July 2007

More Maggie Valley

Our first full day in NC, we headed for a hiking trail to see a "spectacular" waterfall at Mingus Mill near Cherokee. Well, either the area is very poorly marked or we are both blind as bats, because we never found it!! But, we did manage to visit Cherokee before we headed back to Maggie Valley. Cherokee is trying so hard to compete with Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge and, with the exception of Harrah's, there is precious little there.

Here I am pointing at the "Louisville Cardinal" atop the authentic totem pole. The old souvenir shops with "charm" are being replaced with brand new shops, the road has been widened and new motels are going up everywhere, but there is still not much to do there. I suppose we just didn't look very hard - after all, we are "thrifty" about what we see and do. I am always eager to go to Cherokee when we visit the Smokies, but I'm usually a little disappointed. I am convinced that some of the souvenirs in the shops are the very same souvenirs that were there when my parents took us there on a family vacation when I was about 5 or 6 years old. The rest of the souvenirs are, surprisingly enough, made in Mexico!! They are selling blankets exactly like those a friend brought back from his trip to Mexico several years ago. (Or, did he just go to Tennessee and tell us he'd gone to Mexico?? :) Many of the leather goods are all made in Mexico. Actually, there are very few items made locally. Oh well. I guess it is pretty much the same everywhere you go, isn't it? Look at all the beach souvenirs made in China - same difference, I suppose.
Here we have Gary been abducted by a bear. He's not putting up much of a fight, is he?? Neither of them are, to tell the truth.

We returned to Maggie Valley via the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was a gorgeous ride. Since we never walked a trail and since we'd been in the car much of two days, we walked to a local park where we found hundreds of butterflies. They were swarming - it was really pretty and a sight I know Natalie would have enjoyed. She also would have gotten better pictures than I did. Of the photos I took, this one shows the patterns on the wings. All the butterflies looked like either one of these. Very interesting. On a sad note, we saw many dead ones along the road, too - too close to traffic, perhaps?

Finally, on our way to supper at Maggie Valley Restaurant, we stopped to photograph the mailman in front of the local post office. :) My meal at the Maggie Valley Restaurant was pretty good - meatloaf, green beans and homemade applesauce. Gary was very disappointed in his meal - country style steak (very small patty of ground mystery meat with "K Mart" tasting gravy - obviously one of Gary's not-so-pleasant memories from 35 years ago!), mashed potatoes and very salty pinto beans. Needless to say we will not return to the MVR, but with only a few more days here, we probably would't have gone back anyway!

After supper, we walked a couple miles before calling it a day.

Tomorrow, I will fill you in on our Tuesday trip to the mountains. I'll bet you can hardly wait! :)