This National Park has a scenic drive, as most of them do. We try to drive these roads since they usually have a lot of "bang for your buck". The average person spends 4 hours when they visit a national park, and the scenic drives are designed so that visitors can see lots of interesting things in a short time. Here, we passed by trailheads for several interesting hikes. We hiked 5 miles (R/T) to Abrams Falls. Had we brought swim suits we could have gone swimming once we got there, but I didn't even poke my foot in the water. The humidity is so high, I was afraid my feet wouldn't dry enough to go back into my boots. Once we were back in the truck, we continued on the drive. There are many old buildings that were preserved and we stopped to look at some of them. The Oliver family lived on this land for over 100 years before the land was taken to make the park. Many of the original buildings are still here, although some of them have been moved. One farmhouse has a "stranger room"- a room attached to the main house but with no access to the interior of the main house. They used it when someone passing through the area needed a place to sleep.
Once we had seen enough, we veered off and went exploring down a narrow gravel road. Halfway to the end, a bear crossed the street right behind our truck. We watched him disappear into the thicket. I did get a picture but not a great one. Further down the road we were surprised to see a Mama bear and her cub cross the street. We realized that if we turned left onto the next road, we'd see them again, so we did that and watched them approach. Once they went off through the woods again, we moved to the next road and waited for them. This time I got out of the truck and onto the toolbox in the back, so I could get a better picture. This was a main road, so when the bears did show up, a lot of cars stopped to watch them, but we had prime seats!
The weather once again ruined our plans for the afternoon. We were hoping to go tubing down the nearby river, but the heavens opened and the rumble of thunder could be heard, so we gave it up and went home to eat dinner. The humidity is pretty uncomfortable and we were both looking forward to getting to a campground with electricity.
Yesterday we drove from the Smokies to Anderson, SC. Anderson is near two large lakes -Hartwell and Keowee. We are checking the area to see if its "retirement worthy" for when we decide to stop traveling. The lakes are great but the towns don't seem to be what we are looking for. Our original intent for this week was to spend it in Lexington, SC, near Lake Murray, but we decided that since we'll be there for 2 weeks, we can afford to take this week to look at other lakes.
We took off this morning and headed to Stumphouse Tunnel. This tunnel was supposed to connect Charleston SC with the midwest, and was started just before the civil war. Unfortunately, the mountain is solid granite and of course there were no power tools to use. They averaged clearing about 200 ft of tunnel per month and after excavating 4300 ft of the 5800 ft needed, they gave up. Its been abandoned since then but the first 800 ft is open to the public. There's also a very pretty waterfall nearby- we just viewed it from the platform and didn't hike down to it.
