It’s about time that I sorted my photos and told the story of this trip. We finished the State Fair (blog post) on Sunday, July31. It was time for Kirby to get home to Texas after being in California for three weeks. I wanted to go to the Jacob Sheep Breeders meeting in North Carolina on the following weekend, so considered delivering her to Texas on my way to North Carolina. Instead, Katie had proposed the idea that became this adventure.

On Tuesday Kirby said her goodbyes to the sheep, giving Jade a last hug.

We boarded a Southwest flight in Sacramento that left at 6:15 p.m. and arrived in Nashville, Tennessee around 2 a.m.

Kirby and I gathered the luggage. I didn’t really need two big suitcases except that it was a way to transport Kirby’s birthday presents, including a Breyer horse stable (see photo at the end of this blog post), home. Katie had driven from her home in Texas to meet us. That was about a 14 hour drive for her. She’d been sleeping in the parking lot but was ready to continue the journey. We headed east towards our first stop, Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Kirby had been asking for a meal at Denny’s, and we found one on our way to the park, in Pigeon Forge or Gatlinburg—I don’t remember which.

We all loaded up on breakfast, figuring that our next main meal would be dinner.

We made it to the park a little after 8 a.m.

Our first hike was on a nature trail along Fighting Creek behind the Visitor Center.

There are several cabins and other buildings left in the park, although many are gone. This is the Ownby cabin. There was once a school, store, church, and post office in this area.

One thing that struck me when I first started walking on these trails, was the fact that I didn’t know any of the plants. All my hiking has been in the western states. I may not remember all the plant names at this point, but at least the plants are familiar. This was a whole different world. The Visitor Center has a display that describes five different forest ecosystems—Spruce-Fir Forest, Northern Hardwood Forest, Cove Hardwood Forest, Hemlock Forest, and Pine-and-Oak Forest. Sadly, there are also serious threats to many of these forests from infestations of non-native insects and fungus.

The first of many species of butterflies that we saw.

One of the signs said that mushrooms “reach record diversity” here. I took photos of some that I had never seen.

We took a short trail to the farm of Noah “Bud” Ogle, who lived here from 1883-1925.

There is a barn and house still standing.

Signs said that the forest is reclaiming the land which once included cornfields.

The forest seems to be reclaiming this mill, complete with flume that directed river water to the grindstone.

Another view of the flume.

At the end of this day we stopped at a place called The Sinks. This is a spot of cascading water on the Little River created in the early 1900’s when loggers used dynamite to break up a log jam in the river. My photo doesn’t show the rushing water but part of the river that provided a refreshing break for visitors.

We ended our day at a motel in Gatlinburg. To be continued…