LLAMAS!!!

Today was a very fun day and I can't wait to tell you all about it!  We started the day with a llama trek at Foxfire Mountain Adventure Park.  The hike you go on here is about a 2 mile hike around the park, and at about the halfway point you see a waterfall.  To get back you end up crossing a pretty long suspension bridge which owns the statistic for something - either longest or highest on the east coast or something like that.  I'll look it up at some point, but not tonight.  Sorry.  I'm trying to blog quickly since Steve is cooking dinner right now.

Anyway, Jamie and I are pretty much obsessed with farm animals (if you couldn't tell from the goats a few days ago).  We were both so excited about this llama trek and it did not disappoint.  Craig walked with Blackjack who is the only stud they have there.  All the other males (they only have two females that don't do the hikes) were gelded.  One day, no one picked Blackjack to hike with, so they dropped him off with the lady llamas and he apparently had a great time, resulting in Kuzco, who Jamie walked with today.  Kuzco is the youngest llama they have and it shows - he was so silly and as I put it all day - he walks to the beat of his own drum.  :-)  Steve walked with Tayley and I walked with Curly.  Both of those guys were pretty chill and enjoyed the walk with us.  Before leaving for this trip, Jamie noticed on the llama trek website that you could bring snacks for the llamas and one of their favorite snacks is oatmeal cookies (no raisins though).  So we brought a lot of oatmeal cookies for our new friends and that warmed them up to us real fast.  Jamie and Craig were even brave enough to let the llamas take the cookies out of their mouths!

The hike was fun, but started off pretty scary.  Foxfire rescued a Watusi Bull a few years ago that had been malnourished.  They decided to adopt it and have had it since.  His name is Bam Bam.  Apparently Bam Bam was neglected by the petting zoo he used to be a part of.  Steve, our tour guide, told us before the hike that he is the sweetest and will let us pet him.  Bam Bam is in the same field as the two female llamas and the three of them have become fast friends.  There were five of us on the hike today walking 5 male llamas into the female llama pen with a giant bull with giant horns.  I wouldn't say it was a disaster, but I was legitimately terrified for about 10 minutes of my life today.  When we got in the pen, Blackjack (the only stud remember), immediately started having a good time, if you know what I'm saying.  Steve (the guide) had to help Craig get Blackjack off the female.  While all this is happening, Bam Bam starts approaching us.  He stops and just watches for a minute.  In that time, Steve starts talking about Bam Bam and how we can go up to him and pet him.  I was about to walk up to him when he all of sudden started acting strange.  Knowing what I know about what animals do in National Parks when they are uncomfortable around humans (their behavior noticeably changes), I decided to back off.  In the mean time, Steve the guide and Craig are trying to keep Blackjack off the females.  Steve finally tells us to start walking towards the corner gate.  As we walk up there, Bam Bam kept circling us trying to square off with the male llamas.  Steve (again, the tour guide, not my Steve) had to keep standing in front of Bam Bam and look big so he would leave us and the llamas alone!  At one point he did try to chase me and Curly, but Steve thankfully intervened.  Craig and the other guy on the tour had to quickly learn how the lock on the gate worked to let us out so Bam Bam would be happy again.  It made for a great memory because the four of us couldn't stop talking about it today, but I will fully admit it was pretty scary given how big this bull was and how big his horns were!

Jamie & Kuzco

Curly!!!  I had just given him a cookie.  :-)

Jamie feeding Kuzco

Craig feeding Blackjack.  I didn't get the exact moment because...(see below)

...I was photo-bombed by Kuzco!

Bam Bam

The adventure begins...

The waterfall

The bridge

Tayley on the left and Curly on the right.  I love Curly's face here!

From left to right:  Blackjack, Craig, Kuzco, Jamie, Curly, me, Steve & Tayley

Other than that incident, we had a great hike!  We were so fortunate during our hike today because they called for rain all day again.  It stopped right when we started the hike and started up again just as we finished the hike!  We quickly ran inside the gift shop that you must exit through (convenient).  Foxfire also makes their own hard cider and offers free samples in the gift shop, so we had a good time there and bought a few ciders.

We decided that since the rain was so iffy we were going to use today to do some of the cliche things to do in Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge.  This included the Bush's Baked Beans museum where they have the secret recipe locked up behind lasers.  ;-)  We grabbed snacks at the cafe there so we could have some beans and dessert.  Note to my readers:  if you go here and get a brownie sundae, share it with at least three other people.  Between the four of us, we came nowhere close to finishing it!

I don't even remember the guy's name, but who cares about him when Duke the dog is in the picture!!

The secret family recipe

After Bush's we tried some moonshine and whiskey at Thunder Road and bought a little bit of moonshine.  Then we went to Smoky Mountain Knife Works which is a store that has the world's largest knife showroom.  If you've ever been to South Dakota, you know that there are billboards all over the place for Wall Drug.  Well Smoky Mountain Knife Works is the "Wall Drug" of the East.  Only, they aren't as silly and goofy - they really are serious about their knives and it is indeed a really large showroom.