Cades Cove – Wandering Dawgs

John is Looking Back to challenge #106 – Autumn. We don’t get fall colors in coastal Georgia so if I want to see the autumn leaves we have to take a trip north of here.

Autumn is also college football season. Some of you know that Henry and I are huge Georgia Bulldogs college football fans. We spent many falls attending the Bulldogs home football games in Athens, Georgia. We have also made several fall trips to see Georgia play in away games. It was fun taking trips to combine football with searching for autumn colors.

On our way to Lexington, Kentucky for a football game we searched for fall colors along the way. We stopped in Sevierville, Tennessee where the colorful autumn leaves wowed us on a drive in Cades Cove in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. In the following gallery the first three photos are from that drive in Cades Cove. The final image shows colorful leaves in Lexington.

One year we camped on West Point Lake in Georgia on our way to Auburn, Alabama for a football game. We were treated to some beautiful fall colors around the lake.

Another year we traveled to Columbia, Missouri and Little Rock, Arkansas to attend football games. The autumn colors were glorious in Tennessee and around Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri.

For Thanksgiving one year we spent the weekend in Athens, Georgia to attend a home game against instate rival Georgia Tech. The trees on the University of Georgia campus and in downtown Athens were showing their peak colors.

Last week our guest host Joanne’s challenge was “Everyone should see this”. I enjoyed seeing all of photos of many incredible places from around the world.

I hope you will join in for this week’s challenge. Be sure to tag your post with Lens-Artists and include a link back to John’s post Lens-Artists #368 – Looking Back at #106 Autumn.

Be sure to check back on Saturday, October 11 at noon eastern time for Ann-Christine’s challenge.

For information on how to join the Len-Artists challenge please click here.

Every Day is a Gift

State 38:

Welcome to the next post in my series highlighting states we have visited throughout the years. I hope you will enjoy coming along for the ride!

I will be featuring the states alphabetically. The next state in my series is

Tennessee

Tennessee became the 16th state on June 1, 1796. The Capital is Nashville.

Elvis, BBQ, Blues and the Mississippi River in Memphis. Country music, The Grand Ole Opry and camping beside a lake in Nashville. The Tennessee Aquarium and other attractions in Chatanooga. Waterfalls near Crossville. Cades Cove in Great Smoky Mountains National Park near Sevierville. Waterfront camping at J. Percy Priest and Normandy Lake. Touring a famous distillery in Lynchville. These are just a few of the things we loved in Tennessee.

Before our RV days, the Opryland Hotel was our home base in Nashville for a night at the Grand Ole Opry, cheering on the Georgia Bulldogs as they played the Vanderbilt Commodores, and a night at the Wild Horse Saloon.

20031017Opryland-Hotel-(8) — Atrium at the Opryland Hotel

20031018Wildhorse-(4) — Line Dancing at the Wild Horse Saloon in Nashville

On our way home from our first RV trip out west we spent a couple of days wandering around Memphis. We toured Elvis’ Graceland, ate our fill of ribs at two different restaurants, listened to blues at B. B. King’s BBQ and Blues on Beale Street, and strolled along the scale model of the Mississippi River at Mud Island River Walk.

20060908Graceland-(47) — Elvis’s grave at Graceland

20060908Graceland-(52) — Elvis Presley’s Graceland in Memphis

20060908Graceland-(70) — Elvis Presley’s Pink Cadillac

Mud Island River Park river walk in Memphis, Tennessee is a 5-block long replica of the lower Mississippi river, from Cairo, IL, to New Orleans, LA.

Beale Street in Memphis

BB King’s BBQ and Blues Club in Memphis

While wandering near Crossville we discovered two waterfalls.

20090810Ozone-Falls,-TN-(1) — Ozone Falls near Crossville

We enjoyed the campground at Old Stone Fort Archeological State Park and have camped there twice. Both times we hiked beside the Big Duck River to see the waterfalls.

20100623Old-Stone-Fort-(2) — Campers cross this bridge to get to the campground at Old Stone Fort State Archeological Park

20070405Old-Stone-Fort-SP-TN-(14) — Waterfalls on the Big Duck River in Old Stone Fort State Park

One November we traveled to Sevierville to take in the beautiful fall colors and scenery of Cades Cove in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Cades Cove in Great Smokey Mountains National Park

John Cable Grist Mill at Cades Cove

Fall in the Great Smoky Mountains at Cades Cove

Horse pasture on Cades Cove drive

Millstones at Cable Mill

A mama bear and her cub were hanging around the picnic area when we stopped for lunch in the park. Mama kept a close eye on her cub as he searched for a bite to eat. When the rangers chased them off the cub scampered up a nearby tree.