Exploring GSMNP Area and Mammoth Cave National Park with a dog and kids.

The date was Tuesday, June 9. We should have been 3 days into a week-long vacation with our friends at our favorite place in Michigan. We should have been showing them everything we have come to love about that area over the past 6 summers of visiting. But, along with so many people, COVID-19 changed those plans and we cancelled the trip in May.

Our van was “done” (is it ever actually done? Let’s say usable.) Our van was usable, we had a week of vacation time burning a hole in our pockets, and we had been home for 3 months. I can almost guarantee you know the feeling of that last one. After some consideration we felt like we could travel safely in the van only having to interact with others while getting gas, for a grocery stop if needed, and on the trails. We began to formulate a plan; it was finally time to get out of this house.

Option 1 was Maine and Acadia National Park. Here’s where research is very important – especially when traveling during a pandemic. Maine has restrictions on visitors requiring a 14-day quarantine upon arrival. On to option 2. Jeremy had a crazy idea to head west to see Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, Badlands and Black Hills. Now would be a good time to mention that the only week we had available to take this trip was June 29 – July 6. Less than three weeks away. We did some research on this option but ultimately decided there was not enough time to orchestrate that trip. Plus, if we are going to be on that side of the country, we would prefer to have at least 2 weeks to take in all that the west side of our country has to offer. Finally, we landed on a trip down our side of the country. We would visit the Great Smokey Mountain National Park area, make our way to the Georgia Aquarium (more on that later), down to the Florida panhandle to visit our friends that we were supposed to be on vacation with, and finally on the way home visit Mammoth Cave National Park. We knew it was a trip we could keep safety at the forefront of, enjoy nature, fill our souls with great friends, and test out the van on its first real adventure trip.

Step one was to arrange campsites. After striking out on national park camps (did anyone really think we would find something 2.5 weeks out?) we turned to HipCamp at the recommendation of Jeremy’s Mom. I found some great sites, contacted the hosts and 24 hours later we had confirmation on 3 sites. The first night just outside GSMNP near Pigeon Forge on a farm near a lovely creek. The second night in the Chattahoochee National Forest area on top of a mountain. And the third night near Atlanta, GA at a camp with a nice little lake. We also purchased tickets for the Georgia Aquarium, coordinated a stay at a dog daycare for Klaus while we were there, and coordinated parking in Atlanta since the van is too big to fit in the parking garage. My head was spinning for 2.5 weeks hoping we could pull it all off and enjoy ourselves in the meantime. Did you also notice I never mentioned we had a campsite secured for Mammoth Caves? Well that’s because we didn’t until about 4 days before we went there. EVERYTHING IS FINE.

Great Smokey Mountain National Park

We would have initially loved to spend more time at GSMNP but unfortunately as many of you may know, dogs are not allowed on most trails in the National Parks. From what I have read two of the most dog friendly parks are Acadia (that’s why we initially wanted to visit there) and Cuyahoga Valley National Park (only 45 minutes from our house, great to visit but no so much a vacation for us). Within GSMNP there are only two trails that are dog friendly, we choose to go on the Gatlinburg Trail to start off our day. First we did a drive through Pigeon Forge – holy heck is that a crazy street! We had a good laugh at all the building designs and different tourist spots. Then we made our way into the park to venture down the Gatlinburg Trail. It is an out and back trail, we found it to be an easy hike however the start of it you must walk in the road then around a maintenance facility. Not the most relaxing or beautiful scenery. Once you get past the entrance to the trail it is much more natural, however we found the trail to be quite busy and very easy. As it turns out we like a trail to give us a bit more of a challenge (don’t worry – I assure you we were challenged eventually). We did find this trail to be a good training opportunity for Klaus who had been at home with us for 3 months and not given many opportunities to be around other dogs. Maybe it was good training for us to be around other humans (at safe distance) too. It’s possible we all forgot how to exist among others at this point. Once we returned from the Gatlinburg hike we retreated to the van to eat lunch before setting off. Turns out having a converted van draws a bit of a crowd because as we were taking off our hiking boots and getting Klaus his lunch from the back we had many visitors with lots of questions for us about what the heck was going on inside the van. It was fun to talk about it and share a little bit of all the work we had been doing with others in person. It’s also fun to see their faces when we tell them we fit a bathroom inside of the van with everything else. That face will never get old.

Once we finished lunch we made our way out of the park. We drove from the top of the park straight through to the bottom. We did stop at a few overlooks to take in the sights but all in all we were relieved to be moving on. Initially we were concerned we would miss a lot from the actual park, and it was lovely, but it was so busy. For how busy we thought the Gatlinburg Trail was, the other trails were even more so. On a typical day we tend to like our space, add in COVID-19 and we especially prefer some space. Crowds just are not our thing. So after a drive through we were glad to have set foot within the park but we were all ready to see the National Forests.

Nantahala National Forest

Once we made our way down through the park we headed for a trail that looked to be more our speed, The High Falls Trail. Jeremy had downloaded the AllTrails app (cannot recommend this app enough!) and he found all our hikes through there. Now might be a good time to tell you that from this point forward I had no clue what state we were in for the next 24 hours. I don’t mean state of mind either. I mean I could not tell you what physical state of America we were enjoying. Service was spotty at best, we had maps loaded to get to the hike but with no service anything beyond what we had saved was not visible. I legit thought we were in Tennessee the whole time. Well the jokes on me because we most certainly were not. We had in the span of 8 hours crossed from Tennessee to North Carolina to South Carolina to Georgia and back up to North Carolina again. You read that right. And yes we did get lost thank you for asking. More on that in a minute.

The roads to get to the High Falls trail were a doozy. Switchbacks and no railings and drop offs and up hills and downhills. We had never driven a car or truck on roads like these so to do it in our van was a bit intimidating but also thrilling. M/M Van handled it all just fine (phew!) After 2 hours of winding and me freaking out about falling off the edge of a cliff we arrived at the Pines Recreation Area. Whoa. We are a ‘lake surrounded by pine trees’ loving family. And this was a lovely lake, with a public swimming area and pine trees as far as the eye could see. As soon as the kids saw it they were begging to swim, we promised they could go in after our hike. Enter the hike. We had parked in the lot, put on our hiking shoes and headed down the path. We were elated. Barely any other humans in site, there were log steps, rock steps, log bridges, small creeks. As we happily hiked along we proclaimed things like “this is so much more our speed!” and “they rated this hike moderate? Maybe we could handle a difficult hike” and “Mommy you go first if the bridge holds you it will definitely hold me” (our daughter thinks she’s funny….) Somewhere near the last 1/8th of the hike I realized we had been going down A LOT of rock steps and my legs were already feeling a bit mushy. But then a beautiful distraction – a huge waterfall! It was gorgeous and we were so happy we found this easy for us more our speed hike with a beautiful waterfall at the end. We took pictures, the kids played around with the water, we took it all in. Then we decided it was time to head out. Well. It’s an out and back. And it’s ALL uphill. When I tell you it was harder than the hardest stair stepper workout I ever did in college (and I did some stair steppers in college), I mean it. The lightest among us (kid 2) was joyfully running up every rock and log step that came his way. I asked him if his legs hurt and he said “They started to ache a little at the end” Well when you only have 50 pounds to bring up those steps I guess your legs would “only ache a little at the end.” Jeremy and Klaus steadily climbed. The man’s hockey days gave him literal buns and thighs of steel and Klaus is a mountain dog. This is his element. I am a sporadic exerciser, luckily the two weeks before the trip I had re entered into my semi-regular peloton routine. Not because I actually believe 2 weeks of exercise conditioned me at all. NO! It’s because my favorite peloton instructor taught me how to breathe like a horse to get your breath to calm down. I was horse breathing up the whole freaking way. My thighs were on fire. At one point I considered just living on the trail. Our daughter (who is a bookworm but notsomuch an athlete) was next to me the whole time. I promise if I would have said out loud that her and I live on this trail the rest of our lives she would have been all in. She was also horse breathing with me (thanks to my expert level coaching). Just two mares making our way up the “this is more our speed can’t believe they call this moderate it’s so easy” trail. We eventually made it out (some of us barely) then both kids took a quick dip in the lake and we set out for our camp for the night. Some of us with legs more jello-like than others.

Here’s where the navigating got a bit hairy. I don’t know if I even recall all of the details. I just know that we thought we were good. We thought we had directions loaded. It wasn’t until we were not seeing the roads that we should have based on the camp owners directions that we pulled over to evaluate. This is where we learned that when Jeremy typed in the address for the camp Apple maps autocorrected it to something else and we were not in fact as close to camp as we thought we were. And this is where a jolly looking man with a white beard approached us and asked if we needed help. We told him we were looking for “Old Mud Creek Road” and he said “You’re on the wrong side.” He told us to turn around, turn right on another road, then follow that around and we will find it. We thanked him and decided to try. But we still have no clue what we were on the wrong side of. WRONG SIDE OF WHAT SIR?! Jeremy followed the directions while I followed on my phone looking on the map of this area that was luckily loaded. People. Santa sent us in a damn circle. A twisty circle. Kid 2 puked 4 times throughout this whole ordeal. Kid 1 came close. Thanks to a cloudy day our battery was only around 50% which was fine if we got to the camp site that had power but if we didn’t….we worried our fridge would stop running. That means all of the food we had would go bad (and we had over a weeks’ worth of food in there). Our daughter kept looking for places we could just pull over and sleep for the night. It was the least fun 2 hours of our trip. It wasn’t until Jeremy pulled over and we reassessed the maps without Santa giving his two cents that we realized it. We were only about a quarter mile from Old Mud Creek Road the first time. If we would have just kept going the way we were going somehow we would have made it despite having the wrong address punched in the whole time. Thanks Santa.

This is the point we navigated between possibly all 50 states in 2 hours time. Luckily we did make it to our campsite where our host was VERY concerned because we got there about 2 hours past the time we intended to but had no service to tell him. We parked, relished in the fact that after backing in we were already setup (guys a camper van is the way to go I am telling you), plugged in the Goal Zero, ate dinner at 9:30 pm, and then went to bed. We slept so good that night. SO GOOD.

Chattahoochee National Forest

That morning we got up and headed out by about 8:00 am. We gave both kids Dramamine and drove over to Chattahoochee National Forest that is located somewhere in the 48 contiguous United States. Our first hike was in the Warwoman Dell Nature Trail. It was named to honor a venerated Cherokee woman, the Warwoman, who frequented the area and advised the Cherokee tribal council on war and peace. It was a beautiful space with a few different hikes, one 8 miles long and another 1.4 miles. We chose the shorter of them, Bertram Trail. A lovely hike that was actually our speed because it was through forest and along small drop offs. Only a few stairs. A waterfall that we thought was going to be big based on pictures, but it was actually a water trickle the day we were there. (It’s ok, I could feel my legs so I was happy.) We saw huge stone basins that they used to hold trout in, then carry in backpacks to the river to replenish the population. Can you imagine carrying trout in a backpack?! We also stumbled upon a stone fireplace looking structure that was an incinerating toilet! Since this is a trend in van design that I have seen I was highly intrigued. That was a great hike. History, beauty, interesting. THIS was our speed. I’d love to do the 8 mile hike one day, but that was not the day.

After the Warwoman Dell hike we headed to Minnehaha Falls Trail. It’s a very short out and back trail at only 0.4 miles long. Again, getting there was an adventure through the mountains. We drove around Lake Rabun and through it’s surrounding residential streets. The homes on the lake were stunning and again we found ourselves admiring our favorite combination of pine trees and beautiful blue lake waters. Once we got to the lot for Minehahah Falls Trail parking was scarce but we did find a space in a pull off area just beyond the entrance for the trail. This was another fun but easy trail. This is also where Klaus decided to do his business on a hill twice. And twice his business rolled down the hill and we had to catch it with the bag. Dogs keep things interesting. We were rewarded with another beautiful waterfall at the end of this short hike. There were more people there than we would have liked but we were still able to enjoy the view and wade into the water a bit. It was the road out of this hike that was our favorite. Twisting, switchbacks, narrow, dirt covered, some ditches on either side. It was actually really fun. Looking back we all agree this road was one of our favorite parts of the trip. (You may be surprised to find out that High Falls Trail was all of our favorite, despite the exhausting climb out).

I THINK we were in Georgia at this point, and a few hours later we found ourselves at our camp for the night. We arrived there early enough to do a small hike through the property, enjoy the lake if only for about 5 minutes before my kids realized they don’t like lakes they can’t see the bottom of (they are spoiled with our favorite Michigan Lake – Glen Lake), we all took showers, ate dinner, and went to bed somewhat early. This day was much less eventful and it was welcome.

Georgia Aquarium

The next morning we woke up early and were on the road by 7. This was the day I was most worried about. Our kids love the show “The Aquarium” on Animal Planet that is based out of the Georgia Aquarium. It had just announced reopening plans when we were planning out trip, and upon reading all of the rules and precautions they were taking we made the decision that we were comfortable making a visit. This means we had a prescheduled time slot to visit (9-12), masks were recommended, temperatures were taken upon entry, they only allowed so many people in so that you could maintain social distance, and between groups they closed for 1 hour to disinfect the entire space. Feeling comfortable was hurdle 1. Hurdle 2 was parking. As mentioned, we couldn’t fit in the parking garage. After a few attempts (due to COVID there is not much going on there so employees were not in the office daily) Jeremy was able to get in touch with the Georgia World Congress Center where busses typically park for the Aquarium. He paid $25 for parking and they issued us a pass that we were to put on our dash when we arrived in the lot. Hurdle 3 was Klaus. We needed someone to watch him while we were in the aquarium. We found BarkATL in the city and they were available to take him for the few hours we would be there. That’s a win win – he gets to play and we get to see whale sharks! All of this was finally in place about a week ahead of leaving for our trip. That being said – this was the most expensive day of our trip but we all agreed that if at any point something felt off we would be prepared to abandon it. If the dog daycare didn’t feel ok it was over. If parking felt unsafe for us to leave our van it was over. If we got into the Aquarium and there were more people than we were comfortable with it was over.

Step 1 was dropping off Klaus. I have to say BarkATL was incredible. The owner was kind, educated on dog behavior, and even helped us feel incredibly comfortable leaving our pup. Klaus didn’t even realize we were gone he was so happy to be with other pups. Step 2 was parking. We arrived to the lot to find it completely empty. This is a lot that holds probably thousands of vehicles and there was not a vehicle in site. We pulled in and decided to park close to the police station located on the lot. With the permit on our windshield we locked up the van and headed out. We felt mostly comfortable, though I’ll admit I was still skeptical. But as we walked from our van a policeman approached us and asked us what we were up to. First of all – where was he hiding!? Second – he likely thought we were taking advantage of a seemingly abandoned lot. We showed him our permit, he called it in to the other officers so they would know we had approval to park and that was that. It was at this moment we realized no one has probably parked in this lot for 3 months. As we turned to walk out of the lot he approached us again and asked us to park in another area of the lot. We moved the van, thanked him, and went on our way. That all actually made me feel more comfortable with the parking. Atleast the police are monitoring this lot, that’s a good thing! (When we returned to our van that same police officer was still in the lot and did not leave until he saw that we were back to our van, this leads me to believe he was there the whole time keeping watch and we were very grateful for that!) Step 3 was enter the Aquarium. We arrived about 10 minutes before our time slot but were able to enter anyhow. Our temperatures were taken with scanners, we went through metal detectors, our tickets were scanned. 90% of the guests were wearing masks and all of the staff was. They had people walking around sanitizing as the guests went through. And the amount of guests was not overwhelming. In fact it was kind of ideal. I have heard that it’s hard to make it through this Aquarium in one day, so we were concerned that we would miss something in our 3 hours. NOPE. We were through it in an hour and a half. There were no shows, and no touch or interactive exhibits. But we saw whale sharks, we saw otters, we saw a baby beluga whale that looked like the cutest swimming potato we have ever seen. It was actually great and we were all incredibly glad we were able to pull it off! Ofcourse I calculated and with parking and the dog daycamp and admission we ended up spending about $1.75 per minute we were there. Still worth it.

Mammoth Caves National Park

From there we made our way to Florida and had a wonderful and chill 6 days. We did go to the beach for a few hours but when it got more crowded than we were comfortable with we moved on. Mostly we just caught up with friends, swam and watched our kids and dogs play together. When it came time to depart we headed north to Mammoth Caves National Park. We camped at Singing Hills RV Park, it was close to the National Park entrance and had quite possibly the nicest humans on earth that owned it. This was maybe my favorite night in the van because we played games as a family and just hung out. That’s something I have been wanting so badly. Just hanging out in the van, it was beautiful.  

The next morning we were up and moving pretty quick. We arrived at Mammoth Caves at 8 and immediately started on our hikes. The great thing about the trails around Mammoth Caves is that you can do several of them on a loop rather than going in and out over and over again. It made it easy to either take one loop back to the start or go a bit further and catch the loop later on. The other thing we loved about these trails is how the foliage seemed to change as we got deeper in the hike. All of it was beautifully green when we visited yet the species and textures felt so different from one part to another. It was inspiring and calming. Of course the one thing you should definitely do at Mammoth Caves is a cave tour. We went into it knowing that this was not going to be possible for us having Klaus with us. If you just want to hike the trails this National Park was great for dogs, but for their safety and the safety of the caves dogs are not allowed on the tours. We got lucky that one of the first spots we stumbled upon was a cave tour entrance but being 8:00 in the morning no one was there except the Park employee preparing it for the day. He actually told us to go down the steps into the cave (with Klaus even!) to take it in. The temperature outside was already well into the 80’s and incredibly humid. The temperature in the cave was easily down into the 50’s and chilly. It was remarkable to experience. We could only go down the steps and into the cave a bit before we hit the locked door taking you into the tour portion. But I am so grateful he allowed us to view and experience the cold and darkness. It really was a neat experience, even if it was a quick one. We also were fortunate that about 4 years ago we did a cave tour on another road trip at Lost River Cave, because of this we didn’t feel like we missed out on a ton. We were happy to experience this national Park above the ground with our dog rather than below it without him. In total we were hiking at Mammoth Caves for about 2.5 hours. I have no idea how many miles that ended up being but at least this time I know what state we were in – Kentucky.

After Mammoth Caves we went home. 10 days is the longest vacation we have been on in a long time. While there was a lot of planning involved, having M/M Van made the trip easy. In our next post I’ll get into what we learned, loved, and didn’t like as much as we thought about the van. But for now, I’d say our ‘usable’ van was almost perfect.