Adventures in Hiking

When we left at 11 this morning, we sure didn't think we'd be getting back at 9:30pm. Poor little Erin put up with a lot from her parents today and she did great. It took us longer to drive to the start of the trail than we thought, and the trail itself was long - it was supposed to be 5 miles round trip but it felt longer.

We started out with Erin in the baby backpack. By the time we reached the end of the trail (at the waterfall), Erin was getting tired and probably a little hungry. So when we strapped her back in to head out, she really didn't like that. We could only take her screaming for a few minutes (of course I forgot to take a pacifier) before taking her out and pretty much trading off carrying her for the rest of the 2+ miles. 21 pounds gets heavy quick, especially up hill.

But in the end, it was great exercise for us and we did have a good time. We saw some wildlife - a deer, some wild turkey and two bears (saw them in the car on the way out, tons of people stopped to take pictures, the bears were 100 feet away from the road and behind a fence. I think that's the first time I've seen bears in the wild).

After we finally got out of the park we stopped for a quick dinner in Pigeon Forge. Erin didn't fall asleep in the car until around 9:15 (usual bedtime 7ish). But for being dragged all over she was a trooper. She did great. Didn't even make a sound as we transferred her from the car seat to the crib.

Overall a great day even though we should have done a few things differently in our planning.

We ended up with some great photos. Here's the album.