Bryson City, NC

I want to tell you more about our Bryson City trip. The North and South Carolina Mountains have so much to offer!

Here we are at our campground, settling in. We stayed at Ela Campground, which was wonderful, but very small and cramped. The owners were great and gave us two extra sites to spread out a little. We had three tents and one cabin. It is designed for RV camping more than tent camping. It is like Myrtle Beach's

OceanLakes may have been 30 years ago. We had a great volleyball game one night and a local couple cheered us on. The people at the campground are very friendly, a nice community.

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Here's a picture of my son and my brother. I wish I got more pictures of Tommy in his fishing gear, isn't he handsome! Tommy fished a lot; I also wish I got pictures of the huge trout he and Eden caught, which is still in my freezer, gross. Anybody want some trout? It's cleaned, but the heads are still on. Why? I don't know.

Besides fishing in Deep Creek, we also tubed. We have previously tubed in Deep Creek, which is adventurous and exciting, but this time we took a quieter ride on the Oconaluftee, which is near Cherokee. If you go, I recommend the Deep Creek for tubing. It's a lot of fun and right on a trail which the guys can hike up to go fishing. I posted photos from tubing and whitewater rafting in this post.

Here's a picture of Papa and Emma on the front porch of the cabin. They look like they need the detox diet! The cabin's cute, though, isn't it?

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Here's Eva waving to the people on the Dillsboro/Bryson City/Sylva train. When my kids were little, we took them on the train, it is a great activity for the little ones. The train stops at three small towns where you can get off and shop or enjoy the cafe's.

We watched the train when we went down into Bryson City for our favorite pizza place ever - Anthony's. If you're ever looking for good new york style pizza, anywhere, check out Tom's pizza finder.

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It was early afternoon and we were waiting for the rest of my family to arrive so we went over and had a few slices. It was a good opportunity to show Eden around Bryson City and for us to see how the town has changed since we've been there.

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One thing I noticed: drivers there are blinker challenged. They either don't use their blinkers or use the wrong one. It surprised me how many used the left blinker to turn right or the right blinker to turn left.

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On one evening, I took Marj into Cherokee to buy some mocassins. You have to watch out for those Indians. Marj got caught up in some tribal conflict here and had a short battle. Cherokee isn't my kind of thing, it's touristy and, well, kitschy. The Indian history and culture is exploited and ruined by crowds and stores. You can usually find a few guys dressed in Indian attire and performing various dances along the street. There are a few attractions that are genuine and respectful, but it's hard to see them through all the kitsch. I'd rather be hiking. You can see where we hiked in this previous post.

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We had a little walk along the Oconaluftee inside the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Here's Patti sitting in the cradle of this huge tree. Isn't that awesome?

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We stopped at the outdoors Mountain Farm Museum , just inside the park, where we could "explore a log farmhouse, barn, apple house, springhouse, and a working blacksmith shop to get a sense of how families may have lived 100 years ago." It's a very nice park, very interesting.

Here's Grampsy showing Eva the outhouse. Hey, when a girl's gotta go, a girl's gotta go. She didn't really care for the outhouse.

Eva also got to slop the pigs. We were there just as the Ranger was going to feed them, so we tagged along and she let us help.

That's it. That area of the country is a great place to visit if you get the chance.