Beautiful Cades Cove

Just outside of Townsend, TN is an 11 mile loop road that takes you back in time

If you've never heard of Cades Cove, its something you should check out if you love nature! You can learn more about it at Cades Cove, We visited it for the first time on our honeymoon in 1996! Yeah, I know! Thats like forever ago! We fell in love with the area then. Its an 11 mile one-way loop around what used to be the Cades Cove Community in the 1800's.

The Smoky Mountains are a rare jewel…Why not have a place where you can still see the stars? There is value to keeping things primitive. – James Dawson

Theres several old churches and graveyards, homes, a working grist mill, barns, and other buildings from the 1800s and early 1900s to pull off the loop and visit. Sometimes there are even people playing acoustically and singing hymns in the churches. There's even some interesting headstones to find in the graveyards. I found out I have ancestors that lived and died in the area but I haven't found her grave yet.

There are plenty of animals in the area. Deer and turkey are abundant.

And if you come at the right time and the winds are blowing in your favor,

you may just be lucky enough to get to see one of the Smoky Mountain's famous black bear.

We were lucky enough to see this guy from the road from Townsend heading towards Cades Cove. Many people come to the Smoky Mountains with the hopes of seeing a bear. If you are fortunate enough to see one, please respect the animal and the rules which the park rules are 50 yards away from bears. Sometimes they come close to the road but if that happens, stay in your car and don't approach it and no matter what DO NOT FEED THE BEARS. When bears get accustomed to getting food from humans, they become nuisance bears which means they have to be relocated or worse and we don't want that to happen.

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Cades Cove Campground

For years, I've wanted to camp at Cades Cove Campground so that we would be right there and could start the loop earlier in hopes of seeing the animals. We got that chance a couple years ago, with the added benefit of taking our 3 year old grandson for his first camping trip. We had a great time. We got one of the sites for oversized tents so we could all stay together. You can see the large pad was great for our large family tent.

The whole campground was nice and wooded. There were plenty of sites and you can pick between the generator free loop or the loop that allows generator use. The only problem we had was that when they say quiet time is til 6 am, they mean it! Unfortunately, our site was just down from the office and camp store and they started weed-eating at 7 am and it sounded like they were right in front of the tent! But even with that, we'll probably camp there again. We'll put more photos in the gallery at the bottom.

One piece of advice though. When you take a 3 year old to Cades Cove and you tell them to look really hard to see if they see any animals, you may want to give them an idea of what sorts of animals they may expect to see. Our 3 year old grandson was very disappointed he didn't get to see a giraffe.

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