Cades Cove is an isolated valley located in the Smoky Mountains National Park, the place we went to spend the day. In early days, Cades Cove was settled by the Cherokee Indians. In 1818, the cove was then settled by European settlers such as John Oliver and his wife Lucretia Frazier and others. By 1820, the population of Cades Cove grew to 671 with the size of cove farms averaging between 150 and 300 acres.
Today, Cades Cove belongs to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, where a ring road leads through the cove. Visitors can enjoy the many buildings left by the early settlers.
There is lots of wildlife, including bears and deer. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), we didn't see any bears, but the ranger at the visitor's centre assured us there are about 1,500 bears living in Cades Cove and the numbers are increasing.
The temperature all day today was hovering around the 0 Deg C mark.
My daughter Carol has requested a map of the area, so here are a couple.
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| This map shows part of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park |
Anyone interested, Dollywood (Dolly Parton's Theme Park) is about 20 minutes away from Gatlinburg. We didn't go there.
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| This map shows where Gatlinburg is in relation to the park |
Now let's have a look at some pictures I took today on the drive through Cades Cove.
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| A typical settler's home |
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| The Oliver Family hut |
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| Kathy and the Blogger imagine keeping warm in one of these houses |
About half way along the loop is the Cades Cove Information Centre where they sell books, CDs and DVD's as well as souvenirs of the place.
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| Information Centre |
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| Another Mill in another Woods |
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| Another settler's hut |
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| Finally we spotted some deer in the woods |
The early settlers in Cades Cove were very god fearing folk, both Baptists and Methodists. At one stage both lots started disagreeing with each other and both the Baptists and the Methodists split and started individual churches, so now there were two lots of Baptists and two lots of Methodists.
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| Primitive Baptists Church, one of the two split churches |
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| Rob took the opportunity to preach fire and brimstone to us |
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| A few more deer crossed our paths |
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| Another settler's hut |
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| And a storage hut |
Tomorrow is our last day here in the Smoky Mountains. The temperature forecast for tomorrow is -2 Deg C top, -11 Deg C during the night.. Too cold for us to go outside. We're having a lay day in this fabulous B&B in Gatlinburg.
The day after, we have a long drive to Memphis TN.
