Recipes

To end of these beautiful trip, sharing photos if the other side of the mountain when we were driving back down to Gatlinburg direction. Lots of beautiful views and precipices. We didn’t stop and I didn’t take much photos but you could see the clouds and buildings at the bottom of the mountain. Everything so beautiful. We enjoyed our vacation there this summer🩷

And then, here are some of the rivers we saw along the way. My boy was in his element always trying to catch salamanders, tiny fish, crayfish… or just something in the water. That’s the one thing he always talks about missing in PA, our river fishing days in this one area. Here in SC we’re surrounded by ponds with 🐊🐊s. But yes, lots of beautiful flowing rivers (just realized he called one of them a little island🙂), small waterfalls, and gorgeous views both up and back down the other side of the “Smokies!” We were in awe of the beautify of nature!

The bear we saw!!😮 The entire drive up the mountains we were looking and hoping to see a bear through the woods. Just as we got back down and were going to leave. we decided to turn around and at least go back part ways to see if we can find one. As soon as we turned around, my husband said “There’s a bear!” I knew he was not joking when he stopped the car, immediately reversed and stopped to watch along with all the other stopped drivers in vehicles watching! The bear wasn’t very big but that bear must have been right there when we first drove by and about to leave drive back down the mountain. We just couldn’t contain our excitement to see a real bear in real life. Up the mountains, we sort of kept our windows partially closed in hopes that a bear wouldn’t jump in😄🤷🏻‍♀️ But once we saw one, it’s like all windows were down - all panic gone. Awww, it was so cute to see! We came really close to it. It didn’t run away and we just kept driving to see where it was going and following its path. Our screams, well my screams for joy - I think I spoke a different language of some sort in one of the videos here out of my excitement🤣🤣 I muted a couple vids. After it all, I remembered we had seen either a brown or black bear at a zoo somewhere at some point🐻 Not the same as seeing one in real life walking around in its habitat!! Such an awesome experience! Wild horses. deer, turkey were all part of what we saw and possibly a small orange fox🦊 (wasn’t exactly sure on this one since it was through the woods).