One of the more unexpected cool things we encountered on our Smoky Mountain adventure came when we stopped by the Oconaluftee Visitor Center. Behind the center was the most amazing little historical village from the pioneer days of the area. It was free to walk through, and proved to be a great history lesson for the five of us.

They had real apple trees just like the pioneers grew, and an apple house where the apples were stored. There was an actual garden growing the herbs and plants that the settlers grew, and fences still existed where the animals had been kept. What we had to keep reminding ourselves was that these were not replicas of what was used...these were the actual buildings and fences and grounds where a pioneers family had lived and survived. Two national park historians had the jobs of keeping-up the village so that it didn't disintigrate.

Below was the real home of a settler family. The little building in the back was the meat house. Inside the cabin, a school group on a field trip was learning to make a real pioneer lunch in a dutch oven over the stove. The people who ran the exhibit were even making the kids wash their dishes after they ate just the way the pioneers did!

Below was the blacksmith house, where these women were showing us how to forge iron. Christopher was so very bummed that you had to be 10 to take a turn trying it: he turns 10 in just a few weeks.

Below, Anna learned about the hog house and the importance that hogs played to the pioneers. They could be valuable as a lot of meat, and they reproduced easily.

Christopher, John, and Tim watched one of the National Park historians work with the same woodworking tools to carve a piece of wood.

This man in the green hat knew absolutely everything about primitive life in Tennessee. He knew what kind of trees they made the shingles from, how long those trees took to grow, what every kind of tool was used for, etc. He was amazing, and we could have listened to him all day! The boys were enthralled.