Day 2

I apologize this post wasn't up last night. Our hotel has a very poor wireless signal. I tried various times last night to get connected, with no success. I was finally able to get connected this morning, but it's doubtful I'll be able to post any pictures. So sorry! Nonetheless we had a very eventful day which I hope you'll enjoy hearing about.

Watching the weather report for the next few days it looked like we were only going to have one good weather day - yesterday. :( That meant to us that we had to squeeze in all the outdoor activity we could.

Of course, having the animal lover in the family that we do, we HAD to go to a zoo. So, the first place we headed was the Knoxville zoo. It's a nice zoo and Cayden seemed to enjoy it very much. They also have a great kids area to play/discover. It is definitely spring here in Tennessee so Jay and I enjoyed walking through and seeing everything in bloom. I think the highlight of the zoo trip was seeing the chimps. They are always fun to watch. But this zoo happened to have an 8-month-old baby chimp that was absolutely adorable and made them even more fun to watch. I really wish I was able to share a picture of him with you. The other "big" story of the zoo is all of the animals that Cayden made. At various spots in the zoo there are big machines that mold plastic animals (just like the ones they have at Henry Ford that made different vehicles). Cayden insisted on stopping at each one (except we skipped the butterfly, which I'm sure he will mention to you when telling you about the zoo). We now have a bear, gorilla, elephant, tiger and giraffe. He has already had lots of fun playing with them and creating little stories with them.

After spending about 3 hours at the zoo and having a quick (late) lunch we headed toward the mountains. Unfortunately, we were not going to spend nearly as much time exploring the mountains as we would have liked, had the weather cooperated. But, we did get plenty of pictures of what we did see. Choosing which part of the mountains to see was not hard. We could not come to the Smokies without visiting the area known as Cade's Cove. :) Besides the obvious name similarities it is also supposed to be the best place for bear sightings! They have an 11 mile driving tour of Cade's Cove with various pull offs along the way so it seemed perfect for our late day sightseeing. While driving we went through areas of woods and fields alternately. Looking out over the fields you could see the mountains in the distance. It was really beautiful there. We spotted many animals. We saw a lot of deer just about everywhere we looked. Sometimes there was one alone but usually there were about 5 or 6 together in a field. We also saw some wild horses and a few wild turkeys. At one point we stopped at a field with an old barn and a pretty little stream. Cayden was happy to go through the barn imagining which stalls would have held which farm animals. He was also happy to have some time to run around in the field and sit in the grass and play with the animals he made at the zoo (which he insisted on doing). When we were done there and heading back to our car, Cayden spotted a dear. It went into the old barn and I was able to get a few pictures of it from not too far away.

We made it almost all the way through Cade's Cove seeing lots of animals and taking tons of pictures but a little disappointed that we hadn't been able to spot any bears. But, on our way out and heading back toward Gatlinburg we passed an area where there were many people gathered and many cars stopped. I rolled down my window and someone told us there were bears! I jumped out of the car with the camera and Jay went off to find a place to pull off so we weren't blocking the road (though many other cars were). I had just snapped a couple pictures when some lovely (drunk) "gentleman" came over to the crowd muttering on and on about leaving the bears alone and not feeding them and then they wouldn't hurt us (no one was feeding them). He was going on and on and of course some woman in the group of "photographers" starting yelling back at him to go away. After he had gone on a minute or two a woman came over who was obviously with him telling him to "come on and shut up" and informing him that she hadn't had her medication that day and was feeling too ill to deal with him. It was a lovely to watch. Sometime during this a couple park rangers arrived. I was only able to get a few more pictures of the bears through the trees before the rangers made us all go across the street. The pictures I did get show 2 cubs but there was also a 3rd. And, I was told the mother was a ways up the mountain, I'm sure keeping a keen eye on the whole scene. Exciting stuff, I tell ya!

At that point Cayden had pretty much had it with all the activity of the day and was ready to head back. It was a very long and eventful day.

We woke up this morning to VERY strong wind and a thunderstorm. I believe the plan is to head to Ripley's Aquarium and probably do some shopping. If the weather clears up some we might venture back toward the mountains and try to get in some more sightseeing. We're still not sure what's going on tomorrow. Everything depends on the weather.

Thanks for checking in. Hopefully I'll be able to connect again and have more for you tonight. Sorry again that there are no pictures.