Great Smoky Mountains National Park: Day 2 (Mountain Farm Museum, Waterfalls & Bears!)

Our second day in the park we drove all the way up and over and through the entire park to the southern side where they have another visitor center and the Mountain Farm Museum.

Sweet sisters

Handsome boy

They do demonstrations on the farm to show what life may have been like there 100 years ago. Here they are making soap by boiling down lard.

This shot was just too good.

Townes couldn’t resist the outhouse either.

We found a real oxen yoke!

The Oconaluftee River was gorgeous. 

Mabel tried out her new soap.

We decided to hike a loop that includes 3 waterfalls: Juney Whank, Indian Creek, and Tom Branch Falls.

June at Juney Whank Falls (I don’t know who came up with that name!)

Playing at Indian Creek Falls

This little purple butterfly landed on Mabel’s toe and then climbed onto Townes’ hand and sat there happily while he hiked a long ways. 

The butterfly even let me and Wren to have turns carrying it.

Tom Branch Falls was by far the most impressive.

Mabel, Juniper and Dave braved the freezing water and climbed up onto the falls to cliff jump back into the river. Townes really wanted to join them but the water was way too deep for him to cross on his own and it was too swift for Dave to carry him.

Tired, grouchy babes.

Made you smile!

Wilderness Babes

Back at the cabin we were enjoying our s’mores around the fire when Mabel suddenly stood up and announced that an animal was in the road in front of the house. It turned out to be a mama bear and her 3 cubs. They waltzed into the neighbor’s yard and then into ours, checked out the fire pit, and then proceeded to lounge around the yard for half an hour while we marveled from the deck. The cubs were adorable and the mama seemed super relaxed. They were clearly very used to being around humans. Two of the cubs wrestled most of the time while the other slid down the little hill on its belly. It was a really fun experience. (We called to report that 4 bears were in the yard and we were directed to just leave them alone. I think they get a lot of phone calls from out-of-towners. Ha.)