Our Smoky Mountain Trip - Day 2

Posted by Gabrielle

Here's a picture post of our second day!

Benaiah - our 'happy camper'!

Christianna, Benaiah and Arianne around the pole at our campsite before breakfast.

After breakfast we went on a short nature trail hike at our campground. We passed over two log bridges about a foot wide with a handrail on one side that spanned rapidly running streams. ;) Here is Elliot on the bridge.

The beatiful stream!

We spent the morning at a replica plantation of the early mountain settlers, complete with everything, house, barn, fields and all the small shops that they needed to live the independent way they did.

Daddy by the cornfields.

Mommy, Toby, Timothy, Benaiah and Jedidiah looking over the corn-husking machine.

The barn was full of original tools, harness, carts, etc... Here is Elliot with a wheelbarrow...

and being goofy for the camera in the maze of the sorghum field!

The calm and contented chickens, before...

the boys started the 'fashionable' sport of chicken-chasing. Here Tobias starts the game...

and he, Timothy and Benaiah continue it. Of course, there's the principle there of "If you don't run, they can't chase you"! ;)

Jedidiah and Tobias in the...well...ah...woodshed!

They had a pair of lovely pigs there too. It was very interesting, and eye-opening to watch the manners and habits of the swine, and realizing how much we really do act like them sometimes, especially when at table.

Benaiah had fun watching the pigs.

The Hellwig family in the orchard.

Benaiah by the beehives.

Here is the Hellwig-mobile and some of the family at one of the mountain overlooks we stopped at. Most had gone on a short hike while the rest of us discovered a wild peach tree and enjoyed ourselves immensely!

The twisting mountain roads are so scenic!

Some of us set out to climb Clingman's Dome, but by the time we got to the top it was so foggy we couldn't see much.

Another lady up there was so kind to take a family picture for us!

What we could see from the top of the tower!

Jedidiah and Christianna enjoying the 'view'