Our Mt. LeConte Trip

Every year for many years my family has gone to Mt. LeConte. We took Anthony in a backpack when he was 4 months old and Alex's first trip was when she was 4-1/2 months old. We went every year. In fact, we had gone every year since I was 4 years old. Then, about 35 years into our standing reservations, writing the check for a family of 4 became very painful. Every year the rate went up about 6 dollars, which over time resulted in an obscenely expensive overnight trip. OBSCENELY EXPENSIVE. Over 150.00 per person expensive. Not to mention you had to walk up the mountain to get there, carry a heavy backpack, and take lots of warm clothes rolled up tightly and stored in Zip-Loc baggies in case it rained. There was no shower, which necessitated wet wipe baths, and you have to use one of four bathrooms that is shared by all the inhabitants of Mt. LeConte. There was no electricity and the food they serve is only good when eaten On Top of 'Ole Smoky. The souvenir we took home with us was sore muscles that we enjoyed for a week afterwards. And we LOVED every minute of it. Except the check writing part. And because of the check writing part, we decided to investigate another way to spend time with some of our favorite family members and still be able to make our house payment for that month. We came up with a great idea. Beginning last year, we rented a cabin in the Great Smoky Mountains for the whole weekend - not just one night. Each family could go for the whole weekend for the same price that one person could enjoy one night at Mt. LeConte. And we were able to stay three nights. And not be sore for a week afterwards. And we could take a shower. And eat steak. And eat bacon, biscuits, and eggs for breakfast. And take a shower. And sit in a hot tub. And did I mention we get to take hot showers?

There are some things that we did have to give up by not going to Mt. LeConte - like the views from the tip top of the Smoky's. The solitude. The absolute quiet. Watching the deer graze from our front porch. Drinking the oh so cold spring water that you can only get from the moss covered, hollowed out log down the hill a little ways from the cabins.

Give and take. Life's all about choices...and we chose to make our house payment.

While we weren't at the top of the Smoky's on our weekend getaway this year, we still had some fabulous views. When we got to the cabin Friday evening it was dark so we didn't know what kind of views we had. We were very pleasantly surprised when we woke up Saturday morning to this.

This little church was the view off our front porch.
Oh how beautiful the Smoky Mountains are!

True to their name, this low lying fog in this valley covered all the houses and farms down there. Oh so Smoky were these mountains that morning!

This is the view from the other side of our cabin. Before the sun came up fully this looked like a lake off in the distance.

Our plan for this weekend was to go nowhere, do nothing, and eat a lot. We were quite successful on Saturday in meeting our goals. Charkie brought a box of old black and white photos that we spent a lot of time looking through and remembering.

We spent time with some beautiful kids who we don't get to see as often as we would like.

We took a walk.

Which we got shamed into. It's hard to say no when your mom's, who are in much better shape than we are, ask you to go for a walk. The problem with taking a walk here, though, is that when you leave your cabin you either walk up the mountain or down the mountain. And it's not a small mountain. And if you choose walking down, you know that you must come back up - so we chose walking up so our last leg could be the decline and that gave us something to look forward to.

We ate good jelly filled do-nuts.

Played Rook.

Played Apples to Apples.

Had staring contests - but no one could beat this little beauty.

And watched movies. Lots and lots of movies.

So many movies that we think we need a cabin with a theater in it next year. That little TV wasn't quite big enough for our large audience.

We spent time with our sweet daddy's, who are first cousins, and started this trend of vacationing together when we were quite young. Actually, it may have been started by their parents. Now that their grandchildren are friends, too, it's no hardship getting everyone to spend a weekend together. This is 4th generation vacationers we're talking about here. When we gave up Mt. LeConte it was with the promise to our kids that we would spend an entire weekend together in its stead - that's the only way they would agree to it.

We had a beautiful cabin with wrap around porches, an outside kitchen, an outdoor fireplace, and a hot tub. We couldn't imagine why we would ever need to leave.

But the kids did! They thwarted our plans of laziness by begging to go go-cart riding. We had to rearrange some of our meals (we certainly didn't want to miss one), but decided we would take them out to civilization on Sunday afternoon. They had so much fun!

We thought this was quite funny. This is how they gas up the go-carts. A boy wearing a long rain coat and pulling a wagon with a no smoking sign on it. Really?

There were certain rules the kids were supposed to follow while riding the go carts. One of those rules was no bumping. This picture was taken right after Anthony had pushed, not bumped, Sy just enough to spin him. And just enough to make the worker have to come get him turned back around and headed in the right direction. And just enough to make Anthony suspicious for paybacks.

And this picture was taken right before Sy "bumped" him back, in pit row, in front of one of the workers.

And got kicked out of this ride.

And this is them retelling the whole story and feeling sorry for themselves because this was one of their favorite tracks.

And finally back for a relaxing evening of getting homework done, showers taken, dinner eaten, and getting ready for school the next day.

We had such a great time and we can't wait til next year.