Gatlinburg Adventure Club for Two ; Day One

The moment I found out we were spending a couple of days in the Great Smokies I broke out the several brochures left in our cabin and went to work.  I love to try new things, have new experiences, go to new places and challenge myself.  The books were littered with "I have never done...", and I was ready to check them out.

Brian picked the placed and left the "to do's" up to me, which, in hind sight, might have been a crazy idea on his part, because we fit a ridiculous amount of things into just two days.  But, WOW, was it amazing, refreshing and wicked fun for the two of us.  With every new adventure we found ourselves more and more close and we were able to see some old friends and meet some new ones.

Here is the photo tour of our first day.

Friday morning we woke up and went straight to our zip-lining tour! We arrived, signed our, "you won't sue us if you loose a limb or die" waivers, which was the first of many over the weekend, and started getting suited up.  This is when I realized that in my zip-lining group, on this particular day and time, hundreds of miles from home was my hair dresser!  Seriously?  Seriously small world.  Kelly was there with her fiance enjoying some down time for a few days.

We all boarded this extremely old, beaten up and rusted small bus that was somehow going to make it up a mountain.  I would be lying if I said I was praying almost the entire way.  The bus made all sorts of horrid sounds and movements, but it did get us there and we unloaded to start our first adventure.  It was a great experience.

Of course, Brian didn't stay upward the entire time.  He had to show off his quickly acquired advanced skills as a zip-liner and perfected the inverted glide with no hands.  Yep, that is my husband.

Then we were off to the ski lift in town.  It was a beautiful view, but the best part was playing with Brian in the chair lift, who was terrified of falling.  His eyes were scanning and huge the entire time up and down.  It was a steep mountain side and nothing was holding us in except an optional small bar that could be easily removed in transit, but the man was just zip-lining through the tree tops!  He was pondering the fact that only a sliver of metal was holding us to the track and how much it would hurt if one were to fall.  He should know by now that when he shows any weakness it is a trigger for me to mess with him.  A little shake here and a small swing here. But, we reached the top in one piece.

After some lunch we decided that it was time for a little hiking.  There are so many trails to choose from and we wanted to see some BEARS and explore.  I am a sucker for waterfalls and we found a trail that led to one that was only a couple of miles and sounded perfect.

Beautiful!

This, or rocks, was the terrain the whole way.

We made it!

No words...

We are on the trail!  Fresh bear poop!

After our tingling legs climbed back into the car we went straight to another park because we still hadn't seen a Bear!  It was a goal for the day and darn it, I was going to see a bear.  We had heard of lots of people seeing them in Cades Cove.  It was a drive, but so worth it.  Turkey, deer and bear OH MY!  We saw it all.

Deer are very used to people here and didn't mind cars or people at all.  This little one was feasting an arm's length out my car window.  

BEARS!!!  We found them!  This was a mamma bear and three little cubs.  So darn cute.  They were prancing and frolicking just as I imagined.  

Off they go.  We found another one too, but pictures didn't turn out.

Deer were everywhere!!!

Brian caught this beautiful picture  while sitting Dukes of hazard style out of the window up there.   

End of day one.  Time for a 9pm dinner, some relaxing and off to bed to rest up for day two!  It was an unforgettable day.  The unscheduled time and "go and do what you want" attitude was an adjustment, but a welcomed one.