Cades Cove, Tennessee

On our recent trip to Tennessee my sister, Laura, took us to Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which is conveniently close to her home.  We spent the day climbing mountains,searching out creeks and waterfalls and taking pictures of homes, farm implements and churches.  One of the churches we visited is in Cades Cove, a driving tour deep in a beautiful valley.  


The first settlers to Cades Cove arrived in 1820; by 1850 over 600 settlers lived there.  Today the entire area is now part of the national park system.  The 11 mile looped road makes for an easy drive which takes about three hours, depending on how often travelers stop and walk around.

Of course, we stopped at almost every opportunity, climbed out of the vehicle, went into the building, snapped pictures, and enjoyed the view.  

One of the reasons I so enjoyed the tour was that we could go into any of the buildings at will.  Although I took a couple of pictures inside the church, they were horribly bad--typical.

 This Baptist church at the beginning of the tour really got our attention....we hadn't exhausted ourselves yet, so we even visited the graveyard.  

Richard found some of the early graves and read off names, which we later found in the few signs and plaques.  

 Not far from the church we stopped at a large pasture area to enjoy the view and take pictures.  We saw a couple of deer and wild turkeys here.  I kept hoping to see a bear, but that didn't happen.