Round 2 GSMNP (Sun)

After a great night sleep, I woke up around 7:30am and ventured out to water the leaves. (In the rain, yes it was still raining.) After stretching a bit, I packed up my stuff, took a few pictures of the river, and retrieved our food bag from the cables. By the time SHOE woke up, I had already eaten breakfast and was all packed up. We started at 9:30am and decided to leave on our crocs to wade through the river crossings. Now, I have never hiked in crocs, and wondered if my feet would start to hurt after walking 20 feet. Well, 2 miles later, I was impressed that I had hiked that far in my red crocs wannabes, comfortably! WOW. It actually felt nice to have my feet breathe and the river crossings cooled them down. (*note to self, hike in crocs more often.) We finally stop for a quick 1/2 hour lunch break and put on our boots so we can hike faster. Our lunch spot was gorgeous. Two rushing rivers converging into one big, deep, rolling, river. The soft sounds of the water flowing was so relaxing. I didn't want to get up and leave. But alas, we had to trek on to the car. This was probably the easiest section of the trail on this trip. Nice, wide, well graded, rock/root free trail with a constant, meandering river beside it. It made the last 5 miles fly by and before I knew it, it was 1pm and we were at the car. Nice, easy 6.8 mile day. We hopped in the car, and took a detour into Elkmont campground to find a bathroom to clean up a bit and change into some clean clothes. We then zoomed through the park to pick up SHOE's car and then down into Cherokee for some burgers and blizzards! On the way down, traffic had stopped a bit and wouldn't you know it, a bear had come out of the woods in search of food and all the tourists had stopped their cars and gotten out to take its photo. If I would of had my camera within reach, I would of snapped some photos too! (while sitting in my car.) But it was in my backpack and in the trunk of my car :( So I bypassed all the tourist who were getting waaaaay to close to a bear. (Seriously, I felt like a TV episode of "Bears gone wild" was about to happen. People were getting THAT close to this animal.) I finally get through the traffic jam and wind down the mountain. We pulled into Dairy Queen JUST as it started to sprinkle. I ordered a cheeseburger, fries, diet coke, and a Reece's peanut buttercup blizzard (only the best flavored blizzard ever!) We relax, enjoy our burgers, and talk about the hike, future hikes, and about the crazy guy SHOE met on the AT that carried a machete to ward off bears and a 5lb bag of oranges. DUDE! 5 lbs of oranges! that's to heavy to carry on the trail! hahhaha!

All in all it was another great weekend spent in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Thanks once again to SHOE for working out the logistical part of our hike and for finding us a place to stay on Friday night. Sometimes all you need is a quiet walk in the woods to make everything all right. Til Next time.... GET OUTDOORS!!!