Saturday, May 26, 2012

Cade's Cove

My parents came to visit last weekend, and wanted to go to the Smokies. I took them to the park last year when they came, but we kind of just drove around and pulled off at a few of the scenic view turnoffs, without really having a plan or going to see something specific. This year, we had a whole day to kill, so at the advice of some friends I took them to Cade's Cove last Sunday. I've never been to that part of the park, either, so it was fun for us all.

For those unfamiliar with the park, Cade's Cove is a large valley deep in the park. A number of historic buildings have been preserved there, although several were relocated from other areas. To visit, you drive on a one-way scenic loop, which means that a lot of your visit looks like this:

driving in cade's cove

Since a lot of the view also looks like this, though:

cade's cove meadows (1)

cade's cove meadows (2)

cade's cove meadows (3)

cade's cove meadows (4)

cade's cove meadows (5)

it's a nice tradeoff.

We skipped a few buildings, because there were just too many cars and people, but we did pull off at the Primitive Baptist Church for a few minutes:

Primitive Baptist Church (1)

Primitive Baptist Church (2)

inside window

outside window

and then stopped at the Methodist Church:

Cade's Cove Methodist Church

but after that we decided we'd seen enough churches and enough unruly children running around the churches. This couple in the Methodist Church was letting their kids bang on the piano and they actually threw a Bible from the pulpit and laughed. I was disgusted, especially when the mom was trying to explain to the kids about preservation while not stopping them from taking part in destruction.

We saw a few deer, and there was a long traffic jam when people said they could see bears, but we didn't see them. It's possible that all of the people getting out of their cars and stomping across the field to get closer (Seriously, people? It's not a zoo. Have fun getting mauled.) scared the bears away by the time our car got to the right spot, but it's equally likely that they just wandered off on their own.

We stopped for the longest time at the Cable Mill Historic Area, where a number of buildings are preserved together around the Cable sawmill and gristmill. They have a visitors center:

Cable Mill Visitor Center

and a lot of buildings:

millrace

cantilever barn

cantilever barn interior

Cable Mill

Smokehouse and Gregg-Cable House

barn

Gregg-Cable House porch

and Cade's Cove is just, overall, a really pretty place to spend a sunny day.

3 comments:

Justin Bower said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Justin Bower said...

Thanks for the report..I'm planning my trip there for the fall, sounds like a good part of the park to visit.

Fantastic picture by the way! Some really great shots in here!

Unknown said...

You really got some amazing shot there! I really like the b&w at the sawmill. WOW.