Trip to Mountains, Part Seven

On Friday, we spent the day a little closer to our rental.  We went to the Deep Creek area of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  It is only about 15 minutes from our rental.  We went on a waterfall hike – walking on different trails to see all 3.  The boys were a little reluctant to hike at first (they would rather watch TV or play video games every day), but it was a nice hike.  The first waterfall was pretty quick and nice.  We took pictures and then we were off on a horse trail.  We walked along, pointing out all the mushrooms and rocks along the way to get Noah to walk part of the way.  We saw a few horses near the end of the path and then walked to the second waterfall.  This one was magical.  There were butterflies everywhere.  We walked down to the falls and then Katsu and then little boys walked down across the stream to take pictures and see all the butterflies.  Then, we walked along the stream and saw all the kids tubing – we will have to go back another time and try it when Noah is older.  We got into the water near the third waterfall and played with rocks and made little towers.  It was cold, but so fun.  We went back to the car, drove to the picnic area and had our lunch.  We were pretty worn out, so we drove by the Road to Nowhere and then we just headed back to the rental and then went swimming in the lake.  Boys had fun, though Katsu hurt his foot playing with the boys.  So, we headed home, had dinner, and made another fire for marshmallows.  Boys played a game of National Park Monopoly.  It was a lot of fun, but we were all ready to head home.