We went to the Alamo yesterday. We haven’t been there in, I don’t know, maybe 23 years or more. I remember it being a very small place and thinking, “is this all there is?” But they have a gift shop with some displays, a museum built into one wall, and a very nice garden area behind the church, the only building left of the original mission and fort. It was a very nice visit (and very cool inside the building!).
We are back in San Antonio. It will soon be our home away from home! We had a bit of rain while driving in from Texarkana, but it was really nice here in S.A. yesterday. I am afraid it will be hot and humid the rest of the stay. But that would be the “normal” San Antonio for me, not that we have spent that much time here . . . :o)
This is our second time in Gatlinburg; however, the first time was mostly driving through it to get to the park. We are spending a couple of days here this time. After our second day of hiking, we finished fairly early in the day and so we decided to walk into the heart of G-burg to see the sights and grab some dinner. We figured the walk on flat ground would be a good way to stretch our muscles which were, by now, complaining of all the hills to which we had subjected them in the past two days. G-burg is quite the little tourist trap. I don’t know why but I really cannot stand all those people who want to take “just a minute of your time.” I’m sorry, but my time is more valuable than that. I guess they are timeshare sellers, and I guess I won’t say anymore about them since everyone has to make a living somehow. (Just don’t make me feel bad because I don’t want to stop and listen to your spiel while I am walking down the sidewalk.) I imagine we’ll be back in this area again, but it won’t be for the stores, it will be for the hiking!
Day 2, Part 2: We were not overly sore from yesterday’s hike, although to say that we were not feeling any effects from all that uphill walking would be a lie! So, in order to be able to walk tomorrow, we decided to take a gentler hike today. We drove over to Cosby Picnic Area (almost 25 miles from our hotel in Gatlinburg!), way over in the northeast section of the GSMNP. We headed up the Gabe’s Mountain Trail, the first part of which is also known as Henwallow Falls Trail (we have also seen it listed as Hen Wallow Falls–they do have some strange names on some of their trails here). It was a nice up and down hike, although there were lots of tree roots sticking up all along the trail which made hiking just a bit more difficult, and there were lots of those small, pesky flies, the kind which unerringly fly right up a nostril or into your mouth and down your throat while you are talking. Yuck! But on to the good stuff. It was about 2 miles out to the falls, and the hike included crossing over 3 log bridges, and hopping from stone to stone (well, okay, we didn’t actually hop!) to get across a couple of small creeks. The falls were beautiful! The trail comes out at the bottom of the falls and it’s a great place to get a few awesome photos. I”ll post one soon.
What a great couple of days we have had. We are in Gatlinburg, TN to do some hiking. We did a little checking before we left home and found that the Appalachian Trail runs through the GSMNP and you can actually hike one section quite easily because the trail is near a large parking lot. Well, I have this desire to hike the AT. I know I am not really physically up to it, but whenever we are in an area where the AT runs nearby, we will hike a little bit of it just to say that we did! So we hiked 4 miles along the AT, starting at Newfound Gap. We hiked out to a big rock called Charlie’s Bunion and then turned around and hiked the 4 miles back again. There was quite a bit of uphill hiking on the way out, but nothing that wasn’t manageable. We had a good time and shared the experience with several other very nice hikers, including one couple from Quebec.