Our first full day in the Smoky’s consisted of heavy downpours on and off all day and so most trails were closed for safety reasons.  We decided to take our time in the morning having a great breakfast in the camper then headed out to the Smoky Mountains National Park (SMNP) Sugarland Visitors Center to gather some maps and to have the rangers help up create our plan for the week.  This is one of the best NP Visitor Centers we have visited.  Lots of info from the rangers, a great onsite nature museum and a short (30 minutes) video on the history of the mountains.

Leaving Sugarland Center we took the suggestion of the Park Ranger and headed towards Newfound Gap Road seeing just a sample of the beauty we would experience all week.  The rivers and creeks running just along the roadside were a surprise to us and so pretty, the views even covered in rain clouds and fog were stunning. This is going to be a great week :)

Decided not to spend all day on Newfound Gap Road (as we knew we would be exploring it again later in the week) we decided since it was still pouring down we would head over to Sevierville to go to the Lodge Cast Iron Outlet store where we were able to pick up a few pieces we wanted at very reasonable prices. We also visited the largest Knife Store in the country and few more of the outlets in the area before we headed back to the campground.  While still raining, we did get a nice window of time to be able to cook dinner over the grill (I forget though what) and then had a nice relaxing evening together before calling it a night so we could get up and moving for our first hike the next day early.