Trip to Fall Creek Falls

Holy moly, I'm getting this out more than a month later than I intended. Better late than never I always say (as most procrastinators do!).

Thanks to Greg Schloesser to organizing a weekend trip to the Fall Creek Falls state park in Tennessee back in January. Eleven of us descended on this beautiful park for hiking, gaming, and eating.

I've to been Gatlinburg, TN many times, often hiking, so I thought I knew what to expect at Fall Creek. I had no idea there would be such gorgeous gorges (heh). The park is on top of a plateau and has all kinds of rifts in it that drop straight down creating beautiful waterfalls. I forgot how many falls there are, but the ones we saw were all great. It helped that the sun wasn't able to reach the river, leaving much of it frozen.

All told, we went on about 5 separate hikes. Some crossed the river with rope bridges that bounced all over the place as you walked on them. Some we slightly averse to walking across them, but we didn't lose anyone on the trip, so they were safe enough. Half of us went on a cable trail - a trail that was easily steeper than 45 degrees where we needed a cable to get down. It was well worth the effort to get down to the base of the waterfall.

The Bergs introduced us to the wonder of geocaching. Basically this is treasure hunting with GPS devices. We were 2 for 4 in our hunt. 1 of the locations eluded us only because the river was too high to cross. That didn't stop us from trying. The other location we missed probably had its target covered by leaves. It was totally work the search as we found a big cave behind a waterfall way off the beaten path. Liz and I have since purchased a GPS unit as a gift for each other to continue geocaching - thanks for the introduction Craig and Kim!

We also gamed of course. The 11 of us know each other primarily through board gaming circles, so when the sun went down, the games came out. The highlight to me was Greg teach me Le Havre. I have since played it 3 times, and it's quickly becoming one of my all-time favorites.

Last but not least was the food. Sheldon made Chili that I had at least 3 separate times over the weekend. Liz made her soon-to-be-famous corn dip. The Bergs liked it so much, they made it for the Super Bowl. Now if only we could find the wheat chips we used to use - they're not at Target or Publix any more! Mike Adams skipped the cable trail so that he could make his homemade spaghetti sauce. That was a good call - it was unbelievable. Finally, the Bergs made pulled pork sandwiches. The pork melted in your mouth before you could chew it.

That's all I can remember as it's been more than a month now. We're already making plans to do it again next year. I can't wait.