On Tuesday we went to Cades Cove, a small valley within the Great Smokey Mountain National Park. This area was first settled in 1818 by the John Oliver family. By the time of the Civil War rolled around there were about 685 people here among about 120 families. The settlers established the Primitive Baptist Church in 1827. Many of the early settlers are buried here. There was also a Methodist Church. It has two doors, one for the men and one for the women. Finally, there’s a Missionary Baptist Church here because some of the members of the Primitive Baptist Church were expelled because they favored missionary work.
This place is very peaceful. Except for the caravan of automobiles and the paved roads, it’s almost a step back in time when you go here. There’s no electricity, no cell phone service, and no Internet. Kitchens in these homes were primitive, usually some sort of a wood burning stove or a kettle hung in the fireplace. Of course there was no plumbing or running water. The accommodations were tiny.
We took a lot of pictures, these are the best:
Well I thought I’d write about this… We thought we had wifi so we could post here while we were in the cabin. Well we were less than impressed that there wasn’t internet available so we went to the realty and rented a MiFi…
MiFi is a service available from Verizon that is basically a cellular cable modem with a WiFi access point… Think of it as being able to get on the internet with a wifi enabled device… like the netbook I’m writing on… anwhere. At the moment it is sitting here on a table at “Flapjacks Pancake Cabin on the border of Great Smokey Mountains National Park and GatlinBurg, TN.
I uploaded a 585 MB video to YouTube with it last night and I also made the last post with it.
Speeds are pretty good considering it’s a device that basically fits in the palm of your hand.
If I were a road warrior on the road all the time and always needed internet service on the road, this would be the thing to get.
You can check it out at http://products.verizonwireless.com/index.aspx?id=fnd_mobile_hotspot
Today was our first full day here. We drove up Friday, left late so we stopped for the night in Fort Payne, Alabama, home of the country band Alabama. We went to the fan club and museum and then resumed our way towards Gatlinburg.
When we get to Pigeon Forge, we had to find our way to the realty that manages the cabins, then we had to find our way to the cabin. The traffic here is horrendous… worse than the Long Island Expressway. The route up to the cabin entails driving up Ski Mountain road and then some steep and windy roads. Here is video shot today of our descent from the cabin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMFnFiqAGmA
The video doesn’t do the trip justice, the trip down the hill in some locations is a 40 degree angle… going up the hill these locations are places where I couldn’t go anywhere unless I was in first gear on an automatic transmission.
Today while we were downtown we saw some cool stuff. This town reminds me a lot of places we visited while we were in Germany. Here are some of the pics we took today:
Tomorrow we’re going to go to the Aquarium, and to Cades Cove.
