Let's Just Go Somewhere: All around the Smokies

On Sunday, we decided to do a day trip and drive all around the Smokies. We started out by driving the Foot Hills Parkway which was just a few miles from our campground over to I-40.

The Foothills Parkway is a winding but good road that crosses over the mountains to the Interstate. There were a couple of overlooks along the way that offered beautiful views of the Great Smoky Mountains.

When we reached I-40, we headed south and east toward North Carolina. I wanted to go to Maggie Valley because I had heard that it was supposed to have a lot of good RV Parks. When we got off at Exit 20, we drove past some RV parks almost immediately and before too long we arrived at Maggie Valley.

We were surprised how little traffic and tourists there were. Was it because kids are back in school already? Or too early for the tourists that come for the fall?

Maybe that is why I had heard people like to come to Maggie Valley – it is not as crowded as Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge.

When we left Maggie Valley, we took the Blue Ridge Parkway over towards the south entrance to the Great Smoky Mountains and the Oconaluftee Visitor Center. The Blue Ridge Parkway appeared to be older than the Foothills Parkway and was in need of some road repair in places as well as grass-cutting and tree-trimming.

The first overlook we came to was the Plott Balsam Overlook.

A few minutes later we noticed some car stopped in front of us and we thought they must be stopping because there is a bear on the side of the road. When we got closer, we discovered it wasn’t a bear they were stopping to watch but an elk!

An elk in the Smokies???

Chuck then remembered reading somewhere where the National Park Service had released some elk in the Smokies. And here was one…a big one!

He just kept eating and rubbing his antlers in the tree limbs not paying attention to any of us who had stopped to watch him.

After leaving Mr. Elk, we drove on up and around and down the Blue Ridge Parkway and again saw many beautiful views of the Smokies.

These pretty yellow daisies along the sides of the road in places.

And we drove through 2 or 3 tunnels.

Neither Blue Ridge Parkway nor Foothills Parkway is a drive we would have taken in the motorhome because they were so curvy and steep in places.

At the end of the Blue Ridge Parkway, we turned left and went into the Oconaluftee Visitor Center. When I was researching what the different hiking trails in the Smokies, I had read about Mingo Falls which was one of the tallest waterfalls in the southern Appalachian Mountains. I got directions to the falls from a park ranger in the visitor center and she said the trail was only about 130 steps.

So we decided to go to Mingo Falls since it was such a short distance away and a short walk to the falls. We drove back towards Cherokee and turned on to Big Cove Road. While I was looking at all the RV Parks along the road, Chuck noticed a sign that said “Mingo Falls.” Thinking it was further down the road, I told Chuck to keep driving because I thought that was just a campground called Mingo Falls. Of course, I was wrong! We kept driving and finally stopped and asked a couple of boys where Mingo Falls was and they told us back down the road. So we turned around and drove back.

When we saw the small unofficial looking sign that said “Mingo Falls” we turned left, and sure enough, there was the parking area for Mingo Falls. We got out of the car but did not put our hiking boots on because we thought it was going to be a short walk…only 130 steps.

It was 130 steps all right… straight up.

When we reached the top, the trail did not look much better than Hen Wallow Falls and we were wishing we had put our hiking boots on. We continued on a little further hoping our internal distance judgment was not as bad as it was yesterday when we thought we had hiked 2 miles and had only hiked 1 mile on our way to Hen Wallow Falls.

We went around this interesting rock ledge…

…and then shortly thereafter reached Mingo Falls.

It was beautiful. There was a bridge that crossed over the creek at the base of the falls.

We just stood there and watched the waterfalls for several minutes.

I don’t think many people know about Mingo Falls because it is just outside the park on the Cherokee Indian Reservation. We took one more look and then headed back down the trail and steps.

After eating lunch at a Chinese restaurant in Cherokee (sounds funny doesn’t it), we decided to go the Bear Zoo since we had not seen a bear during all of our travels this year. It was only $5 and we were pleasantly surprised at the zoo and the bears. The bears were in fairly large concrete but clean pits.

The first bears we came to were black bears. Cute…

…but BIG. I’m glad we saw this bear in a zoo and not on the hiking trail yesterday!

The next bears we came to were Asiatic Bears.

The zookeepers had taught these bears to do this little trick for food.

Last, we came to the grizzly bears. Two of the bears were younger…

…and very playful.

Here is one doing the “bear paddle”

And here is the two bears playing with each other.

They would climb on a rock wall inside the pit and wait for the visitors to throw them apples.

And sometimes they would just rest on top of the wall.

Still, I don’t think I would want to run into one of these bears when we are traveling out west next year (hopefully)…

…or a full size grizzly like this one that was all alone in the pit behind the smaller grizzlies.

We headed back into the Park and since Chuck was getting tired, a drove a short distance up to Newfound Gap. We pulled into the parking lot and took a few pictures.