May 1--Great Smoky Mountains National Park

I couldn't resist starting the day with stair climbing because this hotel has a 5-star stairwell--in fact, it has two of them!  See why?  They are outdoors.  This one has views of mountains on both landings.  You can see the burned trees on top from the big fire last fall.



This one has a nice view of rhododendrons and a creek that goes right by the hotel.



And the hotel has 4 floors which means each trip up is 4-1=3 floors, which is a little less tedious than the usual 2 floors.  So I did my 50 floors.  I might regret that tomorrow because I moved my backpacking trip up a day, so it's starting tomorrow and it's a strenuous hike.  I probably should have taken today off from the stairs at least.  But...5-star stairwells!

The forecast called for rain in the morning and the radar provided corroboration for this theory.  We decided to go to the Visitor's Center, which is one of Marilyn's favorite things to do!  As it turns out, there is a trail that goes right there so I volunteered to walk this trail while Marilyn took her time shopping.  She, who puts up with a lot, agreed.  So here I am ready to walk (the sun was shining at the moment but I was wearing rain pants just in case, and yes, it did rain):

Our hotel is only a few blocks from the entrance to the Smoky Mountains, yippee!  

Then it's a 1.5 mile walk to the visitor center.  It was very pretty.

We had rain storms overnight and the trees dropped some of their pretty flowers:

I learned later these are poplar trees, aka, tulip trees.  Good name.  

Here's some burned areas:

Here's a snail!

When I got to the visitor's center, we purchased many things, and went to the backcountry office and I changed my reservation for the shelter I'm staying at on my backpacking hike.  Then I panicked, as I always do before a backpacking trip, and we returned to the hotel to prepare.  Plus it was still raining.  Later on it cleared up and we went on a car tour on Roaring Forks road.  That is absolutely beautiful. There was a ton of fire damage amongst the beauty, and lots of burned down buildings along the way.  But there was also a lot of new growth on the forest floor and in the tops of trees that survived.

Fortunately all the old cabins remained untouched.

When we got home I panicked some more, and packed some more. I think I'm ready.

My fitbit logged 20,160 steps so far and 135 floors.   Maybe I should have taken a day off.  But those opportunities to take a day off arise more often than you want them to.  It's too hard to pass up a nice walk or staircase when it's offered to you.

If all goes well I'll update in 2 days about the backpacking trip.