Fun day in Cherokee

June 2 – It was 57 when I woke up and it was supposed to be 82 today.  We had a bit of a leisurely morning.  I put another load of laundry in while we had breakfast and I had my coffee.  Then it was time to shower and get ready to venture out.

On the way down the mountain from the campground there is a small parking area for the

Heading up

hike up to Mingo Falls.  I wasn’t so sure how I would do but we made the attempt.  I stopped frequently on the way up as steps are no longer my friend.  I’d go up 3 times with my right leg and then 3 times with my left.  Bill counted and said it was 154 steps.  They are quite irregular in depths and there is a rail most of the way.  However, we were wearing out masks (Kam will be proud of us) and I managed to not touch the rails going in either direction!

The falls are tall and narrow but quite lovely!  There’s a 15 foot or

Mingo Falls

so walkway for getting photos and I took my share.  There appeared to be a steady flow in both directions.  Going down I only stopped once but took my time.  Very nice stop and we had not been here on our previous trips.

A few of the elk were out this morning when we went by.  I was on a mission to get photos of all of the bears in town.  Bill diligently

Big guy ignoring us

drove me and I think I got them all.  The town is rather small and they are primarily in the tourist area.  We’ve seen many other animals in tourist towns and the creativity in the paint jobs can be rather amazing.

We visited a few of the “gift” shops and quite a lot were not open and there was plenty of parking. We’re sure that is all due to Covid19.  The weekends must be the heavy traffic times right now.  I bought a wind chime for my front porch but not much else.

We went to the drive thru at Wendy’s for lunch and took it to the city park where we parked and walked over the bridge to the center which is sided by 2 small rivers.  There were quite

Lunch in the park

a lot of locals and tourists playing in and along the banks.  It was a nice spot for lunch and Bill made friends with a tiny bird that he fed some cheese.

After we cleaned up our lunch we took a short drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway for the

View from the Parkway

beautiful scenery along the way.  We went through 2 tunnels (twice) and traffic was extremely low.  I took a lot of photos.

We exited off the parkway and into Great Smokey Mountain National Park.  Immediately you are at the Visitor and Interpretive Center and there were lots of cars.  We donned our masks (again we were in the minority) and first went to the restrooms.  This was my first public restroom since the start of Covid19 and I really thought it through carefully!  I used a piece of TP to lock the door, another piece doused with hand sanitizer to wipe the seat.  Did my business and used another piece to open the door and washed my hands really good and used another piece to open the exit door!  No one else seemed to care at all!  Then I sanitized my hands.

Mingus Mill

The bummer was the Visitor Center was closed but the Interpretive Center is a large outdoor village in the back of the land and you could walk it.  We have done that before and so we passed on it. Just up the road is Mingus Mill so we went there.  Normally it is a very interesting stop but the mill building was not open so we walked the grounds and discussed our previous visits.  We felt bad for those who were there for the first time and unable to enjoy and learn about the area.

We had planned to go to Sylva to Walmart since we knew they will let us in so we left and headed that way.  They had a lot of cars in the lot and we definitely wore our masks.  Bill went one direction to get things he wanted and I went to the pharmacy area then we met up and I gave him the deli area and I did produce.  I walked down the meat aisle to get some sausage and there was NO ground meat, beef or

bison.  Actually there was pretty little beef at all.  But they had a LOT of chicken feet!  I love chicken feet.  When my grandparents butchered chickens we got to have the feet and my mom would cook

them up for us.  I bet a lot of my readers are cringing at the thought, but don’t knock if you haven’t tried it!

On the way out of Sylva I spotted a McDonald’s and was in the mood for a Mocha Frappe.  We each got one and it lasted most of the way home.  Actually we were both full well past dinner time.  I didn’t have to cook, I just had 2 big slices of cantaloupe and Bill had his leftover pasta from last night we we were good to go!

I worked on my blog and think I have it 80% figured out.  Each post is looking better!  I also discovered I sent out the wrong blog link (oops) but hope I re-sent to everyone! 

Tomorrow we head further north but have really enjoyed the cooler weather and the scarcity of so many tourist.  I know it’s not good for the businesses but it’s been great for us.