Great Smoky Mountains National Park

It was a picture-perfect day today in this amazing national park.  It was great to get out and breath some fresh hair and walk around the trails throughout the park.  I love it here.

I didn't see a lot of wildlife today - just these wild turkeys.

This river is beautiful.  It runs along the roadway.

Incredible views of the Great Smoky Mountains

(More views of the Smokies will be in a separate posting)

This is Newfound Gap.  It is the highest point in the park. Half of this national park is in North Carolina (you enter from Cherokee NC), and half of it is in Tennessee (you enter/exit from Gatlinburg TN).  Newfound Gap is half in Tennessee, half in North Carolina.  

You can see how high up it is from the road down below!

A portion of the Appalachian Trail runs through the national park.  It is BEAUTIFUL.  I didn't hike the 1,972 miles to Maine; I chose to hike about 30 feet!

Yeah, there I am on the AT - huffing and puffing after 30 feet!

Such strenuous exercise of hiking the Appalachian Trail made me hungry!

Lunch with a view!

More colors.  Part of the park still had color, but at the higher elevation, the trees were already bare.