Smoky moutain trip

Long weekend maniac had hit me too as it hit all others. On looking back I realise that in 3 days we covered 1850 miles. This means we travelled 3000 km over the weekend. This distance is one way Kashmir to Coimbatore or more than Mumbai to Delhi return journey. Will I be able to do this back in India!!!!

On Friday night I started from Connecticut at 7pm.I travelled through New Jearsy, New york, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina and finally reached Tennessee, next day at 11am. Making a trip without much advance planning has its own difficulties. We found all rafts were already booked and we had no option of doing rafting by regular booking. Luckily we met few other friends and got added to there rafts. Pigeon river was were we were going to raft. This river gave option of level 3 and level 4 rafting fun. The instructor with us was too good. She explained many things about reading river for rafting. We even jumped in the river and swam in it. Nothing can capture those moments.


Next day we were ready for trekking in smoky mountain. Out of all trails we decided on rainbow trail in smoky. It is strenuous trail with 5 miles round trip journey. The rain forest is dense enough and green enough to throw into trans. We started walking up the hill. As usual in between I was trying to walk on the logs, get wet in the stream flowing below or trying to make my own route. After walking for sometime we saw a cave. Myself and Raju climbed up on it and took photographs. We saw a really steep slow ahead which looked like short cut. We thought the short cut would meet the main trail somewhere up. In excitement we decided to walk on the hard slope. After walking for 20-25 min through bushes and narrow path we knew we are lost. Lot of yelling did not receive any response from any human being. I had to check my water and snacks stocks to make sure we can survive if we are lost :-). After taking a break, enjoying the mountain view we got from the place where we halted we decided to walk down. We warned a group of 10 more kids who were equally excited like us to walk through the short cut. It was fun to hear kids conversation. 8-10 year old kids were repeating what their father and I told them - "keep distance" "Isn't it fun going down", "Get low".
After walking through the main trek path we reached the water fall which was the destination of this track. Although in summer this fall is nothing compared to falls back in Mumbai/Pune yet the height of rock from where it was falling was great. The water was not even gathered at the bottom of the fall where we could have jumped into water. I recollected how nice zenith water fall in Khopali is which we don't make as a tourist spot.

After visiting Smoky, I have decided to do treks even in Connecticut.

Lets see how much support I get from my friends out here. Are you game to come on Saturday mornings to walk the CT mountains!!!

We happen to touch South Carolina while returning back when we lost our way and travelled short distance into that state. So after making our tour through close to 9 states we returned back home. Warm water tub bath and home cooked food was relaxing and after that 10 hrs of sleep was refreshing.

Anyone for US east cost to west coast drive? I am in for it!!!