Back from the south

Last week my wife, a couple friends (Jason and Jackie) and myself headed down to the Smoky mountains for a much needed vacation. We stayed the week just outside of Gatlinburg, Tn. This was the first time that I have been there since probably the late 90`s. I was amazed at how much the area has grown, not for the better really either. Do we really need more than 1 wax museum on the same street? How about 2 baskin robbins? Avoiding the town area was one of my main goals for the week.

The park is just beautiful, even with all the dying trees from all the non-native things that are killing them. The first day there we had lunch in town and decided to hit the roaring fork motor loop. It was a 5 mile, one way loop just a couple miles out of town. Wow what a difference you wouldnt even know Gatlinburg was there once you got on the loop. It would be a great ride also, so long as you mind dodging all the parked cars along the road at all the trail heads.
We bumped into this guy on the drive as well.










We went over to the Biltmore estate in Asheville, N.C. one day as well. The house is like a castle, and the gardens were very impressive. It really is kind of sickening to think that someone can have so much money to spend on a summer home. Their is a bridge in the move last of the mohicans that is located on the property and my wife has always loved that scene in the movie so that was the motivation for seeing the house. I am happy we went, it really was something to see.





































Asheville is a really cool city. We stopped in at liberty cycles bike shop. You walk in the and there is a serotta a moots and another serotta all within 20 feet of each other, not to mention the seven`s hanging on the wall and all the rest of the cool bikes.

Ramsay Cascades was the first hike that we did. It said moderate in the guide book. I am not sure who wrote the guide book, but it was anything but moderate. The trail was a 4 mile uphill slog to the waterfall. as you can see from the elevation profile.









It is the tallest falls in the park that you can hike to, and would of been really cool if we were there a couple of weeks later when all the rhododendrons are in the bloom. The trail is lined with them.












On monday night we thought that we were going to be evacuated due to a forest fire about a mile away. We decided to get all the stuff packed up and ready to go just in case we had to leave in a hurry in the middle of the night. We could see a orange glow from our condo, and countless fire trucks went past. But luckily they got it under control, and only about 60 acres burned we heard on the news.

We had planned to ride Tsali, but that didnt work out. We had planned to go on wednesday, but my stupid leg injury was acting up, probably due to all the hiking that we had done. So we figured we would head over first thing friday morning. As we were sitting having breakfast it started to rain, and rain. So we went to ihop instead and had breakfast. It was a let down, but I guess that was only thing didnt work out, so not too bad.