Saturday, April 28, 2012- Shopping in Cherokee and the Elk herd.

We are on the NC side of the Smoky Mountains in Cherokee, NC. Will be in the Smokemont Campground for 2 more nights and then off to Asheville, NC and the Botanical Gardens and the Aboretum.

We are able to do this quick post compliments of the local Arby's Restaurant. We will be posting in the next couple of days about our 1 week (or so) stay in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. More photos will come with that.

Be sure to check back to see what we saw and did in the mountains!

Update for this post:

Because it was rainy and not hiking weather, we went into the town of Cherokee to shop for food and souvenirs. The town of Cherokee has painted bear statues throughout the downtown area, each with a different theme and decoration. Letty picked the one in the photo as her favorite and asked me to take a photo of it. In a whimsical mood, I took took a photo of me kissing it. I love it! (The photo!)

On the way back to the campground we stopped at the National Park visitor center to check the hours, and found the Elk grazing near the parking lot. The park has been re-introducing the Elk to the park for a few years now.

Letty liked this painted bear the best.

Tom kisses a (painted) bear!!

Part of the Elk herd came up to the visitor center in the evening to munch on the clover..

Moose Parker loved seeing the Elk herd. (Distant cousins, I guess.)