Hoosier Family Vacation Day 4 - Smoky Mountain National Park Take II

On Wednesday, we went back to Smoky Mountain National Park.

On this visit, we came in at the Sugarlands Visitor Center & kept driving into the mountains for about another 20 miles until we came to this awesome swimming hole with freezing COLD water, called the Townsend Y.

This place was so much fun!

There were large rocks for jumping off of

And a fun little current in one spot that you could float in. If we would have known before hand, we would have brought tubes with us! 

(So if you go here, bring tubes!!!)

Addy loved it here! So much that when we told her it was time to go, she started to swim off & I had to chase her down! And then she kept asking to go back there for the rest of the day!

When we left the Y, we got back on the main road & drove for about another 10 miles to Cades Cove. We stopped at a few of the historic sites along the loop, including...

The John Oliver Cabin 

and the Primitive Baptist Church.

Here are a few more pictures from our drive around Cades Cove.

Cades Cove is supposed to be THE PLACE to see animals in the Smokies. 

But unfortunately for us, we saw hardly any wildlife. Just a few birds & a few deer...

Do you see the deer in this photo???

And this bear at the Campground Store! Lol

We also bought a few souvenirs & some ice cream at the Campground Store & then went over to the river to eat it & walk around in the water.

After that, we headed back to the cabin for the night, where we ate dinner & I whipped everyone at cards!

And yes, I did hang the scores on the fridge! Lol

This was such a great day! The swimming hole was definitely one of the highlights of our whole trip to Tennessee! We could have spent all day there! And even though we didn't get to see bears while at Cades Cove, we still had a lot of fun driving the loop & coming up with ideas for TV shows & their theme songs... I would tell you more about that, but that would take a whole 'nother post to explain the craziness that comes out of my mouth!

Click here to see what we did on our last day in the Smokies!