Last week, my besties and I went on our annual girls trip to TN: Nashville and the Great Smoky Mountains! I love nothing more than a good trip, exploring a new area, and being with my friends. This trip was a perfect blend of all the things I love, some outdoors time, some sitting at a cabin in the woods eating junk and sitting in the hot tub time, and some time exploring a new city. We had a blast. The pictures are all out of order since I'm doing this on my phone, but I'm sure the 3 people who read this won't care. 😂 I'll just intersperse what we did every so often.
Day 1: We flew in late on Wednesday night and then crashed at a hotel before leaving early Thursday morning to drive to the Great Smoky Mountains. It was about a 3.5 hour drive, but of course we had to stop at the famous Bucees gas station along the way. That thing is an adventure in and of itself!
When we got to Gatlinburg, we took a chair lift up to an amazing overlook of the whole area. It had some awesome suspension bridges and a beautiful place to sit and eat lunch. After that, we went on a 5 mile hike called Rainbow Falls. It was so beautiful and we saw a TON of black bears! Mostly mama's and their babies. Super crazy.
Day 2: We rented bikes and did an 11 mile loop around Cade's Cove. There are a lot of historic buildings along the way you can see. Tons of cars drive the loop and it tended to get backed up, so we actually probably did it faster than the cars. It was a super fun way to see it.
After biking, we did a short 2 mile hike/walk called Middle Prong that was spectacularly beautiful... Everything there was just gorgeous.
Day 3: Camille, Kylee, and I hiked 11 miles to Mt. Lecont. It is supposedly the highest elevation gain hike east of the Mississippi, but since I'm used to Utah Mountains, it wasn't so bad. It was 2500 feet of elevation gain, and again, so, so beautiful. Everything is just so lush and green. They have a lodge at the top and some cabins. We ate lunch at the lodge and then headed back down.
That night we headed to Dolly Parton's Stampede in town. It's a dinner show in an arena with horses and bison and entertainment. It was a lot of fun and the food was surprisingly good. Haylee and Camille went down for a bucket challenge and helped our team win (half the arena is competed against the other half in certain tasks with a lot of audience involvement, which made it a lot of fun). It was Camille's birthday that day, which made it extra fun. Happy 39th to Camille!
Day 4: We woke up early and drove back to Nashville. Haylee had to fly out that night to head home. She's a teacher and can only miss so many days of school. We missed her for the Nashville portion! We did squeeze in massages in the city before she flew out and that was awesome. That night, the rest of us went to Broadway Street and enjoyed the live music scene. There are SO many bars there and every one has live musicians playing, everyone trying to make it big in the country music world! I loved, loved, loved this night. It was so much fun. First time I've ever been in a bar- had to flash the ID and everything ! We went to several- they didn't love us surely, because we drank nothing but water! But oh well, it was great.
Day 5:
Camille, Kylee, and I continued our exploration of Nashville. We first did the Country Music Hall of Fame and this was a ton of fun. We then toured the Belmont Mansion, which we all loved. We finished at Centennial Park and had some famous Hattie B's chicken before we headed to the airport and all flew our various routes home!
This one was one for the books! Loved every minute and I especially love any time I have with these ladies. They have been my ride or dies since 6th grade (Camille and Haylee) and 10th grade (Kylee). Life has been kinda hard for me lately and I'm so grateful they are constants.
