July 2

We left to Lexington after work, and it was awesome to visit Stacy and Matt there. We chatted also about the Red River Gorge, and they lent us 2 great books about the region. They ended up being extremely useful! Thanks!!

July 3rd

We left Lexington early and went to Red River Gorge. We decided to walk the Axier Ridge Trail, which was terrific! There were gorgeous overlooks, and many beautiful rock formations. We did a little stretch and got the Court House Rock, which ended up being a much more strenuous one. It was a total of 5 or 6 miles, with a lot of rugged parts. But beautiful! That’s where we took so many pictures of mushrooms. We thought of Xie and Collin… I have never seen so many different types all together in one place. It was awesome!

We had lunch at Grey Arch picnic area, but we decided not to walk anymore that same day. After all, it was hard, and the first one of a 10 days trip!

Koomers Ridge Campground was the place where we camped the first night. It rained and rained that afternoon as well as the next day. I was a little bit disappointed, but David was great. He has this positive approach to everything, and he made even cooking an easy task. I made wild rice with veggies, and “bechamel” sauce.

it was pouring rain during the whole night. I’m glad we didn’t get wet inside the tent. :)

July 4th

One of the most interesting things about this trip for me came through my ears… Yes, I woke up with this amazing bird song very close to the tent. It was still kind of dark, but I was very awake. It had several phrases, each one with different endings. It sounded like the bird was improvising!! Here you can see my video of the bird singing:

From 2009-07 Camping

Or all the pictures of the trip here:

2009-07 Camping

But if you are interested in listening to a more clear recording of this bird song and seeing the bird as well, go here.

This day it was raining and we decided to do a round trip in the park by car, and though stopping to see the vies, and mainly the Nada Tunnel. It ended up more interesting than that because the rain kind of stopped and we could see some nice points of interest in the Red River Gorge: Rock Bridge trail (we liked the rock, but not so impressed by the waterfall and the trail itself); Whistling Arch (very beautiful and easy access); Suspension Bridge (fun to walk on, and see that the river was pretty shallow… Poor people pushing their canoes!); Nada Tunnel was fun – so narrow and dark! We had lunch (pizza) at Miguel’s, one of the best pizzas that I tried in USA! It’s a mix of restaurant and hot spot for climbers. (not us, of course!)
It was recommended by the seller of a store J Waters, where I bought a new pair of hiking sandals for me, right before we went to the airport. We took the pizza to a picnic area near the elevator of the Natural Bridge. We got a one-way ticket to the top of the Bridge, and it was a very pretty place… We hiked it all the way down, using the trail called Rock Garden Trail. Super nice – check the pictures!
When we were almost back to the bottom, it started raining. Well, getting a little bit wet wasn’t THAT bad, since it was hot. :)

But then the rain became a storm… And the campground was empty. It felt to me like we were the only crazy dudes that camp when it rains… But David ensured me that people actually camp when it’s raining… It is NOT that fun. Believe me…

July 5

We woke up very early with the bird again! :)
When the rain stopped for a little bit we packed and left. This day we went again to Miguel’s,  where I had a Belgian waffle with blueberries that was spectacular!
so… what to do with rain? Are we going to have rain the whole trip???… These concerns made us use the internet at Miguel’s (very handy in our case), and we checked the weather forecast, and I researched some motels near the Cumberland Falls. Everything was full, but we found a good option for us – we stayed at the Cumberland Falls State Resort. In a chalet, so we had a separate entrance from the hotel, and plenty of space to open the tent and some clothes and use the air conditioner as a dryer… It worked! At this point the weather forecast predicted correctly. Just a little bit more rain and sunny all the rest.

Before we actually went to the Resort, we stopped (also for a stamp in our passports) at the Cumberland Gap Natinal Historical Park, where we walked a little train, and saw almost nothing in the Pinochle overlook, since it was completely overcast. We laughed a lot to see a sign in a roof “cold beer here”.  That’s the same place we could stel one foot in Virginia and the other in Kentucky. (like I did one time in Greenwich – each foot in a different hemisphere – isn’t it, Thomas?).
I simply loved visiting a place that David used to go wen he was a kid. The Eagle Falls was nice, and he even entered there, but I didn’t have the courage – too wet. :)
But my favorite – of all waterfalls…. – was the next day…

July 6

After a great breakfast at the Resort Hotel, we drove to Yahoo falls, where we had a wondeful time. The easiest waterfall to reach, and the most fun and beautiful of all…
This same day we entered the Great Smoky Mountains. What is THAT little imitation of Las Vegas??? It is called – yes, memorize this name and avoid it as “the devil avoids the cross!” – Pigeon Forge.  Traffic jam and lots of visual and noise pollution. It looked like a big joke for people looking for a refuge in the mountains!

We finally went to the first campground that we stayed. It was in Elkmont. It wasn’t full, but the only spots had a lot of light coming from the bathrooms, and David and I had a little disagreement about the firewood – not a great evening that one.

July 7

New day, new spirits! Happily we walked to Clingman’s Dome, and it was overcast again… No views from the highest point in the Smokies… BUT after that we did a great hiking, passing through part (very little) of the famous Apalachian Trail. It was very nice. I even had dreams of backpacking and camping for days along this trail. (maybe I was too optimistic about it… Maybe I don’t have the nerves to backpack for many days, like I envisioned…)
The Andrews Bald had a gorgeous view and it was the very end of the azaleas season. Some bushes were still super colorful! The beginning of blueberry season was there. And no bears this time. An older couple was there taking pictures and we basically hiked back together. When they approached we get more energy and advanced more. Then we sat, and waitied until they appeared again in the trail. It was fun. They were very nice, and frequent hikers there.
Using a very nice book “100 Secrets of the Smokies” we found out that the fact that the book was 11 years old became a little problematic… This bakery that made my mouth watery was closed since 2004… We went to a new campground, hping to have more luck. It was MUCH better. The ranger even let us enter and chose our site. I felt much more confident that it would be better! We indeed had a great time relaxing in the campground, with deer, and owls, and beautiful campfire, and even our hammock!

July8

7am we were ready in line, to rent our bikes and enjoy the 3 hours without cars in the Cades Cove part of the park.(also hint from the book and from the park’s news paper…) The line was huge, and we were the last ones to rent bikes with gears. After us, only coaster bikes (ugh!…). It was definitely great. It rained while we were there, some people saw bears (we saw from a looooooooooong distance, which I confess looked more like black dots moving once in a while), and I enjoyed a lot the view.AT some point we stopped in the Primitive Baptist Church where I prayed for my grandma’s eye surgery. We saw the old community town (Cads Cove), visitor center, barns, lawn mower….(yes!!!) etc. It made me very upset that the mower was very loud. The beauty of not having cars around was vanished in that moment.

Coming back to the campground, we moved on, stopping for an lunch and icecream going towards Cloudland Canyon.  We got a very nice site in the walk-in campground, eventhough the registration was already closed for the day. We mad a beatiful fire. Also it was remarkable how good the showers were.

We made spinach tartlets (which is now becoming a camping tradition!)

July 9

David made a very nice hot milk and toast for us. We hiked the West Rim trail – beautiful views of the canyon. Had lunch in one of the picnic areas. We also went to play disc golf! Actually this was one of the main reasons we decided to sleep in this campground. In the middle of the game, it started raining…. What shall we do??? Well, it was simple. We took a nap in the shelter. It was great. Then, shower, books and pasta!

July 10

Packed up our stuff and walked 675 steps to 2 waterfalls. We left the park and went to Alabama (also visitor center). We passed by De Soto State Park, ate late breakfast (eggs, toast, and french fries, and pie), in the lodge. No azaleas in the Azaleas Cascade Trail… Maybe we were a little late in the season.

We drove down Little River Canyon and saw a VERY BEAUTIFUL waterfall. We also saw a few people swimming uner it and wondered how they end up there. (We were at the top of the waterfall, so they were down there..). We ended up asking around and decided to try to reach the pool through a trail near by the road. It worked! It was very refreshing, and David was particularly happy to jump from a unique rock. I confess I was a little scared, but I still played in the water, and even went behind the waterfall for a moment. The water was surprisingly warm, and we had a great time. After our adventure, we drove down to the Mouth of the Canyon, which was another adventure. The road was very curvy and steep! And we went there for 2 reasons. One, to see it, the other, to get the STAMP!!! But there wasn’t any ranger station there or visitor center at all. While I was writing down the address to where I would have to send the request for stamp, a ranger arrived! Hooray or hurrei!!! He would save me from having a blank space in my passaport….

:D Can you imagine how happy I was?

But, this story didn’t end up well for this moment. :(

He didn’t have any stamps because they got dry and became useless….  Can you picture my face????

ANyway, the guy was nice, and maybe too talkative for my taste. We cooked there and we were the last people to leave the recreation picnic ground – together with the ranger.

July 11

We drove to Scottsboro, slept in Liberty Inn motel. Do you know why we stopped in this insignificant little town? It’s because we got this flyer about this supposedly fun place to buy stuff called ” Unclaimed Baggage Center”. It was corny, but it was fun. Maybe the expectation was more fun than the actual thing… Like Pooh: “there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn’t know what it was called.”

Talking about food, Alabama’s food didn’t taste like honey to me. It was very greasy and fruitless. I think I prefer our campground food. :)

We got some things: Shirt, a CD case, the Audacity of Hope in Portuguese, a new luggage.

After this point we moved to the cave section of our trip. Yes, despite my bad first (and only) experience when I was younger, I decided to get to know some caves and see if it could be good. We drove to Cathedral Caverns, still in Alabama. Nice, but no color.  “I braved the cave!” It was very interesting that the air was fresh and didn’t make me feel suffocated or funny like my memory of the other cave.

Then we went to Russel Cave National Monument. “Unbelievable First Class Service!” David says with a smile in his face. Basically no people there. More Rangers in the visitor center than all the people that had visited the center that day. We were alone there, and the ranger took us to a special tour inside the cave. The mist was pretty to see from inside. He also taught us how to use the Atlatl, and David also got a primitive drill, which we had seen in Red River Gorge Visitor Center and thought it wasn’t working. Pretty cool! And even more cool was the stamp thing. They had the whole set of places that we’d been these last days without even knowing that there were stamps for hem. It was a great surprise.

Same day we drove to Nashville. City = traffic and hard to park.. There was a Soul Food Festival by the river, so we cound’t actually walk down there.

We went to Big River Brewery, where we got the 8 bear sampler. David says that none were hoppy, no pales and no IPAs, only one dark… I liked the lighter one, that reminded me of the Brazilian one that I used to drink. David loved the wheat one. It was VERY good, very flavorful. The food was awesome.Then we decided to go the the Grand Ole Opry, since David knew Allison Kraus, and they were adverstising as if it would be moslty her on stage (at least that how I saw it – Pri). It was a very interesting pout-pourri of country music.

July 12
We woke up and drove to Mamouth Cave National Park, Kentuky.We too the Historic Tour, that took 2 hours. It was impressive how big the cave was. There I hear the same bird with the special song!!! David was very nice to ask a ranger its name – I confess I was self-conscious… We ate our left-over in a nice picnic area, and ready to go home we got a 2 hour traffic jam… When we got home (home, sweet home) it was almost 10pm, and we crashed in the bed!