Indians, Mountains and Bears Oh My!

We started our day still at the campground. I was still sucking on the teat of free wifi while the boys met some new friends at the pool so I accomplished quite a bit until it was time to go. We were supposed to start on Milepost 469 but as we were driving there a big sign Cherokee made me veer off the beaten path. I wanted to visit the Cherokee Reservation because I thought this would be a great experience for the boys.

Cherokee wasn’t really like I expected. Dwarfed by the HUGE casino, it’s a true tourist trap. Indian dancing lessons, lots of moccasins, arts and craft and blow guns (yes, they started begging immediately). We paid 22 dollars for the Cherokee cultural museum which was pretty cool, but I could have bagged that and paid the 15 dollars for the petting zoo and they’d be happy. For another dollar, we took apples and as we waved them at the bears they did tricks for them! (Guess on the Indian reservation you can do this) Bengal Tigers, White Tigers, Max was in heaven! So there I was trying to put some culture in them when all I really needed to do was feed some apples to the animals! I must admit it was the cleanest petting zoo I’ve ever seen and they were really friendly (guess you would too if you made 15 in 10 minutes along with a buck for 4 pieces apple, 2 pieces of lettuce and a piece of bread?) We left with two arrows, one of which was immediately broken as we pulled out of the parking lot.

We started at milepost 469 of the parkway and it was hilarious, every turn had something flying out of the cabinets, Max spent the rest of the day dodging things! Another spilled drink (really!) Wolf hit in the head by the bed ladder and Max falling into the shower I started hitting the curves with a devilish gleam in my eye!

We were chugging up one hill and when we finally hit the passing lane the guy sped past us with a very pleasant “bird” in my direction. I said, “Man what’s his problem?” Both boys shrugged, “Maybe he didn’t like us making faces out of the back window and sticking our tongue out at him.” Do ya think? We're making a sign that says, "that's as fast as she goes!"

We made it to the highest point of the parkway, we stopped and hiked even with the threat of thunder, everyone whining the whole way up then oohing and aahing with the view. When I stopped for a picture there was a, “Mommy! Not another picture!” It really is beautiful country right outside our backyard, I told the boys, “There’s no way you cannot believe in God when you see something like this!”

We’re at our second campground, this one full of full time residents,the kind that tornadoes are looking for, the boys looking at all the tableclothes, chairs, funky lights, golf carts and they have me holding a ham sandwich and a lantern. They’ll laugh about this later, that in the scheme of things we really were roughing it! How would you define roughing it?