Cade's Cove, Smokey Mountains

Well, here we are about half way through our little mini-vacation that we're using to test out the RV one last time before heading out for good.  In just a little under 6 months we'll be doing the full-time gig in our Lazy Daze Class C RV.

Where better to do a test trip than the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee?  After an initial few days of camping at Norris State Park, to avoid the weekenders that were at Cade's Cove, we unhooked and made the short drive to what we were hoping was to be a less populated time.  Boy, were we ever wrong on that one!

One of the many original cabins nestled in the foothills at Cade's Cove.

The Cade's Cove Campground was fairly full.  Even though there were lots of rigs it was still a very nice and quiet place to camp.  The Cade's Cove Loop, on the other hand, was completely the opposite!  A steady line of cars, trucks, motorcycles, bicycles, hikers and even a few RVs made the going pretty much a stop and crawl event. 

We still managed, over the course of a few days, to make four or five trips to take it all in.  Of course, our ultimate quest was to spot a Black Bear as they are suppose to be very active this time of year.  Unfortunately, the only one that we could find was so far off that even with my 210mm Zoom Lens it still showed up as a mere black spec in the photo.  Not even good enough to post on here!

We did see plenty of deer though. Mostly does with the yearlings.

Made a pretty good shot as these Whitetails jumped a fence!

Wild Turkey prevail in the area as well.  Maybe I should use the term "wild" loosely.  These birds were everywhere, from out feeding alongside the deer to feeding along the roadside.  Barbara and I came to the realization the the American Wild Turkey is to Cade's Cove like the American Bison is to the Yellowstone National Park!

Just one of the many, many, many wild turkey in the Cove.

Of course, where there is a plethora of Turkey, you're going to find a healthy population of Coyote.  They were almost as plentiful as the deer!

Just one of the many Coyote that roam the Cade's Cove area.

We didn't spend all of our time riding around in the car though.  Almost all of the hikes that we wanted to go on were being heavily used.  So much so, a parking spot at the trail head was rarely found.  We opted for some shorter, less used trails to see a few small rapids and falls.  It was nice to just get out into the woods and pick our way through some trails. 

One of the destinations of our short hikes.

All in all, it was a pretty good time with mostly nice, sunny weather.  The area is gorgeous and the scenery changes quickly as weather moves in and out, so photo opts abound!

Cade's Cove, near dusk.

Tomorrow, we're heading out to Tennessee's Fall Creek Falls State Park.  Hoping that it'll be a lot less congested and that we'll be able to get a few more hikes in.  Hope you've enjoyed this post and feel free to leave comments if you so desire.  We'll do one more posting near the end of the maiden journey!