My Trip to Great Smokey Mountains National Park

I so enjoyed my recent photography trip to the Smokey Mountains. I gazed at Cades Cove in wonder, my eyes drank in the beauty of it's meadows and mountains. I pondered the life of the early European settlers as I observed their cabins and barns. What an awesome place!

This cabin is the John Oliver cabin in Cades Cove. It is the oldest cabin in the cove. John Oliver is thought to be the earliest European settler to the cove and it is said he arrived in 1818, too late in the year for crops or building a home. His family survivied the first winter in an abandoned indian dwelling with the help of the Cherokee Indians, who brought them dried pumpkin to eat.