Ok... Now for part - II of Smokey Trip...
We were supposed to leave at 8.00 AM, but because of our previous night delay, we woke up around 8.30..... 9.....
Just got ready and went out to see how beautiful the morning was.. And it surely was... very beautiful and very very cold..:)
Sat outside by the poolside and had our breakfast....We were actually in a hurry, but left at 10.30 AM (2.5hrs late than our scheduled time)
Finally started off... we had just traveled for a few minutes..may be half an hour so and suddenly we felt that something went wrong with our car.... actually the tire had hit the pavement and car was making some peculiar sound... We stopped at the first stop point(actually a view point) and just saw - '
FLAT TIRE'... oops it was not just that...the rim was bent, which made the air go out....
Ok now we were in the middle of the trip(lets say just the beginning!!!) and our car is gone for a toss... What do we do now?? Do we call AAA ?? or do we call insurance company?? or the rental car company?? There was lot of confusion...tension and pressure... We dint even think of our trip being ruined at that time... We just wanted a fix!!!
And we were the only ppl there not enjoying the cold weather and not enjoying the scenic beauty right behind us!!!
We called AAA...so many talks so many discussions...how n where to get the tire fixed etc...etc...
Luckily an old man(atleast he looked old) said it wasn't that much of a prob..we could use our temporary tire and go to the nearest repair station..(with that tire we could still go on for 40-60 miles... ofcourse low speed). He put on that temporary tire for us.
We took some pics from that view point, we could see downtown of Gatlinburg from there....
Then we headed back to Pigeon Forge... Gave it for repair...by this time it was 3.00 PM
We were very hungry..so we walked till we found some place where we could eat... There was this pizza,pasta n salad buffet...
So we went in there...We had lots of food on our table... ok we took one bite of the pizza...hmm...not at all good... put it back on plate....thus we had only salad for lunch...and then went back to get our car...(we had given it in WalMart)...there the guy says he hasn't started...so we told him to start off... after around half an hour...our car was fine...
Now it was already 5.00 PM and we were very sad that we couldn't go to Blue Ridge Parkway... We thought y not go to the National Park and see something..
So again we headed towards the park...Reached the visitor center...grabbed a map...and we headed towards.. Lauren Falls (it was a trail)
By the time we reached there... it was 5.30 PM. We had to climb the 1.3 miles stretch..It wasn't that steep but was pretty dense... And yes all along the stretch we took picks...We finally reached the falls after one hour... and ok we saw falls we saw water... but it was a thin stream... normally when we walk upto falls...we see water and all the stress just gets washed away... we were tired..just sat there for 5 mins and started walking downwards... it was getting dark....
And we were not even 1/4 the distance it went so dark..we were just getting down cautiously... Finally in darkness we came down.... In the meanwhile it was so so cold....
And then feeling satisfied that we did something the whole day... :) and headed back to our cabin...This was the end of our day filled with tension and cold... Or let me say... Morning with tension and lessened down as the night came...
Rest.. to be contd....
PS: last part remains... :)
