2nd Wedding Anniversary Getaway

Shawn and I went to The Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Here's some pictures of the hike to the waterfall and Clingman's Dome, which is a lookout tower that offers views from all sides. It was very "smoky" (foggy) up there as you can see. The trees that appear dead have been eaten by a bug that accidentally came over from Europe a long time ago. We even hiked the Appalachian Trail! Not really, but there was an entrance to the AT on the short hike to the top of Clingman's Dome so we pretended we were avid hikers and just finished an exhausting hike, haha. The wood sign says "Appalacian Trail."
We also rafted down the Tuckasegee River in a duckie, which is an inflatable kayak. There's a picture of us fighting the raging water (class II) on www.tuckshot.com. Search 8/30/08 entries.

What a ride! Can you spot me??

The Great Smoky Mountain Railroad trip was beautiful...

All aboard! We left Bryson City's train depot and headed out toward Fontana Lake, followed the Nantahala River and went over a really high train trestle! Can you see the trestle? The lake was a beautiful green color. I'm not sure what makes it that color. As you can probably see, they've lowered the water level for the winter so it's not as picturesque as it would be mid-summer. We stopped at the Nantahala Outdoor Center for lunch on the river. I'd recommend this outing to families! Way fun!

The Dillsboro Inn

This is where we stayed during our vacation. We were right on the Tuckasegee River. Neat place. They had marshmallow bonfires every night for the guests and a neat multi-level deck with a little pebble beach. The owner was a little kooky but I guess that comes with the territory when you stay at a small owner-operated inn deep in the mountains, right?!