My days beforehand had been spent at Smokemont Campground and Cosby offers a completely different vibe while still camping within the national park’s boundaries.

It was quiet and outdoorsy and definitely did not have the hubbub of Smokemont with campers coming and going all the time.

There are plenty of trails to check out here, a really beautiful picnic area and the bathrooms are well maintained.

……..

It had drizzled on and off all day at Dollywood, but around 6 pm, the rain began again and I could tell it wasn’t going to let up this time. Which was fine because the park closed at 7 pm and I was already making my way to the exit anyway, but I hoped that by the time I reached my camp 25 miles and almost a hour’s drive away that the rain would’ve stopped. It didn’t. And there actually must’ve been more sustained downpours up there because everything inside my tent was soaked. Despite having a footprint, water was coming through floor and, despite having a rain fly, water was dripping in through ceiling. Directly onto my air mattress and sleeping bags. It was near dark at that point and there’s no way I could’ve cooked dinner, so I just zipped myself in and read myself to sleep as water softly dripped onto my face.

You never want to have one of these nights while camping, but you certainly don’t want to have one of these nights on your ✨last night✨ at a camp. I awoke the next morning to more rain. Cold, wet and frustrated, I de-poled my tent as quickly as I could, balled it all up and shoved it my trunk without an ounce of the care or concern that I usually put into packing up.

I was beyond over the rain, but as I was driving out of my loop, I told myself that I shouldn’t leave feeling this way, that I needed to make peace with the situation, so that the bad experiences didn’t cloud the positive ones (no pun intended!) when I looked back on my experience. So I pulled over to the group picnic area, which was large and most importantly ✨covered✨ to make myself some coffee. I wandered along the picnic grounds as I drank, listened to the stream and happily soaked in my final, gray morning in the Smoky Mountains.