Hiking in the Smokies

Monday was a gorgeous day with lots of sunshine so we decided to do a little hiking in the Smokies. One of the great things about the Smoky Mountain National Park is that the entrance is free!!! For our first hike we chose a trail that ran right next to a river the whole way. It was beautiful!

Here is what the trail looked like the whole way. The river is just to the left of the path.

There were several waterfalls along the path. Here is one of them:

Stopping for a drink:

Stopping for lunch:

While we were stopped for lunch a nice couple riding horses came by. The kids jumped up to watch them and the woman wisely surmised that they might like to pet the horses. Not only did she let them pet them, she let them ride them!! The kids were so excited!

The next couple of pics Dan snapped while I was trying to get a pebble out of my shoe. I had stopped, taken off my shoe and was trying to put it back on allthewhile maintaining my balance and not getting my sock dirty. Well, what made it more difficult was that Natalie decided she'd try to "help" by lifting up my non-shoed foot. Ummmmm. Not really helpful. But it got us all laughing. Very hard. Now imagine trying to maintain your balance and put your shoe back on while you are laughing uncontrollably. :-)