Townsend,Tennessee Labor Day Weekend2010
| Tellico Reservoir/Citico Creek Paddle | |
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Tellico Reservoir was the last reservoir formed by the TVA in
1979. The Tellico Dam impounds the Little Tennessee River.
The reservoir inundated several Native American sites, including
sites of the Chota and Tanasi. The historically
significant Bat Creek inscription, an inscription carved on a
stone with characters loosely resembling the Cherokee alphabet
invented by Sequoyah in the early 1800's was also discovered
there.
Tellico is surrounded by the Cherokee National Forest with stunning vistas. We were surprised to find a small creek right off the main reservoir. Called Citico Creek, it flows down from the mountains into Tellico and it was a treat to paddle. As you can see below, we even found a little "beach" for a lunch break. We saw osprey, heron, several duck and geese and the usual kingfisher. We also saw a large beaver dam though we didn't see any inhabitants. The water was crystal clear and cold. When the breeze picked up in the afternoon we had "air conditioning" for our trip back across the reservoir.
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CADES COVE Cades Cove in the Great Smoky Mountains is one of our favorites. We usually try to visit during off-season times but decided to make a trip over the Labor Day weekend. It was busier than we are used to but we also got to enjoy some of the ranger activities reserved for those times. Right, you can see them pressing Sorghum into molasses using the old fashioned method. They also had a blacksmith demonstration where a visitor made nails with the assistance of the "smith". The mill was also operating, grinding flour. We saw lots of deer and turkey on our trip around the loop. We stopped at a pull off and set up our chairs in the field for a snack and a front row seat to the beautiful valley view.
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