Waterfalls

The Great Smoky Mountains has lots of mountains to explore but there are also lots of waterfalls, historic sites, and a few restaurants to explore too.
There are a few bears at my lodging and they gave me some tips of places to visit.

Any good national park trip starts at the visitors center.

At the visitors center I learned that there are bears in the park.  

I should probably watch out for bears on this trail.  

The falls are beary pretty. 

After Laurel Falls it's time for me to see another falls.  Abram Falls in the park is a great place. It was a good hike to the falls and if I might say so myself a good place for lunch.

After the waterfalls I decided to explore other historic sites.  At Cades Cove, they have a historic mill, old buildings, and a settlement.

Millstones for grinding corn into cornmeal.

Water provides the energy for the mills. 

Amazing how a nice peaceful river can power all of these mills and machinery.

Time to explore the city.  There are bears everywhere here.  I love it.

A great museum.  Over 20,000 salt and pepper shakers on display. 

 This is overwhelming.

Who is this handsome fella?

All of this exploring takes a toll on a fox. Perhaps a light snack might help me out.

A little pancake ought to tide me over. 

Waterfall day hike.

This was a great Fall weekend.  I adventured off to Silver Falls park for a long hike.  My owners took me to see the different waterfalls and the historical area.  The park was built during the depression and the lodge is pretty old.  I think the lodge was built by the CCC, I wonder what other projects they have built?  Maybe that's a good research project for a little fox like me.

Along the trail there were a ton of mushrooms.  We didn't eat any because we didn't know which ones were OK and which ones would make us sick.  We figured it was better to play it safe than be sorry.

Next stop was the waterfalls.  Here I am enjoying the sights at South Falls, the biggest/longest one we saw this weekend. I was pretty tired in this picture, I am definately not demonstrating good fox posture.

The next stop was behind SouthFalls, boy it was wet.  My fur  was drenched, but it was worth it.

After lots of hiking we stopped at North Falls (not very creative in the naming huh?).  This was big too but definately the LOUDEST of the waterfalls.  I tried to sneak over the fence, I got almost all the way to the top but my hiking friends stopped me.  Even though they stopped me, I still got a great view of the falls.

The hike was good the only rain I felt was under the waterfall, which was probably my fault. I enjoyed spending the rest of my day on the couch planning my next adventure.