Monday, May 2, 2016

Cade's Cove and wildlife

Saturday I drove to the southwest corner of the park, to another area designed for motor nature viewing.  The area is a big valley, huge meadows surrounded by mountains and forests, with a 10 mile one-way single lane road around the periphery of the meadows.  As I got close to the beginning of the loop road, the traffic became an issue, and on entering the loop, it was literally bumper to bumper.  Fortunately, there were many pullouts to allow a chance to stop, look, listen, and enjoy.  The area has a number of old buildings from settlements in the early 1800's and one settlement has a flour mill and other farm activities on demonstration.  I saw black bear, white-tail deer, turkeys, and many song birds.  After a couple of hours of rolling through the area, I headed to my next hotel near the entrance to this portion of the park.  As I got there, the rain started, and continued much of the night.  Next morning (Sunday) I decided that it was likely the wildlife would be out after the rains, and got an early start.  Most of the folks who were going to be there were in church in the morning, so only a few of us were there to see the bears, including one mother with cub, the deer and the turkeys.  This was a much nicer day for me, and after a couple of hours, when crowds began to show up, I left and headed north, back to Kentucky. 






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