June 30, 2016 (Thursday)
Hooray – another vacay! This trip took us to Sapphire,
NC. The area has a bunch of waterfalls
and beautiful gorges. We left after work and made it to Richmond, KY. We stayed
at the Best Western (using a $50 off award we had received from the out west
trip). The hotel was nice – great breakfast spread!
July 1, 2016 (Friday)
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| Cumberland Gap NHP - hiking |
After a quick breakfast, we were back on the road. We
attempted to join the Cumberland Gap National Historical Park Hensley
Settlement Tour (represents 20
th century Appalachia). We had called the previous day, but the tour
was full and we got on standby. Needless to say, everyone showed up and we were
not able to take the tour. We could have
taken the Gap Cave Tour, but we had done that during our last visit to the park
so decided to skip it. The Cave tour is $8 ($4 with select passes) and lasts
about 2 hours. We did not recall the
Settlement Tour being available during our last visit. The Settlement Tour is
3.5 to 4 hours long and is $10/adult ($5 with select passes). We checked out the visitor center and watched
one of the two videos that were showing. The staff at the front desk
recommended some trails for us to hike – Object Lesson Road Trail to the
Tri-State Trail. Once to the top of Tri-State Peak, you can stand in three
states at once – Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia. We also drove up to the
Pinnacle Overlook for some lovely views.
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| Great Smokey Mountains - Oconaluftee |
Next stop – The Great Smoky Mountains! On our previous trip we stayed on the TN side
of the park, this time we checked out the NC side. The visitor center,
Oconaluftee, was a new building since we last had visited the NC side back in
2008. Besides just checking out the
visitor center area, we also visited the Mingus Mill.
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| Mingo Falls |
Just outside of the Smoky Mountains, there is a nice
waterfall – Mingo Falls. It is a bit of a hike to the falls (lots of stairs).
The parking area is a little small, but there seemed to be a steady flow of
people leaving when we arrived.
Lastly, we headed to our Sapphire destination – Fairway
Forest. The accommodations were okay – they could definitely use some updating.
We had dinner at Mica’s – which is rated as the best
restaurant around. It was just okay, nothing too crazy with the menu.
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