Great Smoky Mountain National Park from the Cherokee Entrance

The carful of kids get their GSMNP Junior Ranger Badges

The carful of kids drove through the Great Smoky Mountain National Park from the Gatlinburg Entrance yesterday.  We will continue to explore GSMNP today, entering from the less-crowded Cherokee entrance.

Our first stop of the day is the Oconaluftee Visitors Center, where I find the Mountain Farm Museum that includes a chestnut tree log home, a large barn, apple house, spring house, a chicken coop and a blacksmith shop.

Mountain Rainstorm

The carful of kids run around while I read the self-guided tour guide to figure out what a spring house is. We learn it is a small building that was built on top of a spring that kept food from spoiling before refrigeration.

We walk from one building to the next imaging mountain life when I see the sky start to darken. "See that?"  I point to the sky and nudge Melissa.

Melissa has no data or cell service in the park so she has no idea what the weather is doing. BANG! The sky falls and we run for cover.  We spend the next 30 minutes on the porch of the apple house talking with a family from Pennsylvania.

The chicken before the boys start to chase it.

Just before we leave we see a chicken trying to catch a grasshopper.  The boys see the chicken and start to chase the chicken.  The chicken misses the grasshopper and the boys miss the chicken.

After a picnic lunch we join the Junior Ranger Bat Program--packed full of interesting facts that are gross enough for the kids to like. She dismisses all the folktales and ends the program discussing the White Nose Syndrome, the disease that has killed over 5 million bats in the Eastern United States.

After the required program and a bag of trash for each kid plus my middle son's broken down box he found in the parking lot; we are ready to get our Junior Ranger Badges.

Next, the carful of kids load up to see Clingman's Dome, the highest point in the GSMNP and the third highest point in the eastern United States but still half the size of most mountains in the Rocky Mountain Chain. We park, ready to hike the half-mile to the observation tower until we look at the looming dark grey skies; can't risk a lighting strike.

We drive back through Newfound Gap area where we cross the Appalachian Trail--the 2200 mile trail that extends from Georgia to Maine. My son decides he has to walk it, I can pick him up in Maine next summer.

As we drive back to Maggie Valley, North Carolina, I tell the carful of kids that Great Smoky Mountain National Park was chartered in 1934 and it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  GSMNP is the most visited park in the United States and encompasses over 500,000 acres, making it the largest protected area in the eastern United States.

As if on cue, an Indigo Bunting darts across the road and before I can pull over to find it I notice the carful of kids are asleep.

Up Next--Asheville, North Carolina and The Biltmore Estate.