Cherokee and The Smokies

We woke up on Saturday morning on the parking lot of Harrah’s casino in Cherokee, NC.  We had visited the area of the Cherokee Indian Festival on Friday, and it was more of a carnival than anything else, so we wrote it off.  We decided to drive about 8 miles to Whittier, NC for their Fall Festival.   It was another rainy day, and the festival was pretty much a disappointment, so we went to a small event at the Old Mill in Cherokee.  It was OK.  Here is the small community center where the Whittier festival was held in addition to a few booths that were set up in yards:

Here are pictures at the Old Mill:

On the way back from Whittier, we got a glimpse of the “smoke” in the Smoky Mountain name:

We went back to the Bus for some lunch.  Here are a couple of pictures of our spot on the casino parking lot.  We had a small path and stream on one side of the Bus:

After lunch, we decided to drive to the visitor center at the Smoky Mountain National Park where we signed Patsy up for her “senior” park pass.  We saw an old farm setting where they were demonstrating the making of molasses like we had just seen in the Amish country earlier this week;

Here is the mechanism where they strained the ‘juice’ out of the sugar cane, and the spent sugar cane scraps:

Here is the vat where they cook the molasses to thicken it up:

As we were leaving the center to go back into Cherokee, a herd of Elk showed up;  Here are some pictures:

After leaving the visitor center, we saw an entrance to the beginning of the Blue Ridge Parkway.  We took a short drive, and got these pictures:

We enjoyed the fall color, even though it was cloudy and late in the day.