Although not originally in our plans for this trip, we had some time left over in our schedule — largely as a result of weather snowing, raining, blowing, or freezing us out of other locations, so we decided to head east and visit Mammoth Cave, the Great Smokey Mountains and Shenandoah. We had been to each of these parks in a previous trip but thought each could stand a return visit. So we began the trek east. The first day took us to Dallas/Fort Worth. The second days travel brought us to Nashville.

From there we hopped up to the Cave, hoping to camp and catch the ‘Wild Cave Tour’. Sadly it was booked for both day we had hoped to stay and furthermore the weather was lousy with a constant down pour. So, we decided to head straight to the Smokey Mountains and try our luck there.