Our Trip to Mammoth Caves and Smokies....

As always this long weekend also I wanted to go somewhere out of Florida. So two weeks or more of preparation first of all...when we all (Myself, Arvind, Jithesh, Saral, Shakti and Abhijith) thought of going to Mammoth Caves and Smokey Mountains in the Christmas holiday. Although we know it's not the best time to go, but still thought to spend our holidays out there....

Well the best part was we were supposed to be 6 then finally it happened that all of us decided not to cancel the trip. We had almost four days to spend. We wanted to do so many things but then just 4 days. So had to plan what is to be covered in 4 days...After all these initial things, we decided to start of on Thursday at around 2 PM. So that we could reach the cave city (for Mammoth Caves) early next morning (almost 14hrs drive).But then we started off at 8.00 PM... So 6 hrs late :) and reach in 22 hrs after getting lost here and there on the way :-)....( It’s easy to get lost in Atlanta!!!!!)...

Beginning was all fun... We were tired, but enthusiastic to go for the eventful weekend. But as soon as we started we saw a COP flashing light on the back of the car, but as we were wondering (why?? Did we cross the speed limits?? Did we broke some rule?? ) and slowing down the car we realized that he was just asking for the way and not stopping us  So it was fun (first experience!!!) …...After some 2 hrs of drive we started playing movie in the car... Time went by and in the morning we realized that we have taken some wrong highway and not sure where exactly we are on our way ;-) ...but that was a beautiful mistake as we got lot of good sceneries on the way (any way we are on the fun trip!!!).Again we started, lost, started and finally reached cave city around 8p.m. in the evening.

We rented two rooms in the Quality Inn (for two nights) and we just looked around the place... city was just like a normal city... just that it was a bit smaller... But then we were so tired... and we slept... hoping to have fun the next morning.....

We were supposed to leave at 8.00 AM, but because of our previous days tiring trip, we woke up around 8.30..... 9.....
Just got ready and went out to see how beautiful the morning was... And it surely was... very beautiful and very cold... :).We found out that most of the caves are closed because of the Christmas holidays :-( so we made a sudden change in our plan that we will be driving some more and going to Gatlinburg as well. So we decided to pack up from the hotel and checkout today itself...
Then we went to see the Mammoth Caves and took a small tour (the only running tour in Christmas holidays) to the long and huge caves (with the beautiful guide Ibrow ;)). Enjoyed the “full darkness and complete silence” inside the natural caves. After the tour as we wanted to see some more caves and went to see the Diamond Caves and realized that we are just half and hour late :-( for the last tour of the day. We took some snaps (with great difficulty to stand on one single stone for six people) from that view point and started back to drive through valley to see for the beautiful scenaries...It was a nice and cold.......by this time it was 2.00 PM

We were very hungry. So we drove till we found some place where we could eat... There was this Burger King. So we went in there...We had lots of food on our table... ....we enjoyed our food and decided what to do next...there was only one answer! Drive to Gatlinburg (people had real enthuses!!!!) ...So we went to a gas station...filled our car and found out the route to Gatlinburg (7 hours drive, shall we go??)...And started back. As it was raining heavily, the drive to Gatlinburg was tough, interesting though (Here comes our second experience with the cops!!...As we were on the middle on the way, we started new movie “Dil Chata Hai” and as the first seen started with the siren of the cops, none of us realized that it’s the car speaker from where the sound is coming and started looking for the cops in the back of the car with our heart beats raising again. and later realized that it’s in the movie  (So dumb isn’t !!!), but believe me it was too realistic with just rear speakers on in the car!!!

In the night around 8 p.m. we entered the beautiful City in the middle of the Smokey Mountains; decorated with colorful lights for Christmas...We again took a room and went to around seeing the city for sometime. It was too cold but too nice....As we were already tired, we roam around for sometime. And went to sleep again...
As it was a full adhoc plan we didn't know where to go in the morning. We woke up early...ppl starting taking photos here and there...and as it was raining as well....we thought out day is totally ruined. But it didn’t!!!!
So we had our breakfast and started to drive in the range of Smokey Mountains. We thought of driving for three-four hours and then come back to Gatlinburg and start off back to home in the evening. But we didn't know that time that all the plans don’t really work out always!!!After our Adventure on Saturday... we wanted to enjoy to our level best on Sunday... We started around 10 a.m. from our hotel (that was our check out time...) We headed towards the park...Reached the visitor center...grabbed a map...We thought we will go around the Smokey Mountains to get a nice view (of being on top of the huge mountains) and then headed towards the Pigon Forge and started driving on the foot hill parkway then went towards the tower... On the way we stopped number to places for the view points... The view from there was just amazing... We tried to capture everything in our cameras... But nature is always best viewed naturally... We enjoyed each and every view point...Finally reached the point where we had to climb to reach the peak point of the tower, a nice trail ...We had to climb a steep (not that much) path to reach the point... We made our climb a bit slowly by stopping by and taking photos, enjoying the nature ....Reaching the top we just had to climb a circular tower.... Here is where we could get the 360 degree view :) And after reaching there.... Wow it was just so wonderful... "Top of the Smokies" Small hills around....Mountains around.... we were on top of the clouds and as it was a rainy day...although we were not able to get the real view of the mountains but still as the wind was blowing fast, sometimes the clouds we going away and we were able to see the small city located in the mid of the huge range of mountains...
We were there for around 15 mins... Then started to come down.... Again we stopped at o many points... to enjoy the scenic beauty...

Then there was a Dam in the map so we thought of going there. and started toward the place, but as we reached on place we realized that we are actually on top of the mountains from where we can see the Dam clearly but we are some distance (we actually didn’t realize that some distance in hills becomes a huge distance if you want to reach there ) away from the Fontana Dam...As our friend (Arvind) wanted to see the Dam,we started driving towards that...as we started driving on the ghat roads (hilly roads, I think it is called the "Tail of the Dragon" - 318 curves in 11 miles. Turns were so tight we could not see even a single car in front of us. - Still an occasional semi tries to run it at top speed.) We realized we have come away and away from our city Gatlin Berg...and by now it was already 3p.m. and every one was really hungry :-(...But as we didn't have any option of takeing a "U" turn on those roads we kept on driving (to no-where actually).....and after a long drive of almost 2 hours we finally reached the Fontana Dam….The entry to the huge dam was the best; as we took a left turn and the huge wall of the Dam started coming in line of sight for us…That was really a beautiful scene like the scene of Golden Eye movie (as Arvind says) We took some snaps near the huge bridge, although not everyone came out of the car because of the hunger and cold (I guess!!). Suddenly we saw a car coming towards the Dam so we thought of asking the person about some food outlets nearby:

Us: Hi!! How are you?
Old Man: Yaah! I am fine, how you guys doin?
Us: We doin fine, just came to see the Dam…Could you please tell us, how far we are from Gatlinburg..
Old Man: Sure…almost 3 hours away.
Us: Whaaaaaat………!!!!!!.. :-(..Okay…can we get some food outlets nearby?
Old Man: Humm! You can get only after a drive of at least two hours.
Us: Which direction?
Old Man: Any Direction…
Us: Okay :-(
Old Man: Where you guys are actually heading to and when?
Us: We have to go back to Florida…and planning to start today itself.
Old Man: You guys really look crazy.
Us: Yup ,Thanks a lot for the information…Merry Christmas.
Old Man: Merry Christmas…bbye
Us :bbye.

So guys we are in deep trouble. Please hold on for 2 hours before you can get anything to eat!!!!!

As anyway we didn’t have any other option we started driving back towards the place called Fontana Village with the hope of getting something to eat there. We found that the village was quite near by to us. And then someone told, on the top of the village there is a restaurant where we can surely get something to eat, so all of us were really happy to know this and started running for the restaurant!!!But as soon as we kept running/walking we realized that in the whole village we didn’t see even a single human being other than the person who told us to go up... :((….we entered the building of the restaurant and found no-one there :-( to our surprise.....just got a vending machine from which we bought some Chips and Chocolate to eat  ...Listened to the music whose source we could not find out….so as the place so good we started referring it as “Haunted Village” and decided to leave the place as soon as possible. So we left the place and started our journey back on the ghat roads… (Still wondering why there was no one in the whole village????)

Finally we got to city of Maggie and found a open Waffle House…had our dinner there and started back to look for the way to Gatlinburg…it was full dark till now and as soon as we enter the way to Gatlinburg we realized that the roads have been closed because of the snow fall!!! (What else to happen??) So what now???

So we decided not to go back to Gatlinburg, instead start back for the Florida (our main destination), filled the gas and found the route to go back..And as we were not even 1/10 the distance it went so dark. we were just driving down cautiously in the dense fog and wondering what more left to see today after driving on the hills roads with no one back and front…the snow fall started ….as none of us ever seen the snow fall till now it was fun seeing it…it was becoming difficult driving down the hills. :-(..

In the meanwhile it was so so cold....but then feeling satisfied that we did some adventures the whole day... :)...This was the end of our day filled with tension and cold... Or let me say the end of our adventures trip…we kept driving the whole night (got lost once in Columbia, normal till now  as got used to it……but finally in the morning reached home all tired and sleepy with so much nice memories with us……