Camping at Elkmont
Camping at Elkmont
This year, Daddy decided we should go camping for our vacation. We were lucky in that there was still a campsite available at one of the best campsites in the Smoky Mountains--Elkmont Campground. The only downsides: there is no running water at the campsites (potable water available at the bathhouses), no electricity (generators can be brought for some of the campsites), and no showers at the bathhouses.
Even though we have a camper, it's currently in pieces. Long story short, the roof was dented downward from age, and so the condensation runoff from the a/c was pooling up and then leaking into the camper. After some research, Sam figured out how to take the a/c off the camper (which leaves a big hole in the top), and started to take off the trim and everything else so he could rebuild the top. It will be a project we have to finish in the spring. In addition to that problem, we have had a hard time keeping the mice and squirrels out of the camper. This last time we opened it, it smelled like they had peed on every single surface in there. We removed all the foam cushions and brought them in for me to re-upholster. Sam also removed the canvas from the pop-outs so that I can pressure wash them and try and get the pee stains/mildew stains out.
Sam bought a tent for us, and we had a trial run this summer in our yard with the kids, and they. loved. it! It was so much fun! So, we decided to go camping again this year for vacation. We decided to go mid-October, so we knew it was going to be cold at night. We made sure to pack warm clothes, and we bought sleeping bags for the kids (adult size so they could grow into them and use them for a while!) Boy was it cold! It got down to the low and mid forties at night, so we basically slept in our clothes, coats/hats, inside the sleeping bags (which got down to 36*F), and a blanket on top of that! It was so cold when you woke up in the morning, you didn't want to get out of your clothes to get dressed!
We planned to leave Sunday and get to the campground early, but we ended up spending the weekend in Bowling Green celebrating our nephew's birthday (Happy 6th Birthday, Ryan!). So by the time we got out of town (we always get caught up talking...even though we went to mass earlier than we've ever gone before....6:30am!), we pulled up to the campground at dark. It was a bit of a rocky start as we forgot which campsite we reserved, and we started setting up on someone else's spot. Whoops. Luckily, we hadn't gotten far when she showed up, and we got everything settled rather quickly.
Since it was about 8:30pm once we got the tent set up, we decided to head back into town to do something for dinner. We didn't want to do anything fancy, just something easy. We settled on a restaurant and were super surprised when we arrived and found out it was INSIDE GLENSTONE LODGE! For those of you who don't know, I spent every fall break as a child at Glenstone Lodge. I'm talking like 12 or more years in a row. We loved the place because the pool has a neat little waterfall that overflows from the deep pool into the shallow pool. The shallow pool has a wading area for littles (that has their own waterfall), a hot tub in the corner, and a massive waterfall that you have to wade through to get to the stairs to go up to the deep pool. I have so many fond memories playing in the pool. From Pap Pap helping us to fit under the smaller waterfall to sing El Dorado, to swimming through the big waterfall, and jumping into the deep pool. We always stayed in the pool side rooms, and it used to be they would have a vent at the top of the door that you could open so that you could go to sleep to the sound of the waterfall. Since we only ate out one night, most breakfasts and dinners we made ourselves cooking outside in their picnic area right beside the river. Aaaand that particular spot was known for seeing bears!
After dinner, we walked the kids around to show them the pool! And when they saw the cool-"Charlie In the Chocolate Factory"-ish elevator in the front lobby, we even took the kids up and down once in the elevator so they could look out. It was such a special way to start our vacation.
Because the campsite had no electricity (and our car has zero space. Like the kids and I rode with our feet crossed because there was so little space.), we resorted to tin-foil meals. Almost everything was cooked before hand so all we had to do was warm it up. For breakfast I did: breakfast casserole for Daddy, cinnamon rolls, pancakes, and French toast. Lunches we decided to do sandwiches the whole week since we would probably be on the trails. So I packed trail snacks! Dinner we had chicken and shrimp shish kabobs, pot roast with potatoes and carrots, and a shrimp and sausage foil boil. The meals with the shrimp were not pre-cooked since shrimp cooks so quickly. But everything was prepped ahead of time and ready to go! (here's Sam's breakfast casserole I made for him to eat on the mornings we ate sweet breakfasts....which was every morning, haha).
The next day we started out easy with one of the trails near our campground. Aaron and Emily had told us about an unmarked trail leading to a cabin. We'd tried several years ago to find it but never succeeded, so this time we were determined!
The day started out with William finding this cool bug! He is our finder after all.
Sam and I both brought hiking backpacks, but he really only brought his on a couple trails in case Mena got tired. I on the other hand used my backpack everyday to pack that sweet baby up and down the mountain! I was so tired by the end of the week, haha, but it was wonderful! We actually bought the bag from Trulee and Brett from the yardsale for $12. It had a broken buckle that Nene kindly fixed for us! Hazel likes it better than my other bag because it holds her more upright. I like it because it also has a big area on the bottom I can pack drinks, snacks, food, and a bunch of other stuff.
We did end up finding the side trail, although....my sweet in-laws forgot to tell me about THE SUPER TINY BRIDGE WE HAD TO WALK OVER. Haha, it wasn't that bad, but it did make me quite nervous for the little two. We ended up seeing several of these type bridges over the weekend, but this one was definitely the thinnest!
We got to the cabin about lunch time, which was PERFECT. There were a few other people there at first (and we found out they were also from Kentucky!), but after they left we broke out the sandwiches!
The baby was looking so cute I definitely had to take a million pictures of her!
We of course had to take some potty breaks, sign the guest book, and then Sam found a broom so we could sweep the crumbs off and close the cabin doors as requested. The cabin was lived in as late as the 1980s. There was a picture inside of the window in the kitchen when it was decorated with red curtains, and in another picture, they had a piece of those very same red curtains. It was a very neat little cabin.
We wanted to swing by the visitor center that evening and get a trail map, but we showed up about 5 minutes after closing. We had to go into town for some milk and gas, then we headed back to the campsite for dinner!
The next morning, we hit up the visitor center for a trail map. Surprisingly, and not-surprisingly, you have to purchase one. Luckily, they were only a $1. What was super surprising was that they were so busy we couldn't find parking. Sam had to drop me off, then circle around, then I had to find him to get his wallet (and I didn't have my phone, but we didn't have service, so it wouldn't have mattered anyway), then go back inside and purchase the maps. By the time I got a map, Sam found a parking spot, and we brought the kids in to look at their very cool museum with native plant and animal species in the area.
After sitting in the parking lot for a solid 15 minutes staring at maps, we decided we were feeling brave and wanted do the longest hike we've ever done. Possibly the longest hike I've ever done in the smokies. I'd been to most of the nearby trails 100000 times, so I voted for Cades Cove which I couldn't remember going to.
It was about a 45 minute drive to get to the loop where they said it would take 3-4 hours to drive through depending on how much wild life was seen. Abram Falls trail was not until #10, and we ended up seeing a cabin on the drive, so we decided to pull off and hike to it. This is the view from the parking lot, so you can see it wasn't a long hike. I wanted to do lunch there anyway instead of having to stop somewhere on Abram Falls trail.
It was a very small paved (or non-paved if you took the other path) trail that took maybe 10 minutes to walk.
The cabin was super cute! The kids liked seeing the cool fencing, and there were a lot of wild turkeys roaming around.
We took a side trail out back up a massive 80* incline which went....no where actually. It must have been a spot people took often so it looked like a trail but wasn't actually one. Still, there were some massive logs that made perfect benches, and we lunched the kids.
The kids were harassed by a cool looking bug that they swore was a bee and I swore was probably just a mimic-fly. I still haven't looked it up yet, haha, but I did take a picture so I could go back and check.
When we finally got to Abram Falls trail, we saw a few people get on the trail behind us but for the most part, we weren't having to worry about letting people pass. The kids climbed some spots they thought looked cool while I changed diapers or while we grabbed a quick spot.
Hazel took a good nap!
They really enjoyed the tall views and seeing everything from high up.
And they loved the creeks, of course! They are definitely one of the best parts of the Smokies for sure!
I took a video of the river just for you! (okay, and for me to look back and listen, too. There's something so wonderful about the sound of the bubbling creeks in the Smoky Mountains.)
William of course found a cool bug on our way!
Mena kept falling down, so I had to hold her hand the whole way. Between her and carrying the baby, I was super slow, so we let Daddy and the bigs go ahead of us! They ended up arriving at the waterfall first! I think it's one of my favorite waterfalls! It was so pretty! I wish we had had time to stay longer.
Oh! Luke also took a tumble down the mountain. He tripped and fell shoulder and face onto the trail. When I got to him, he was spitting dirt out of his mouth, poor buddy. We had to sit down in the middle of the trail and let him have a good cry.
He was a trooper, though!
Luckily, there was one other couple behind us so they could get our picture!
The sun was setting really quickly, so we had a quick snack and then headed back down the mountain. Daddy put Mena in his backpack so we could make good headway. The clouds were a beautiful deep pink when we finally made it back to the car. And we. were. pooped. I forgot to mention the trail was 2.5 miles...one way...so we hiked about 5 miles with the kiddos. We were so proud of them! We headed home, cooked a good meal, and I'm pretty sure we had roasted marshmallows to celebrate!
The next morning, I decided to take some pictures of the campsite. We wanted to take it slow because we were all tired and sore! We didn't have room to bring anything to set Hazel in, so when we needed to put her down, we had to do so in the front of our tent and unzip the screened in portion so she could see out (and we could make sure she wasn't eating anything she shouldn't, haha).
Luke's face looked worse, and it continued to get worse! I ended up having to put a bandaid on his face because it scabbed over, and when I was pulling his jammies off, it pulled his scab with it and then bled.
We grabbed some nap mats from walmart (and borrowed some from the family) for the kids to sleep on, and lined them up at the foot of our bed. Oh! That's why we had to go to town! The first night, our air mattress (that we had just purchased that summer when we tent camped in our yard, had a hole in it, and we ended up on the floor!) We grabbed a mattress repair kit from the store, and that did the trick!
You can't really see the river front, but it was there! It was so nice sleeping near the creek. I didn't even miss the fan sounds we normally sleep with. The sound of the running water (not to mention the cold and exhaustion, put me straight to sleep).
We always had to start the mornings all bundled up and could usually unbundle by lunch time. Since we were spending that day relaxing, we did another trail near Elkmont campground. In the 80s a group of people decided to move to the country side as part of the back-to-nature movement that was going on (apparently). So a group of like 20 families moved out to the woods and build nature oriented houses. We walked through all the houses! Some of them even had a space for a tree in the middle of their house. Like they would have windows on all four sides of the tree, and the tree grew up through their house! It was super neat to see!
We lunched there and then spent the rest of the afternoon and evening at the campground letting the kids play in the creek. BECAUSE. I was dumb and didn't notice that Sam only had me prepare meals for three dinners. We weren't camping the entire time! He definitely surprised me there! And since we weren't going to camp the rest of our time there, we wanted the kids to have a chance to play in the creek as much as they wanted (oh, and Rylee definitely fell entirely in the creek the first day, and Luke fell in a little on the second).
We drove into town that evening to go out to dinner, and the kids fell asleep on our way there. So we parked, and decided to sit for a few minutes to let them sleep a little longer. Rylee came up to the front, and we started looking at some of the pictures from our trip so far! Lo and behold! Daddy looks out the window, AND THERE WAS A BEAR! Just tramping down the river bank in the middle (okay, the side) of town! We woke the kids up pronto, and followed that bear (from a safe distance of course!). Mena refused to wake up, so I ended up having to rush back to the car after we'd walked some distance and try again to wake her up so she could come see the bear! It was so cool. Such a Holy Spirit moment! If we had not let the kids nap, we would not have seen the bear! (click the link to see the video of it walking. The geese floating down the river were squawking as if to say, "absolutely not!")
After dinner, we decided to let the kids experience a little of downtown Gatlinburg. One of the first stores we stopped at was the candy store! The taffy machine was moving in the window, so I rushed them inside where they could see it up close! Just as we got inside, they stopped the streching/rotating one and moved it over to the spinning wheel that takes it from a big roll and rolls it down to taffy size pieces. The kids had a front row seat! One of the store workers (my intuition says managers or someone higher up) stopped and noticed us standing there and asked the candy guy (chef?) to give us the first pieces of taffy!! The kids were ecstatic! I had to hunt her down to ask if it has dairy in it (I noticed some of the boxed taffy recipes didn't), but it did. When I told her I was asking for the baby, she gave Hazel a lollipop! So I helped Hazel eat her very first lollipop! Let me tell you...she loved it! She yelled every time I didn't get it in her mouth fast enough, haha. Another Holy Spirit moment! If we hadn't gotten there at precisely the time we arrived, the kids would never have gotten to experience what they did! It was so sweet of God.
The evening ended with us walking through the Village (one of our favorite spots). There's a little coffee shop there that it's tradition we always stop at and get white hot chocolate. While white hot chocolate has dairy, I was able to get regular hot chocolate with almond milk. It was $5 and wouldn't you know it...I had exactly $5 left in my wallet after the other purchases we made. The Holy Spirit was on fire that evening (pun intended).
The next morning, we had to be out of the campsite at 10:00am. Daddy still didn't tell us where we were going...just that check-in time was at 4:00pm. We knew it possibly had a hot tub (I had my fingers crossed), a kitchen of sorts, and that it wasn't a cabin. Daddy missed the GPS's directions and took the slow way to the other side of town (aka straight through the middle of town instead of taking the back road), and I definitely harassed him for it a little! We passed Glenstone Lodge and waved, and no sooner did we get further down the road then we saw another bear cross the road! Seriously, another Holy Spirit moment. If we had gone the faster way as I suggested, we would have missed the bear! The Holy Spirit was really spoiling us this trip!
My idea for the day (since we couldn't check in until 4pm) was to take them to Grotto Falls! Sam had never been, and it was one of my family favorites growing up! Mom has a story of us getting to the end of the waterfall and hearing some people giggling. When she looked back, my brother had climbed up on a rock and was peeing right into the pool of water! I told the kids I had a surprise at the end of the short trail!
It was a lovely trail as always, and the kids LOVED the surprise that they could walk behind the waterfall. Unfortunately, it was so, so, so, so cold. The spray from the water, mixed with the elevation and the cold weather, meant the kids and I were shivering. We barely made it through lunch. I can't wait to take them back when it's warmer so we can stay a little longer and enjoy ourselves!
I also wanted to take them to Eli's Mill, which luckily, is on the way out of the trail loop after Grotto Falls! The lady at the cash register was a little more grumpy than I remembered, but the store was just as cute! And this time, they had little stalls from local craftsmen set up for perusal as well! We got some flavored honey sticks for everyone to try then headed out of the mountain.
And....drumroll....Daddy's surprise was that he booked us two nights at Glenstone Lodge! That crazy guy had planned this who knows how long in advance knowing that place was so special to me! (Sam and I even spent our first and possibly second Christmas morning at Glenstone on the way from Georgia to Kentucky to celebrate with our family!). We checked into the hotel then quickly headed out for dinner.
By the time dinner ended, the store we really wanted to go to (Earthbound) was closed, so we were headed back to Glenstone when we passed an icecream store. Ben and Jerry's has been my life savor the past ten months because they offer a dairy free chocolate-chip cookie dough (my favorite) ice-cream. (Father Edwin has also been really kind and bringing Hazel and I dairy free icecream when he brings some for the other kids. He's the best!). Anyway...we passed a Ben and Jerry's, I literally stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and backed up before giving Sam a look that said I really wanted icecream, haha. Two of the kids got sorbet, I got a dairy free icecream for Mena and I, and Lukey got a strawberry, regular icecream. We sat on the bench outside the store in coats, shivering and eating icecream! #worth it. (the price was questionably not worth it....but that's Gatlinburg prices for you).
Prepare yourself for ultimate cuteness! Look at those eyes!!
She would NOT let me have two bites without telling me she was ready for more! Everyone passing us was dying of cuteness, too.
I'm not sure how new these decor are, but now they have these cute little pumpkin scarecrow statues all around town. The kids insisted on taking pictures with them....multiple times, haha.
The next morning, I wanted to try the Log Cabin Pancake House right down the street. It's been there for a while, but I'd never gone....probably for good reason. The food was amazing! The price was....(*crying noises*). We ran by Earthbound, they did not have the item William really, really wanted. And they changed the format of the store. It's less cool now.
We decided to spend the rest of the day at the pool! After all, Daddy booked the hotel mainly so the kids could play in the pool. The water was a little colder than they were hoping, but we had a great time! I did, however, try to take Hazel under the waterfall you see Rylee over top of. She got splashed by the cold water, and that was it. She did not want to be in the pool almost the rest of the time!
Someone took a nap poolside. I was jealous.
When the kids got tired of swimming, I brought coloring books down. We used to play card games by the pool when I was growing up, but they were a little too cold for that.
Daddy watched little bit sometimes so I could go dip into the hot tub. Definitely the thing I looked forward to the most after packing the baby (and drinks/food) up and down the mountain all week. Sam looked most forward to a shower, haha.
The next morning, we had to be checked out by ten. We had enough food with us that we, thankfully, didn't have to go out to eat for breakfast again. We packed as quick as we could, and then spent a couple more hours at the pool! The kids wanted to be in the hot tub (we hadn't let them at the end yesterday because there were too many adults in it) but after awhile, I convinced them to come up to the deep pool. Honestly, I think I had more fun than they did jumping in! I dove under water to tickle their feet, did some toe-touches (they sucked, okay?), a few eggs, some can openers, and some cannon balls. They wanted me to teach them how to make a big splash, so I obliged. You can see from the video that even Mena was jumping in at the end! Such a big girl.
When we were all swam out, we decided it was time to dry off and head home. Only one problem....we turned in our keys already, and "bather's aren't allowed in the lobby". Luckily, we had been taking the stairs the last two days and seen absolutely no one else take the stairs. I piled everyone into the stairwell, closed the door, and we quickly changed. We stopped at a rest stop on the way home and had sandwiches, then drove the rest of the way home.
Hazel gave us a surprise when we got home. Apparently, she had been tired of being held and carried all week. For the first time ever in our lives, we unpacked the car and cleaned up the entire downstairs of the house THE SAME DAY WE GOT HOME. And Nene was very sweet and cooked us dinner that night so we didn't have to stress about unpacking, all the driving, and cooking. A super big thank you!
Chicken and Shrimp Marinade for Chicken and Shrimp Skewers
1/3 cup canola oil
3 tablespoons of lemon juice
2 tablespoons of soy sauce
2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar (we have a pomegranate one that is amazing)
1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard (pretty sure I used spicy brown mustard because it's what we had)
1 1/2 tsp onion powder (omitted)
1 1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp basil
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
I put skewers through chicken, shrimp, onion slices, and pepper slices, put the skewers in a ziplock bag, and poured the marinade over top. They sat in the cooler until we were ready to cook them (be weary of the ice so you don't get leaks into the ziplock bags). We cooked them over the fire for 8-15 minutes (honestly, I don't remember how long) until the chicken temps read over 165*F. If you wanted to do it better, put the shrimp on their own skewer so they aren't overcooked. But we were eating in the dark, so we didn't care. We were super hungry!
Pax Domini cum spirito tuo temper sit,
Torey, Sam, Rylee, William, Luke, Mena & Hazel
The social madness:
Etsy shop: MinIsland Farm
Youtube: MinIsland Farm
Website: GravissiMum, OFWOODANDEARTH BLOG (for recipes and past blog posts, visit our website)
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