We spent the day driving through the forests and valleys of the Smokies. One of the most beautiful valleys is Cades Cove. The Cherokee camped and hunted in this cove, but there is no evidence that they ever built villages here. European settlers arrived in the 1820s and lived and farmed here until it was made part of the national park in the 1930s.
For Anne the best thing about Cades Cove was the bears. Jim found an interesting rock and stole it, making Anne an accessory to a federal crime.
The first bear we saw was very far away across a field.
Later we saw a mother and her cub in a wooded area.
Another beautiful spot is called The Sinks, through which flows the Little River.
The next day we left the Smokies and headed to Knoxville, Kentucky in the rain. Heavy rains here have resulted in spontaneous waterfalls as water seeps out of road cuts that have cut through rock layers containing aquifers (pores and fractures filled with water).
Knoxville hosted the 1982 World's Fair. The theme of the Fair was "energy turns the world," and Fair officials decided that a Sunsphere best symbolized that theme.
A Native American burial mound has been preserved in a park on the campus of the University of Kentucky. The University partners with a local Cherokee organization to maintain the mound and a garden near it. This prehistoric burial mound is estimated by archaeologists to be associated with the Late Woodland period, which spans the years 600 to 1,000 AD.
Interesting to note that touch screens were first introduced at the Knoxville fair.
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