Matt & Emily’s Spring Break

Family, National Parks, Smoky Mountains NP-NC TN

Matt & Emily and their mother Cathy are visiting on their Spring Break. Besides helping with some of the tasks related to the renovation of our mountain house and exploring the creeks, they’ve joined us for a trip into Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It’s too early in the season to head to the top of Clingman’s Dome but we did get to poke around the Oconoluftee Farm Museum talking to some of the costumed interpreters, watching the blacksmith at work, and learning that forsythia is locally known as “yellow bells”. Of course we had to take a little time for skipping stones across the surface of the Oconoluftee River before heading to Mingus Mill. There we learned this water powered mill uses a steel turbine instead of a wooden water wheel to turn the millstones that grind the grain beforee heading out to  the path alongside the mill race.

Entrance Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Entrance Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Blacksmith Oconoluftee Mountain Farm Museum
The Blacksmith at work
Haystack at the Mountain Farm Museum Oconoluftee NC
Haystack at the Mountain Farm Museum
Skipping Stones into the Oconoluftee River
Skipping Stones into the Oconoluftee River
Perched on a rock in the middle of the Oconoluftee River
Perched on a rock in the middle of the Oconoluftee River
Chicken on a Fence Mountain Farm Museum Oconoluftee NC
Chicken on a Fence
Millrace at Mingus Mill Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Millrace at Mingus Mill
Stylin' at Mingus Mill
Stylin’ at Mingus Mill
Upstream from Mingus Mill
Upstream from Mingus Mill

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