Camping in the Mountains - Part 2

And so began our hiking day...First stop...Laurel Falls.  1.75 miles of glorious uphill path with various cracks and holes to help slam the stroller into your gut as your legs are burning with intense pain, pain that only comes when you decide to hike up 1.75 miles of glorious....

Below shows Magan pushing the stroller as she did for 0.045 miles of the track.  :)  The falls were beautiful, and a great place to rest awhile.  Granddaddy and Sam hiked to the bottom, later to be joined by me and Davis.  And I don't understand the fascination, but it is still so fun to touch the water at the bottom of the falls.

On the trip back down, as usual, Davis' legs started to hurt, and Granddaddy came to the rescue carrying him the last part of the way.  We next traveled to a smaller motor loop that also had this smaller 0.75 walking trail.  This was a great trail and a little more easier.  Sam helped that little sister everytime there was a difficult place for her to cross.  And as we made it to the end of the trail, we found a SNAKE...As Sam said "The first real live snake not in a zoo".

After church on Sunday was a day of fun times with bubbles, then playing in the river.  The boys played in that river for hours.  Probably would have been good to have my camera to capture some of that, but I can guarantee that those pictures would have been full of smiles from my Dave sitting in the river on the rocks and serious looks from my Sam building dams with his Granddaddy.

I love my wife, cause making her laugh, makes me laugh, and she's fun to laugh with.  Our trip came to an end, not ready to leave, but knowing we must, we took some last pictures and headed to the house.  Davis with a new big bear, Belle with a baby bear, Sam with a big bear hidden behind his navigator map, and Mom without her pillow (which was probably left somewhere near this Smoky Mountains sign), and Dad with a 5 hour energy drink making random Louis Armstrong trumpet noises.

Camping in the Mountains - Part 1

I had to breaking the camping trip with Granny and Grandaddy into two parts, as there were just too many fun pictures.  We left the day after Sam got out of school to spend Thursday thru Monday in the Great Smokey (sometimes spelled Smokie...sometimes spelled Smoky) Mountains.  Not a bad trip up, and you can see that the boys were ready for a scuba diving adventure in the mountains.  And what can you say about the Chattanooga rest area...this is a Junkin family requirement to stop here...even when we were all hungry...even when we were already almost out of gas...just gotta add one more stop.  We've got pictures of just me and Magan 14 years ago on this same lizard bench...and I'm sure I have pics of Sam and Davis looking through these little holes.  

We finally made it up to Townsend, and immediately the boys found the river and some ROCKS.  Our first evening was very eventful as we decided to drive the Cades Cove Loop.  Very shortly after we started, we got stopped behind a big line of traffic as people watched some bears run way out in a field...well, by the time we got to the front of the line, the bears were right in front of our car.  AGHHHHH!  And one lady was standing right next to our car, this was not very smart.  The bears ate her.  Or at least they would have if the momma would have come running down the mountain after her.  Luckily baby bears ran up mountain to momma, crazy picture lady lives to see another bear.  Now after the bears we began to see deer, and then we saw another deer, after that ... well another deer.  We then saw a field full of deer... Is this road ever going to end?  Look another deer.  Dear Me, get me off of this long long loop of deer fields.

Morning at the campsite.  Sam fed the squirrel that is on the railing just past him, Belle determined that the camper was her new princess castle, and Granny stayed covered up in the freezing 70 degree weather.

And later that morning, we visited WILD BEAR FALLS...and this is what a waterpark looks like when you are there when it opens.  Everyone had a great time, perfect for the kids.  But if anyone knows the secret to getting comfortable in a lazy river that is all of 2.5 feet deep, please let me know.  The big black bear guarding the kiddie slide looked peaceful, but ask grandaddy, that bear will attack you if you're not watching closely.  Did I mention this water was heated?  Too Nice.