Today started quite early at 3am when I woke to some intense thunderstorms. Crazy rain, thunder, and lightning. I really couldn’t sleep because there was a tornado warning with a medium threat. It started to calm closer to 5am. I pulled in kid shoes, dumped the rain collected on the rain cover, pulled the only dry chair in. I repacked the clothes bin so all the pull ups and pajamas were protected. And I prayed while snuggling Owen. We were definitely getting water in the tent. Everyone was getting wet but they all slept. Owen eventually woke and we did a bathroom break together. The rain had slowed but the river was so loud.
I coaxed Leiland to come snuggle with us and we fell back asleep for a little longer. When I finally woke everything was soaked but we got dressed and took off. We had an appt to ride horses at 10am. When we pulled up to the turn for smokemont stables the road continuing was closed because of weather. So we went to the horse stables.
Ellie was on a horse that was white named Jesse. He was so good for her and teathered to the lead guide Pricilla. I don’t know Owens horse but he was a dark chestnut brown. Leiland was on a light brown and white names Apache. I was on a brown girl named Polly. Behind me was another guide Asia and two others who were on the ride. It was a bit muddy but an absolute beautiful ride. We kept walking into wet tree branches hanging down but that’s ok. Leiland seemed a bit nervous. He didn’t like how narrow the path was but he did great. Owen was a champ at commanding his horse. When it would try to eat he’d pull the reins and he was steering him when needed. I was so proud and he was a natural. Ellie was all smiles the whole time and telling Jones with the guide up front. Ellie and OWEN said that was the best thing ever. They couldn’t be any happier.
Now the plan was to go to cades cove and possibly a hike. However when we went to leave the stables the road was still closed. So we stopped at another turnoff called minges mill I think. We went and walked to see the mill built in 1886 and saw how they channeled the water to run the machine that killed the corn and wheat. The kids only cared about catching all the little purple butterflies. When we walked back to the truck Leiland went to go potty so the rest of us climbed in the bed of the truck and started lunch. Owen thought that was the coolest way to eat lunch. When we finished lunch we drove to the visitor center to get an update on the road closure.
Turns out the storm caused a landslide closing a huge portion of the main road. There was another route to get back to the other side of the park but it was 3 hours. And it had a lot of traffic because so many were detouring. We decided not to do that today. We went into the city there called Cherokee, NC and checked out the Cherokee Indian museum. Very cool information and the boys really liked learning about it for the most part.
We decided to walk around to a few of the bear statures the kids wanted photos with. Then because it was getting hot we stopped for ice cream. We popped in a few of the suvioneer shops. We went back to the car and headed back to camp.
First I set about drying out the tent. Opened all the windows, used a towel to sop us puddles, and took out the air mattress to dry on the truck bed as well as be refilled. The kids put on swim suits and we after shoes and played in the river/ creek for a bit. Very chilly but they enjoyed it. I went to watch them but I stayed dry. By the time dinner came to I started building a fire for kids to warm up. We planned to have spaghetti but I messed up and brought the bag of just sauce and not the one with noodles already in it. So then we chose to do hot dogs. But the lighter was left on the table and didn’t want to work. Thankfully we had another in the bin that was dry. We still didn’t have much luck of getting a fire to start so I did the camping stove anyway. The hot dogs were tasty and we all enjoyed dinner. The fire started picking up very slowly. We toasted some marshmallows and everyone had one. As soon as we were gone making them the fire picked up. Go figure. The kids played with fire and worked hard to keep it going. Me with my lung issues I really struggled to blow air on the coals and the kids just aren’t skilled at it yet. We added some of the color changing crystals into the fire and we all loved seeing that. The kids played smoke ninja fighting the smoke and we just had a good time.
At bedtime we caught fireflies before brushing teeth and getting pajamas on. Ellie’s terrified to use the bathroom right now because of a daddy long legs on one of the sinks. She cracks me up. She loves watching them crawl on the tent when she’s inside and they are outside. But this was too much.
Overall a good day. Didn’t go as planned but we made the most of it.
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