job nobody was watching or listening to the girlie shrieks! There
were some enormous spiders lurking too and I thought of our daughter, Chloe. If she was here the girlie shrieks would have shattered the sound barrier and broken every bit of cut glass in the whole of Coker Creek (probably the whole of Tennessee!)
I didn’t keep a diary so will summarise our days......lazy start, go somewhere in the car, return, lie in the hammock reading, lie in the hot tub reading, lie on the sofa reading, eat lovely food, enjoy sunset, repeat next day.................
But we did do a couple of specific things to write about........
1. We drove the length of the Cherohala Skyway which is a road across the mountains with numerous stopping off points to admire the view or walk a trail. It was stunningly beautiful especially as the Autumn (Fall) colours were coming into their own.
2. We drove to the town of Cherokee where we only had about an hour to spare so looked around the Museum of the Cherokee Indian.
This is where you can experience the 11,000 year old Cherokee story through ‘priceless ancient artifacts, computer generated imagery, artwork, life-sized figures, dioramas, and more.’ Well that’s what the website says and they’re
right! It was such a good overview of the Cherokees and I realised how ignorant I am, thinking they lived over in ‘cowboy land’ in the West. I’d never heard of the Trail of Tears but I definitely know now. We also met a very elderly Cherokee gentleman at the entrance desk who insisted on giving us his autograph so we will treasure that.
3. Coker Creek was holding their Autumn Gold festival whilst we were there so we had a fun afternoon there looking at all the exhibits and listening to the music and meeting some lovely friendly folk.
4. We drove a very long way up to a beauty spot called Buck Bald where there’s a panorama in a full circle looking over several states (can’t remember how many) but it was stunningly beautiful.
5. On our last day, a Sunday, we drove back to Sweetwater and went to church with Louise and John. It was great to be part of what is basically our wider family and we were glad to share their morning at church. Also to be taken out to lunch by Louise and John where I discovered why Coronation Chicken is called that (it’s
a long story!)
6. Did I mention the hot tub and the hammock?
7. And don’t forget the hot tub and the hammock........................
As we left the only one to say hooray was our car which had valiantly served us each time we made that journey up the mountain....it reminded me of the ‘little engine who could’ if you know that story. ‘I think I can, I think I can’
And it did!!!
Next stop North Carolina.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.087s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 8; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0536s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 2;
; mem: 1.2mb