Author: travelingterrells

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When searching for a family friendly hike in the Smokies who could resist a half mile paved trail to the highest peak in the national park?

What if I told you the hike was straight up? Well, at least it felt that way. Having a four year old in a hiking back pack whilst climbing didn’t help things either. About halfway in I was set to order a helicopter to pick me up at the summit to save me from my heart attack.

Clingmans Dome is the highest point in along the Appalachian Trail as well as the highest point in the Smokies ,as mentioned previously, at 6,643 feet. The parking lot can be found off Newfound Gap Road where it is a short but steep hike up to the Clingmans Dome Observation Center.

My advice would be twofold: Dress warm as the temperature at six thousand plus feet above sea level could be up to twenty degrees cooler than that at the bottom and secondly not to enter the national park with a quarter tank of gas. We were on point with only one of these, (psst, check out the pic above). Be sure to watch the video below to the end to check out two very non traditional RV’s that were courageously driven up the switchback roads to the parking area by international tourists bent on seeing the best of America.

After Clingmans Dome we headed back down range and stopped at The Chimneys Picnic Area for a quick dip in the West Prong Little Pigeon River before getting chased out by the rain.

Well, that’s it for The Great Smoky Mountain National Park as far as our content anyway. Please be sure to stay tuned as we introduce George to Brook n Wood in our next post. Thanks for stopping by.

We drove through the Smoky Mountains National Park from Gatlinburg to visit Cherokee, NC. The drive took a little over an hour through mountain switchbacks and turns but was scenic all throughout. The North Carolina side definitely looked a little greener to us but we mainly made the drive to Cherokee to visit the Museum of the Cherokee Indian. We were particularly interested, as Linda’s part Cherokee, in how they made their lives and later the plight of the Trail of Tears. I wish I could elaborate but the kids dragged us through the museum in about 20 minutes. Has to be a record time.

On our return to the park we found a great little playground in Cherokee and ate our picnic lunch in the pavilion while the kids played for over an hour here. It just goes to show you how the smallest, most unplanned things tend to leave lasting memories.

 

Stay tuned as we head back to Smoky Mountains National Park next as we search for another family friendly hike. Thanks for stopping by.

We chose the Imagination Mountain Campground when visiting The Smokies from listening to campground reviews. The reviews were based on when it used to be The Great Smoky Jellystone but nevertheless it is run by the same family and, by our opinion, has not suffered a bit from the changeover. We thought the campground was just terrific. It’s a small campground as most of them are in the area, but that only added to it’s charm.

Imagination Mountain is a little over a half hour drive to the Gatlinburg area and is in Cosby, Tennessee. A great staging area for exploring Smoky Mountains National Park.

There is a stream that encircles the campground and most of the sites back up to that stream. Our kids spent countless hours playing in the frigid mountain water. The pool was in fact closed as we went prior to Memorial Day, but the kids didn’t seem to miss it a bit.

There’s a great little store with an ice cream parlor built into it and a great little arcade above which we played in one morning  on a rainy day. They had these great foam blocks up there which we built a fort from as well as billiards, air hockey and even a great little kids library complete with rocking chair.

Linda said they had the nicest and cleanest campground bathrooms she’s ever seen and I believe she liked the laundry facility as well. They also had outside corn hole games, free miniature golf and a large chess set behind the main building next to the pavilion.

We had mass in the pavilion as we were there over Easter Break. We talked about family and camping and God. David Landry, one of the owners performed the mass and played a Christian rock tune followed by a brief prayer for safety of travelers. Probably  the shortest mass we’ve been to but the message was still there: family.  You can see our deacon on the video at the bottom of the page. He, as well as all the staff, were very courteous and put the children first.

The mass was followed by an Easter Egg Hunt in the well appointed playground. Our kids spent many hours in that playground pretending to be pirates and swinging on the tire swing.

If there’s one thing that the campground is lacking, it’s paved roads. We brought all our bicycles but didn’t use them as the large gravel roads weren’t friendly to bikes, especially ones with training wheels. That’s the only thing that we would improve, however there were so many other things to do.

Imagination Mountain Camping Resort adjoins Smoky Mountains National Park and there are even a couple of trails that can be directly accessed from the property. If we come back to the Gatlinburg area I can’t see us staying anywhere else.

Stay tuned as we take you to Cherokee, NC next. Thanks for stopping by.

Gatlinburg is situated at the foot of Smoky Mountains National Park and welcomes about 80,000 visitors annually. Though quite touristy, we had fun looking at the usual Ripley’s attractions and shops.

We ate at Bennet’s BBQ after seeing all the sights and negotiating the shops with the kids,(nothing broken, thank goodness) and made our way back to the Campground. We would travel through Gatlinburg many times on our way to Smoky Mountains National Park.

Stay tuned as we’ll tell you all about the great campground we stayed at while we were here in The Smokies. Thanks for stopping by.

What trip to the Tennessee side of the Smoky Mountains would be complete without a trip to Dollywood? We visited Dollywood on our second full day in Tennessee as the kids couldn’t wait. It was pricey, but reasonable I guess compared to other amusement parks. I wasn’t prepared for how big it was. There’s no way you could do it all, or most of it all, in a day. On recommendation from one of the park goers we met on line we had the kid’s heights measured early on so we would be able to easily know which of the rides they would be allowed on. There are many coasters here and most of the park would probably be suited for kids a little bit older but we had a blast any way. 

We first got our feet “wet” at The Smoky Mountain Rampage Rapids and then moved onto the Dollywood Express Train Ride. Ryan just loves trains and the authentic Baldwin 2-8-2 Locomotive just made all the right sounds, motion and smells to make any train enthusiast grin from ear to ear. We then rode a few kiddy rides in the Owen’s Farm section of Dollywood and then had lunch as everybody was getting a bit hungry and tired. The kids were nice enough to put a performance on while we ate in a pavilion that just happened to be facing an open stage.

We rallied after lunch as we had to get Sarah on a coaster for the trip to be complete. I took Sarah on the Firechaser Express while Linda, Ava and Ryan went on the River Battle Ride and got totally soaked as she was outmatched with only a three and four year old on her boat.

The Firechaser Express was Sarah’s first backward roller coaster. She’s been around you know- Space Mountain! When you leave the “station” it looks as if you’re going to run into the back of the coaster that left right before you but they switch the tracks. You then go on a high speed ride to a fireworks depot which proceeds flashover while you’re in it! You then do the whole course backwards! Sarah loved it. She’s got an iron stomach.

All in all, we had a great time in Dollywood. A bit pricey as I mentioned before but Dolly Parton helped so many families in the Gatlinburg area after the wildfires that we couldn’t prevent ourselves from feeling that some of the money we spent there went to families that so need it so very much. More on the Smoky Mountains to follow so stay tuned. Thanks for stopping by.

After our Laurel Falls Hike the kids were pretty tired so we decided to let them sleep while we drove the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail.

This trail is a one way 8 mile loop and provides some great views of the park for perhaps those that are unable to hike. It also accesses a few trailheads and picnic areas along the way. I turned on the dash cam for our drive through and sped up the footage  so if you’d like to see what the drive consists of check out the video below.

 

At the end of the video you can see some effects of the wildfires, namely the burned out log cabins on the right side of the road. We saw a lot of this during our stay at The Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It almost seems like the main fire in the remote areas of the park set many spot fires here and there possibly from brands being taken by the wind. Thanks for stopping by.

We recently just returned from our second big trip in George, our new camper. I’m happy to say everything went well and we all had a blast. It was a bout a 700 mile trip down. We left on a Tuesday night and drove for about five or six hours staying overnight in Maryland and finished the drive the following morning  to Imagination Mountain Campground, checking in mid afternoon. We hung around the campground the rest of that day and woke up early the next morning and prepared to embark on our first hike of the trip.

The Laurel Falls Trail leads you to Laurel Falls via a 1.3 mile trail with moderate elevations. The trail was nearly ideal for our children as it was paved and didn’t take too long to get to the “summit.”

The only precaution I’d report for the trail are the steep drop offs you encounter while traversing. While the path is wide enough, certain portions are not for the faint of heart. We cautioned are young children several times about this and kept a mindful eye on them.

We reached Laurel Falls and found it quite unique as you cross over a bridge with the top waterfall on your right, the water then passes underneath you and onto a ledge on your left when it then “falls” again.

The bridge can be seen at the above right. There was a thirty foot drop off to the right of this bridge and the only way down there was climbing down on boulders. We thought it too dangerous to bring the kids down there but I’m sure there are some great photos to be taken from the very bottom.

It was a truly great hike and I’m fearful at this point that the kids might be getting spoiled as they think every hike ends with a waterfall. Check out the video of the Laurel Falls Hike below:

Stay tuned as we went to Dollywood the following day for rides and thrills. Thanks for stopping by.

After our shakedown trip from South Carolina, we realized we needed to make some mods to our RV screen door, possibly the most used piece of equipment on our camper. It turns out we were spoiled with the screen door on our old camper which had a device that allowed you to depress the screen door handle without moving the slider. I purchased one of these without measuring first, thinking these might all be a standard size. As it turns out it was too small, so I had to find out an alternative means to open the door from  the inside. First I tried using a small piece of shade cord which worked fine except it was a little too low. I later found a product from Camco RV called the screen door opener in which you drill a 9/16″ hole in the slider and can depress the screen door handle by lifting up on the Camco handle. You can see a pic of this below on the lower right.

We also discovered that the children have a knack for leaving the screen door open when entering or exiting the camper. This lets the mosquitos in and the dog out. The Screen Door Closer kit also from Camco solves that problem. I had installed a common spring from a hardware store on our old camper but Camco’s kit adds a second spring and hardware for probably not much more. Kudos to Camco for coming up with this and packaging it. The kit works great with the installation of just four screws.

I aslo installed a screen door grille by Camco which I had removed from our old screen door. On that camper it was for the kids, on this one it’s for our dog. Also a four screw installation, very easy. It adjustable so it should fit every type of screen door.

Our last screen door mod wasn’t purchased. I noticed that every time the kids needed to enter the RV from the outside they had to climb up both steps to reach the screen door handle, then back down the same two steps in order to have room to open the outward opening door. Now while holding the door, they now have to climb up the steps again to enter. It’s no wonder they’re leaving the screen door open constantly! I drilled a tiny hole in the screen door handle and threaded the end of a piece of shade cord (different piece than the one I mentioned above) through it, tying a knot at the very end. The other end was lead down the outside of the door through a loop terminating near the bottom of the screen door which can be reached with by the children standing at ground level outside the camper. Now they just have to walk up, pull the cord, opening the door, and simply climb the steps once. Sure, they could use the exercise but the previous process of climbing the stairs multiple times has surely led to more bugs entering the camper. You can check out this install as well as the screen door guard and the opener and closer kits mentioned above in the video below.

I also installed small eye loops and bungee cords at the end of this video as we had stuff launching themselves at us from our medicine and hall pantry cabinets very time we came to a stop after driving. I had the hardware left over from another project and ordered the smallest size bungee cords to string between them creating fiddles that will keep these things from falling out in the future. Thanks for stopping by.

The Jeep Wrangler is one of the easiest tow behind vehicles available today. You pretty much put the transfer case in neutral and off you go. What’s left to do now is a to find a way to attach it  to the motorhome and rig a system to activate the brakes and taillights. I’ll get to that in a future post but the former has led me to seek out installing a tow bar base plate kit or better yet a bumper that has D-ring mounts that  adapters can be made to fasten to the D-ring mounts on one end and the tow bar on the other end. I chose the bumper as I could mount a winch inside of it, further enhancing the off road capabilities of the Jeep. Thinking ahead of places we may travel to, I may like to venture further when the pavement ends.

I found a great deal on a set of  Shrockworks bumpers and sliders through a third party that was stuck with the items after a customer never showed. The installation was pretty straight forward. Shrockworks made it possible to utilize a lot of stock holes and mounts with little drilling. I installed a Warn Powerplant Winch inside the bumper in case I might need to rescue myself or somebody else out on the trail. I opted for the 12,00o pound size on the winch as if I used a snatch block I could double the capacity of the winch, say a 24,000 pound motorhome. I swapped out the winch cable with Viking Synthetic Winchline that’s lighter, stronger and safer  under tension than the winch cable. This led me also to replacing the Warn Winch Hook with a Viking one to accommodate the larger thimble and an AEV License Plate Kit was necessary since I lost the plate mount with the old bumper.

I also installed a Shrockworks rear bumper as well which has integrated back up lights which greatly help at reversing at night. The rear bumper was even more straightforward than the front one and had a cutout for the trailer connection.

I also received Shrockworks Rock Sliders with that I mounted as well. The pic below shows the sliders installed as well as how the Jeep hooks up to the motorhome. It’s taken from some distance away but it helps illustrate the whole picture and why I went with the front bumper install.

Also check out the video below documenting the install. I find that when I’m in the thick of it working on things sometimes I either forget or forego the camera as I get so engaged in the task at hand  but I think this combination of stills and short video clips serves to at least highlight these mods. Thanks for stopping by.

After leaving Charleston, we started making our way back North and stopped for 3 nights in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. We booked Lakewood Camping Resort for it’s indoor heated pool so our kids would be able to swim should it not be warm enough (more on that later). Lakewood Camping Resort boasts about 1900 campsites which is way larger than any campground we’ve encountered so far and it’s also oceanfront. We were literally, six campsites from the dunes!

Photo courtesy of Trip Advisor

We arrived in the late afternoon, set up quickly, prepared a quick dinner and hit the pool for an evening swim. Instant hit for the kids. The next morning we headed out to the playground but when the kids spotted the ocean they were quick to dismount their bikes and check it out. Mind you, we were only “wading” when minutes later they were fully wet from head to toe.

This was the first time, Ava and Ryan had seen the ocean and all three of them were thrilled. They probably spent an hour running from the waves and letting them soak them through. There was so much sand in their clothes I had to dip them in fresh water to get most of the sand out.

We washed up and made our way over to the strand to ride the the Skywheel and grab a quick lunch on the boardwalk. We later had some ice cream and  found a haunted house  that was supposed to be open all year according to my travel guide but was clearly closed the day we were there.

Here’s the thing: a lot of what happens in Myrtle Beach is seasonal but we were escaping the February New York weather and anything beats just spending the week off of school in the cold. Many attractions do close and some open as early as March first including the outdoor pool and splash zone at our campground. We ended up finding Ripley’s Mirror Maze next door to the haunted house which was way overpriced based on the limited experience it offers. This is something we probably would not have done but it was a consolation prize for disappointed kids (though I think the age requirement might have been 6 and older for the haunted house so it may have not been meant to be after all).

We then went back to the campground for another swim in the pool, made a campfire (right on the grass without a fire ring) and went to bed. The following day we went out seeking the Ripley’s Aquarium on a recommendation Linda got from a couple in Charleston.The kids had a great time even if it did seem a bit small compared to the aquariums we’ve visited so far, perhaps we’re spoiled. The jellyfish touch tank was a completely new experience as was the glass bottomed boat ride even if was just pulled around the top of the shark tank on a set of ropes.

 

The weather was warming up as we left the aquarium. It was forecasted to be 74 degrees but actually got up to near eighty. We drove back to Lakewood, threw on our bathing suits and went for a dip in the ocean. I took the kids out a bit to where they were swimming and riding the waves and they absolutely loved it! The water temperature had to be around sixty degrees and when they kids started turning blue we headed for the heated pool, rinsing off the saltwater and and having a relaxing swim.

We headed out early the next morning but had an absolute blast in Myrtle Beach and the kids are already asking to go back. I can’t believe they took to the ocean as well as they did.  It’s a testament to the adventurous spirit that’s being  fostered in them by taking the trips we take. Our next trip is in the planning so stay tuned. Thanks for stopping by.