Cades Cove, GSMNP

As I write this, Greg and I are waiting in traffic, trying to exit Cades Cove. Apparently, there are three bears up ahead, and it has brought traffic to a standstill.

By the time we got close enough to see them, a park ranger had arrived on the scene to move everyone along. This was the best photo I could get as we passed them.

Anyway, today we did the Cades Cove Loop in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

The loop is an 11-mile, one-way drive around Cades Cove, which is a valley in the Great Smoky Mountains.

In addition to beautiful scenery, the loop also has buildings from the 1800s so that you can get a feel for what life might have been like back then.

There are also plenty of trails to hike. Greg decided that we would hike the Abrams Falls Trail, a 2 1/2-mile trail ending at a waterfall.

Holy cow, it just about killed me!

It went UP. It went DOWN. The park ranger described it as a camel with three 350-ft humps, followed by a long camel’s neck down to the falls.

And there were plenty of obstacles to navigate. Roots. Rocks. Mud. Bridges. Steps. You name it; this trail had it.

But we survived, a little worse for wear. And the falls were pretty.

Titanic Museum and GSMNP

We began our day with a visit to the Titanic Museum in Pigeon Forge.

As we entered the museum, the staff — excuse me, “crewmen” — gave each of us a card with the name and statistics of one of the passengers on the Titanic.

I loved this idea because it gave us a personal connection to one of the passengers. As we continued through the tour, we tried to figure out whether our passenger had survived.

The first floor held artifacts and stories about the building of the Titanic, the layout, and the passengers. We weren’t allowed to take pictures on this floor, but it was extremely interesting and informative.

Then we went up to the next floor, where there were recreations of some of the Titanic’s rooms.

At the end of the tour, we got to find out what had happened to our particular passenger.

Since Greg’s passenger was one of the musicians, he played until the Titanic sank and perished along with the ship. My passenger was a 17-year-old girl, who survived and lived until the ripe old age of 81.

On our way out, we descended the grand staircase.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park

After a quick lunch back at the camper, we headed to the Sugarlands Visitor Center for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Gatlinburg.

We talked to the park ranger about hiking opportunities within the park. Since neither of us was up to actually hiking today, we decided to drive around the park to get a feel for what we might like to do in the coming days.

The views were spectacular!

Greg decided he wanted to drive Newfound Gap Road, which is about 13 miles long.

We kept seeing light blue trees on top of the mountain. Greg thought the color was caused by clouds, and I wondered whether they were a special type of tree.

It was neither. It was snow covering the branches.

We finally reached the gap, where we parked and took some photos of the beautiful views.

Following our stop at the gap, we headed back to Pigeon Forge for dinner.

Unfortunately, the traffic was so bad that we decided to take a detour and have dinner in Gatlinburg instead of making dinner at the campground.

The restaurant was the Mellow Mushroom, and it was very good!

Monticello

The sun finally came out again, although it was chilly. We met up with Christopher and Marianne for a tour of Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s home.

Chris and Marianne are quite knowledgeable about Monticello and Thomas Jefferson. We learned a lot from them.

They showed us the memorial for all the slaves who worked at Monticello. If you look closely, you can see their names carved out of the metal.

We passed the gardens on our walk up to the house.

We saw the slave quarters.

Then took a tour through the house itself.

Thomas Jefferson’s bed, which was so short he needed to sleep propped up.

We ended our day at Monticello with a question and answer session with Thomas Jefferson himself. He talked a lot about the need to be well educated if you are going to be self-governed — and to know history.

Highland

After enjoying a delicious grilled chicken sandwich in Monticello’s cafe, we headed over to Highland, the home of James Monroe.

(I have no good pictures of the house because the original burned down and only the guest house is open to tourists.)

Wow. I had no idea how significant this dude was in American history!

In addition to being the fifth American president, he did a slew of other things. However, I’m going to let you look them up. The list is too long.

The overseer’s cottage and some of the slave quarters.

We were able to take a tour of the guest house. This is where people visiting Monroe would have stayed.

I got to see where the original house stood. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a photo of it.

However, this oak tree stood behind the house way back when Monroe lived there.

Those stones in the foreground mark the foundation wall of the original home.

After our tour of Highland, we drove over to Thomas Jefferson’s Winery and enjoyed three flights of red, white, and blended wines with Chris and Marianne.

My favorite photo of Monticello:

On to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee!

Saunders-Monticello Trail

Today the sun came out again, and Greg and I took the opportunity to do a 4-mile hike along the Saunders-Monticello Trail.

Thankfully for us, it was an easy hike, comprising a gentle grade up for 2 miles on crushed gravel and boardwalk followed by a gentle grade back down for 2 miles.

Greg has been enthralled with the pink and white dogwoods and the red buds so far on this trip. He stopped frequently to take pictures.

The trail ended near the visitor center for Monticello. We will be going there tomorrow with Chris and Marianne.

On our way back to the parking lot, the rear of this car gave us a chuckle.

And after dinner, we had our second campfire of the trip.

Grand Caverns

Greg and I had the pleasure of meeting up with Christopher, Greg’s cousin, and Chris’s wife, Marianne, to tour the Grand Caverns in Grottoes, VA.

I love caves, although I have no desire to be a spelunker. The Grand Caverns were some of the most impressive caves I have had the pleasure of touring so far.

Not only are they huge, but they have numerous interesting features.

Marianne assures us that if we liked the Grand Caverns, we should definitely see Mammoth Cave and Carlsbad Cavern.

Luckily, Mammoth Cave is on our itinerary for this trip, so we will be seeing it soon.

After our cave tour, Chris and Marianne took us to one of their favorite Mexican restaurants in the area, Mi Rancho.

Child #4’s little camping invention

When we first purchased the travel trailer, I watched every YouTube video and camping-related article I could find on how to outfit an RV, and I bought ALL THE STUFF.

One of the items I invested in was a set of tension rods to use in our pantry to hold everything on the shelves when we were on the move.

Well, after a couple of camping trips, I decided that constantly tightening and loosening the tension rods before and after each trip was annoying.

I began to look for a solution. What I really wanted was some kind of hook that I could rest them on, something that would make putting up the tension rods as easy as setting them in place, no tightening required.

Greg decided that my wish would make a perfect project for our budding little inventor, Child #4. He commissioned him to invent and manufacture something that we could apply to the sides of the pantry closet that would hold the tension rods and keep them in place while bumping down the road.

Here is what Child #4 invented for us (with a little help from his dad and some additional help from Child #3 and his 3D printer):

We attached the white plastic holders to the sides of the pantry closet using Command strips. They work beautifully, and I love them.

I tried to encourage Child #4 to see if he could sell them, but he wasn’t interested. So I guess they will remain a one-of-a-kind feature just for our RV.

Here is what they look like in the RV’s pantry.

And with the pantry full…

Williamsburg

After getting ourselves together in the morning, we headed to Historic Williamsburg. I had been there in middle school, but that was over 50 years ago. Yikes!

Our first stop after navigating the visitor center was the Governor’s Palace. I’m a sucker for old buildings, so this was a favorite.

Another highlight of the trip was a discussion by the Marquis de Lafayette about his role in the American revolution. Neither Greg nor I had known that the French were so involved in the revolution. Lafayette was given the rank of major general by the Continental Congress when he was only 20 years old!

We also participated in a trial at the local courthouse, where several people were accused of not attending church regularly enough.

And, of course, we stepped into the many shops along the Duke of Gloucester Street, where we learned about life in early colonial America.

Both Greg and I were very surprised to learn that the town only had about 2,000 residents at the time of the American Revolution.

And we were both unaware until our visit to Williamsburg how important the battle at Yorktown had been.

It was quite an enjoyable day, although I think I might have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t already been so tired.

I couldn’t resist taking more pictures of those red buds!

Virginia Capital Trail

Since I got to decide what we would do yesterday, I let Greg decide what we would do today. He chose a bike ride on the Virginia Capital Trail.

To say that I was unenthused would be an understatement. The weather today was chilly, windy, and often cloudy. I did not relish freezing my butt off on a bike ride. But off we went anyway.

Honestly? The Virginia Capital Trail makes for a boring bike ride. The scenery consists of fields and woods, and the part we rode on ran parallel to the highway, so there was a fair amount of road noise. Maybe if the weather had been better, I would have enjoyed it more.

If you’re training for a bike race, it would be a good place to practice. Other bikers were rare. We encountered no other bikers going the same direction as we were, and few going in the other. The terrain is mostly flat, and the trail is well-maintained. But it was pretty boring.

We found a picnic table along the way and stopped for lunch.

In total, we road just over 25 miles. Since I wasn’t feeling particularly well when we started out, I used the bike’s battery assist the entire way and let the bike do most of the work — at least until we turned around to head back. At that point, I really pushed it because I was cold and eager to get back to our campsite.

In the end, I was pretty proud of my stats. The calories burned stat is inaccurate, since the bike did more work than I did. But hey, pedaling is still exercise, right?

Jamestown

Our Spring 2025 adventure through Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky began with a trip to Jamestown Settlement.

First we wandered through the exhibits inside the visitor’s center and watched the movie about the Jamestown Settlement. Then we went outside, found a comfortable spot near the recreation of the Powhatan Indian village and ate our picnic lunch.

After exploring how the natives were living back in 1607, we checked out the reconstruction of two of the ships that brought the first Jamestown settlers from England to Virginia. They were amazingly small for the number of people and supplies they carried.

Next, we watched some reenactors entertain the children by showing them how corn was ground and weapons were forged.

We checked out the reconstruction of some of the buildings within the Jamestown Settlement. One of the volunteers told me that the original settlement would have had so many buildings that only narrow alleys would have existed between them.

We finished our tour of the reconstructed Jamestown Settlement by stopping by the church. Attendance was mandatory for all settlers, and not just on Sunday!

On our way out of the Jamestown Settlement, we passed this beautiful redbud tree in full bloom. Spring has arrived in Virginia!

Historic Jamestown

After leaving the recreation of the Jamestown Settlement, we headed to historic Jamestown itself.

Since time was a-wasting, we decided to do the archeological museum first, since it closes at 5 pm. We had to pay an additional fee to go through the museum, but it was well worth it.

I enjoyed seeing the skeletons of the original settlers and hearing about how they died. Modern archeology is amazing in what it can learn from the past.

After touring the museum, we checked out some of the other sites. In the reconstructed church, one of the docents talked about the three major groups who lived and interacted with one another during the early Jamestown years: the Anglos, the Native Americans, and the Africans.

We learned that slavery in America began at Jamestown. And the beginning of representative government began here too.

Our Spring 2025 adventure begins

How it started:

How it’s going:

The last couple of weeks have been exhausting as we have worked to get ready for this trip. For some reason, the preparations this year seemed to be much more involved. Maybe it’s because we know we are going to be camping for about 5 months total in 2025, so we wanted to make sure everything was in perfect condition before we set off.

The trip to Williamsburg went relatively smoothly. We had one slight scare when a plastic bucket flew off the truck in front of us, and we had no choice but to run over it. I hadn’t been paying much attention to the road — Greg was driving — and the sound of us hitting that bucket scared the living daylights out of me.

Our other adventure was trying to find a gas station that could accommodate us off of I-95.

I’ve learned my lesson: Identify appropriate truck stops along the route before heading out. I have now saved the link to the RoadNow: I-95 website–which has all things I-95, including gas stations, rest stops, and truck stops–for future use when traveling along I-95.

It was all worth it, though. We are now relaxing in the sunshine, eating dinner, and contemplating the adventures to come.