Team Smokies

Now that our trip is over, it’s time to plan a wedding! We’re so happy and it’s awesome that this blog has been our way of sharing our adventure and engagement with our family and friends. Thanks to everyone for following along with us and thank you especially for your crazy amount of love and support. We love all of y’all! Thanks for hanging out on this adventure of ours!! Onto the next adventure…

On our last day in the Smokies, we woke up before sunrise to this incredible view. We packed up the car, put in our warmest layers, and said goodbye to our little cabin in the woods. Then we set our sights on Tennessee to go white water rafting on the Ocoee River. The temperature? 32 degrees. Yikes.

We drove an hour and a half to the put-in on the Ocoee where we were supposed to meet the rest of our rafting group. Then we waited, and waited, and waited. And nobody came!

After about 45 minutes of reading and rereading our confirmation email to make sure we got the details right, we started wondering if our 9:15 arrival time was a typo on the email. Sure enough, at 10:15, our guides arrived with the rafts. Our annoyance briefly dissipated as soon as the adrenaline started going while we got ready to start our adventure. We donned some wetsuits and splash jackets and were ready for action!

We got debriefed in a little white water rafting safety and then walked our raft to the bottom of a nearby dam that had just been opened up to create the rapids on the river. And then we were off!

We had a rad time on the 2 hour trek down the river— there were no out-of-boat experiences, we got soaked, and the cold weather proved not to be a big deal because of our toasty warm wetsuits. Here’s a pic of us in action! (clearly we didn’t spring to pay money for it…)

The cold set in as soon as we took those wetsuits off so we cranked the heat in the car and hit the road back to Virginia. Unfortunately, our drive west that morning had added an hour and a half to our trip so it was a looong drive home but with a lot of wedding details to talk about we made the best of it.

We arrived in Richmond late that night and it was back to reality. But our super adventure on the Ocoee River was an awesome way to end our Smoky Mountain getaway.

PS: I owe Phil an apology for ALL the skeptical glances I gave him on our drive to the river everytime I looked at the temperature. I’m sorry! Thanks for making me do things even when I’m being all cynical!

Yesterday we spent about 10 hours in the car. Ten. Hours.

No we didn’t drive home (that would have been less than 10 hours), we spent all that time in the car exploring the area in and around Smoky Mountain National Park. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds, however, since we were planning on spending the day in the car anyway.

Our first destination was the Cades Cove Loop which we’d visited in our last visit to the Smokies. It’s an 11 mile loop on the edge of a mountain valley and its views of wildlife and the mountains are simply amazing. Last time we drove the loop, we saw a black bear and her cubs! So we were both eager to see how different Cades Cove looks in the fall and what sort of wildlife we’d see this time around.

Since we’d spent a lot of time driving the road we’d normally take to Cades Cove, we took an alternate route this time. Little did we know our new route was on the craziest road in the Smokies…. It wasn’t until we stopped at a rest area and noticed tee shirts advertising the Hellbender and Dragon’s Tail that we were in the middle of an epic stretch of mountain road full of hairpin turns. Back on the road, we tried to keep up with four mini coopers as they wound around the bends but we were totally lost in their dust.

After that badass drive, we stopped at a few gorgeous overlooks and a huge dam on Lake Fontana and then finally arrived in Cade’s Cove (over 3 hours after we’d left our cabin). The drive inside the loop was really beautiful but we weren’t lucky enough to spot any other wildlife than turkeys and deer (which other tourists were PSYCHED about). It was fun though, driving with the windows down and listening to Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and the Tallest Man on Earth while taking pictures of the mountains. Who needs bears when you’ve got good music and mountains?

The long drive home came next but we made plenty of quick stops along the way at scenic overlooks and in Cherokee for a moccasin shopping spree. Then it was straight into downtown Bryson City where we walked around exploring a few shops (including the most terrifying hoarders-esque outdoor shop EVER). We grabbed a quick bite to eat at the Station restaurant downtown and then headed home to carve a pumpkin, roast pumpkin seeds, watch There Will Be Blood and drink your milkshake.

Today, we’ve avoiding driving as much as possible and taking it easy at the cabin before white water rafting and heading home to RVA tomorrow.

All week long we’ve been meaning to give props to the place that has been our connection to the world all week. Being in an isolated cabin in the mountains together has definitely been an awesome way to spend the first days of our engagement BUT it doesn’t really allow for keeping up with the outside world, much less maintaining our rad travel blog. So early in the week, we explored Bryson City and came upon Cork & Bean, a wine bar and coffee house in the downtown area. All week long we’ve been coming here in the mornings, fueling up with crepes and lattes and reveling in the free wifi. This place is completely adorable, plays great music, serves delicious food, and hasn’t once told us to get the hell out after overstaying our wifi welcome. If you ever happen to be in Bryson City, NC you should definitely check out Cork & Bean! Tell them the bearded mountain man and his blond lady friend sent you.